this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2024
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Why does my FireFox take so long to load? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I'm almost sorry to ask this, but does anyone have experience with Firefox on Linux taking a long time to open? I'm running Pop!_OS on a fairly modern machine. All other programs open pretty quickly, but Firefox seems to drag its feet on startup. Once it's open it's great, no problems with speed.

I have tried disabling extensions (ublock origin, sponsorblock, decentraleyes, i still don't care about cookies) and I have tried setting my default profile as one without any custom user.js (I have a profile with Arkenfox and one with Betterfox's user.js). Nothing I have done so far has seemed to make any difference, but Help->Troubleshoot Mode allows Firefox to open quickly, so there must be something that I can disable that is causing the issue... Any ideas? Thanks.

Edit: Seems like swapping to the flatpak version made things much faster. The Pop!_OS .deb version must be snap like you all said :) Thanks everyone!

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Do you know if its installed through snap? I've heard that can have issues starting up quickly. You can try the flatpak or the deb package.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Just checked, I'm using the deb package.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Okay, well switching to flatpak solved it. Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I've always wondered why snap is so slow, I feel like launching a docker container with firefox in it would still be faster than snap.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Snap is basically a docker container with some frills.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If OP is on Ubuntu, it's a snap.

I personally don't have any issues launching Firefox, which is installed as a regular app and not a snap/flatpak. It's basically instant for me, maybe 2-3s if I have a ton of tabs or something. I haven't tried the flatpak, but I'd be surprised if it adds more than a second or so, because other flatpak apps launch reasonably fast.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

He is running Pop Os, they don't use snaps natively.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Yup

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Snap is preinstalled though. Maybe something happened that caused it to get installed

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Pretty sure you have it as a snap package :-(

I only use native .deb and never a snap, for everything

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm on PopOS, pretty sure it's not snap!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Pop OS comes with snap preinstalled

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Wrong.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

Prove me wrong. Last time I checked it was installed

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Use flatpak

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Is Firefox installed as a snap package on PopOS? That could be it if that's your only snap package. I'd recommend installing a Firefox fork that's a regular deb package (Libre Wolf probably?) and seeing if that changes anything

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Just checked, I'm using the deb package.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Is it a snap? If it is try installing the Flatpak

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Just checked, I'm using the deb package.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Have tried the flatpak? Also try creating a new profile.

What is your disk performance?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Flatpak is much better, thank you for the suggestion.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

That's strange

My guess it that there is something in your profile. However, Flatpak is more secure anyway so you might as well stick to it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

If you're on Ubuntu or one of its derivatives (Pop!_OS is an Ubuntu derivative), it's probably a snap. I don't know about Pop!_OS specifically, but I know Ubuntu ships snaps through debs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If you try to open FF using the terminal does it give you any error messages?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Good suggestion. What does this mean? [Parent 4226, Unnamed thread 762a7e8fd280] WARNING: Failed to set scheduler settings: Operation not permitted: 'glib warning', file /builds/worker/checkouts/gecko/toolkit/xre/nsSigHandlers.cpp:187

(firefox:4226): GLib-CRITICAL **: 20:17:36.507: Failed to set scheduler settings: Operation not permitted

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

From the what I have read it seems like this is a Gnome error causing problems for software.

You might be able to get better feedback if you post in one of the Linux specific communities.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I have the exact same issue on PopOS but with Librewolf but not with Brave, so it's related to the engine. Moreover, this bug is funny because I don't know why, but it's related to me being in the exact place. I don't have the same issue when I'm at my family home, but when I'm somewhere other, the issue occurs. It loads about 10 - 15 second. I still haven't figured it out, though. Pacstall also lags when I'm updating.

dpkg -l | grep librewolf
ii  librewolf                                         128.0-1                                                           all          The Librewolf Browser
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

That may be because the hostname can't be resolved.
https://forum.suse.org.cn/t/topic/12280 (Chinese)
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1296836 (upstream report)