Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

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Pallid Planetoid
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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by Pallid Planetoid » 2018-10-14, 07:32

PalleP wrote:That is not the problem here, my PM totally freezes and will not start responding no matter how long time I wait...
From what I can see -- this problem persists in "safe-mode" as well as using a fresh install of Pale Moon portable. Have you tested using a "clean" new profile? Have you tested any other browsers to see if the same issue persists using another browser? (where I'm going is if this were the case you'd want to look at your connection or provider perhaps).
Last edited by Pallid Planetoid on 2018-10-14, 07:33, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by Tomaso » 2018-10-14, 08:14

This issue is not related to a corruped profile.
I only perform clean installs myself, and the problem has been present in all of the v28 releases.

It happened again for me yesterday..
I only had one tab open, where I was watching a YouTube video.
Then, when I opened a news article in a second tab, Pale Moon froze with a "Not responding" message that lasted for about 10 seconds, before it recovered itself automatically.
And of course, like before, when I tried to reproduce the occurrence, everything worked just fine!

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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by PalleP » 2018-10-14, 10:37

Pale Moon Rising wrote:From what I can see -- this problem persists in "safe-mode" as well as using a fresh install of Pale Moon portable. Have you tested using a "clean" new profile?
Oh yes, you would have known if you had read the previous posts. But I guess this thread has grown so long that noone have the energy to read it all, so I will here make a short summary:

1) PM v28.1 freezes totally without a clear indication of when it happens.
2) It is not caused by specific websites.
3) It never happens within the first ½ hour or so after PM has been opened.
4) PM v27.x does not have this problem.
5) A fresh PM v28.1 portable with default settings will have this problem.
6) A PM v28.1 without extensions will have this problem.
7) CPU usage will rise from less than 1% to 25% when the freezing starts and stay there. The freezing will not stop by itself, PM must be force terminated.
8) Memory usage does not rise when the freezing starts. Memory usage is anywhere between 250mb to a little over 1GB
9) As soon as PM has been terminated and reopened the problem seems to be cleared and PM will again run for at least ½ an hour without freezing
10) I can see that a few others have exactly the same problem, both 32 and 64 bit, I use win7 32bit.
11) I have tried to switch off MSE during the freezing, no change.
12) I have no other browsers installed, and don't want to.

So please use this as base when suggestions are made.
I will now reinstall PM v27.x but keep the portable v28.1 for testing purposes.

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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by Tomaso » 2018-10-14, 10:48

Two of those points doesn't correspond with what I'm experiencing:
#3 (It might just as well happen right after I've started the browser)
#7 (Pale Moon usually recovers within a few seconds, although I have encountered a total freeze once or twice)

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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by PalleP » 2018-10-14, 18:50

I have now found a way to reproduce the freezing (on my pc, at least), it works every time :clap:
1) Browse lightly with max. 1 or 2 tabs open for 1 hour or so.
2) Search something with the search engine.
3) Rapidly ctrl/click on the first 10 results so they open in new tabs.
Bang, PM is frozen before all tabs are fully loaded.

I have here taken some screenshots of the cpu usage and the memory usage, and written some text on them to explain where on the graph things happen. I guess the screenshots speak for themselves.
And please don't respond with "don't happen here":

Image

Image

Image
Last edited by PalleP on 2018-10-14, 19:00, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by bogdanz » 2018-10-15, 04:48

Got a somewhat similar issue. Make some actions in browser, particularly opening a number of new tabs and even typing rapidly (200WPM+) and everything locks up, Windows states that Pale Moon "not responding," then everything goes back to normal.

When the freezes occur, there are no indicators in Task Manager that something is locking up the computer - just the browser ceases to respond. I'm on 28.2.0.a1 (64-bit), but as a N.B. I do have a few hundred tabs open.

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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by Isengrim » 2018-10-15, 12:36

PalleP wrote:2) Search something with the search engine.
Which search engine are you using? Are you using the search bar or a webpage?
PalleP wrote:And please don't respond with "don't happen here":
Despite seeming useless, responses like these are actually valuable because it allows maintainers to determine whether the cause is the browser or something specific to your system.
Last edited by Isengrim on 2018-10-15, 12:38, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by PalleP » 2018-10-15, 13:13

I am using the startpage search bar, but It does not matter how the search is done.
100 replies with "no problem here" will only make this thread even longer, and since this problem is only present for a minority, it makes no sense.

