3 mo. ago • 90%

Why does my FireFox take so long to load?

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!

29 comments

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.

18
- Just checked, I'm using the deb package.
  
  3
  
  Okay, well switching to flatpak solved it. Thanks!
  
  1
- 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.
  
  2
  
  Snap is basically a docker container with some frills.
  
  1
- 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.
  
  2
  
  He is running Pop Os, they don't use snaps natively.
  
  5
Pretty sure you have it as a snap package :-(

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

5
- I'm on PopOS, pretty sure it's not snap!
  
  3
  
  Pop OS comes with snap preinstalled
  
  0
- Use flatpak
  
  1
Is it a snap? If it is try installing the Flatpak

3
- Just checked, I'm using the deb package.
  
  1
  
  Have tried the flatpak? Also try creating a new profile.
  
  What is your disk performance?
  
  3
  
  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.
  
  2
If you try to open FF using the terminal does it give you any error messages?

2
- 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
  
  1
  
  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.
  
  1
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)

1
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
1
Try changing away from Ubuntu to something better, like Mint

-6
- or Arch
  
  1
  
  Well. Mint would be an easier transition for them
  
  2

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