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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by Splat » 2018-10-15, 19:50

Long time PM user here. PM seems to load pages much slower than before. Doesn't matter how long PM has been running or what pages. Trying same sites or pages in Chrome is like night and day. Chrome loads within a sec. PM takes about 3 to 5 seconds or sometimes more. Doesn't matter the content. PM in safe mode or not. Pages with pics or without. When I first noticed it it was because Google purposely loaded Youtube slower on non-Chrome browsers but I immediately noticed it happening randomly everywhere else too. Wish I had more info to help but this is what I got. Thanks. Still love the Moon that is Pale. :)
Last edited by Splat on 2018-10-15, 19:55, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by PalleP » 2018-10-17, 21:14

I have now made a ProcessMonitor logfile of palemoon.exe while PM is frozen, and attached it here.
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PaleMoon28Logfile.zip
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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by satrow » 2018-10-18, 12:35

About all I can see in that log is that there are several modules/dlls that I'd be suspicious of, as in 'do they really need to run with Pale Moon?'; Unlocker, Nokia (x4), Classic Shell, Comodo (any security software can cause hiccups -> nightmares with non-mainstream software).

Watch out for any modules that only come with optional MS/Windows components that you've uninstalled/disabled.

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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by PalleP » 2018-10-18, 15:52

satrow wrote:About all I can see in that log is that there are several modules/dlls that I'd be suspicious of, as in 'do they really need to run with Pale Moon?'; Unlocker, Nokia (x4), Classic Shell, Comodo (any security software can cause hiccups -> nightmares with non-mainstream software).
Ok, I will try to disable them one by one, except Classic Shell which is essential to use anything newer than Win XP. Besides, half of the world uses this lifesaver.
The Comodo thing is only an old version of the firewall, from before they screwed everything up, but I will try to disable it anyway.

satrow wrote:Watch out for any modules that only come with optional MS/Windows components that you've uninstalled/disabled.
What do you mean by this? I don't understand.

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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by satrow » 2018-10-18, 16:25

MS have offered a lot of add-ons for Windows over the years, Windows Live, Skype, etc., there are also Windows features - built-in optional extra's, any of these might become deprecated over time (Skype 'Classic' being the most recent) or have left dross behind that's still loading with User software after being uninstalled/disabled.

I only noticed Ink in your logs that I don't have loading here on W7x64 with Pale Moon, but I might easily have missed something else - I obviously can't tell what options/extras you have, or which of them shouldn't (still) be loading.

With security software, often the only way to really disable them is a full uninstall routine and the makers' uninstall tool, if they've made one available - they hook in very deep. Tools like PerfectDisk can also (very rarely ime) cause odd problems, up to triggering BSODs at Boot (probably down to a specific loading time clash in that instance), don't dismiss anything 3rd party (or MS/Windows but deprecated) out of hand, the deeper they hook, the more likely they are to be implicated in odd issues at some point.

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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by Moonchild » 2018-10-18, 17:14

PalleP wrote:I am using the startpage search bar, but It does not matter how the search is done.
100 replies with "no problem here" will only make this thread even longer, and since this problem is only present for a minority, it makes no sense.
While it is frustrating for you, knowing how much or little of a problem it is *is* important to know. And for the record, I can't reproduce this on my AMD FX-6300 either. If none of the main devs with tools installed to debug can reproduce it, it becomes very difficult to locate the cause of it.
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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by PalleP » 2018-10-18, 18:04

Moonchild wrote: While it is frustrating for you, knowing how much or little of a problem it is *is* important to know. And for the record, I can't reproduce this on my AMD FX-6300 either. If none of the main devs with tools installed to debug can reproduce it, it becomes very difficult to locate the cause of it.
I am fully aware of that, but reading the posts here makes is clear that the total freezing of Pale Moon is a very rare problem and this thread can therefore easily be flooded with such replies.
I, as a common user need some suggestions of what I can do to pass useful information to the dev's so they can hopefully solve the problem.
I have now tried ProcessMonitor, but all I see is that Pale Moon is able to consume a whole core of my CPU without doing anything.
I can also see a steadily climbing ram usage which I can't clear without restarting Pale Moon. Perhaps it is normal, PM v27 does the same although the ram usage is less.
The total freezing posts indicate that this is not a 32 bit problem and even seems to be present on the Mac version.
A lot of things that I don't know and hope to get answers on.
I just tried to open 25 tabs just after starting PM, and everything went smoothly, so something happens after some time, can it be a memory leak? I guess not, then everyone should have the problem.
Well, come on with the suggestions for things to try, I need inputs.

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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by therube » 2018-10-18, 18:51

In addition to what Satrow mentioned, restart your computer in Safe Mode with Networking & see if the problem persists when run that way.


(I have seen trash websites negatively affect browsers. Prolonged high CPU usage (25% CPU, i.e., 100% of 1 of 4 cores). I have seen "miners" cause the same. In most cases, these situations "resolve" themselves, even if only temporarily. I have seen, not all that often, unending high CPU usage, but I can't recall offhand where the browser was ever in a state where I had to force kill it.

There are "browser killers" out there, potentially very simple too, that can hang a browser, that if you purposely run them, visit that site, you will hang. [Generally, they just have to run a loop, that the browser is unable to recover from.] Likewise if you happen upon such a [malicious] page. A poorly coded site could do similar - without the malicious intent.)



I would also put PM 27 back in, the Portable version might be better, testing to confirm that that (still) does not have this issue. Do this to try to verify that it was not something outside of a "browser" that might be the cause. (IOW if PM 27 now exhibits the same problem, then look outside of the browser, something installed in your systems around the time you changed from 27 to 28.)

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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by PalleP » 2018-10-19, 18:33

satrow wrote: With security software, often the only way to really disable them is a full uninstall routine and the makers' uninstall tool, if they've made one available - they hook in very deep. Tools like PerfectDisk can also (very rarely ime) cause odd problems.
I have now tried to disable the prog's that shows in the logs + some others that is set to auto start... No change.
I use MSE as AV and an old version of Comodo as firewall, otherwise nothing security related and there has never been anything else on this pc since installation of Win7.
I don't suspect MSE as many users would then have the freezing problem.
I deactivated the Comodo fw, no change, and have looked in the log. Nothing blocked (except Comodo itself, to prevent auto update :-).
Neither Unlocker, Perfectdisk or Nokia is the culprit.

So this is it. Now I give up.
I don't want to screw up my otherwise perfectly working pc, by uninstalling programs just to try to get PM 28 working.
So now I will completely remove PM v28.1 and reinstall v.27.9.4 by the help of the super fine extension FEBE (my life-saver at the moment).

I can give some additional info about the problem:
1) The problem is definately time related. The longer PM runs the less you can stress it, and after some hours even this page will make it stall. A PM which is just opened, but not actively used, also seems to freeze after some hours, as soon as a new page is opened.
2) I have done some testing of the memory usage (although I have no ideea if this is the problem, and I don't know if the usage is normal, but it seems to be related to the freezing).
A fresh opened PM will use approximately 300Mb. This climbs slowly by time, and when the freezing starts it will be between 900Mb and 1 Gb.
Unloading tabs will in the beginning make the memory usage fall, but later on when PM becomes sluggish the memory usage do not decrease when tabs are unloaded, even with a blank startpage the memory usage will stay high.
Clearing cache ect. do not make the memory usage drop very much, so I don't know what PM uses all this memory for. After termination and restart the memory usage is back to app. 300MB

I will still have a portable version of v28.1 if the dev's want me to try something.

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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by Moonchild » 2018-10-19, 19:42

As another datapoint I generally have Pale Moon running in sessions that last many days without seeing any degradation of performance or out of bounds memory usage. Using the browser regularly -will- use up to 1 GB of RAM easily, especially if you have enough free. That is normal for a 2018 web browser, by the way. 300 MB fresh startup RAM usage will never be maintained with normal use because of the necessary in-memory caching of many things, including keeping copies of rendered pages in RAM for fast back-paging, file caching, cached scripts, cached style sheets, cached decoded images (texture cache), etc. etc.
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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by Hmm81 » 2018-10-19, 22:38

I'm not sure if it's related, but for me it seems that there may be an association with gmail and pale moon later becoming slow and unresponsive. After using gmail, and logging out, etc., it seems that even after closing out the tab, a "window" still persists forever. When I do an about:memory, I notice a ghost window still open, sometimes taking up a bunch of ram. Perhaps others can check if it's a common problem.

I have recently switched back from from 28.1 back to 27.9 and have absolutely no problems anymore with these ghost windows persisting.

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Re: Pm 28.1 hangs occasionally for me, help please.

Unread post by bogdanz » 2018-10-19, 23:19

Continuing to experience the same issue here on v.28.2.0a1 x64.

I have also made a ProcessMonitor logfile of palemoon.exe including PM freezes, and am attaching it here.

Edit: Cannot upload here due to attachment size limit, and PM is using about 2GB of RAM for me on a typical day.
Last edited by bogdanz on 2018-10-19, 23:20, edited 1 time in total.

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