Multiple PaleMoon Processes

[firefoxed]

Also:

Code: Select all

HKCU\Software\Classes\PaleMoonURL\shell\open\command

→
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Pale Moon\palemoon.exe" -osint -url "%1"

[firefoxed]

And:

Help / Restart in Safe Mode →→→ same behavior

[therube]

Certainly seems wrong to me.

Time for the big wigs to step in .


If you care to play, (backup then) remove the -osint part from the Windows Registry entry & see if there is any change with that.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

Do not do that.

[firefoxed]

If you care to play, (backup then) remove the -osint part from the Windows Registry entry & see if there is any change with that.

This was interesting!

• removed -osint from the registry entry,
• when restarted Pale Moon, this triggered a "Pale Moon is not your default browser" message, and redirection to Windows settings, where PM in fact was the direct browser,
• same issue as before with PM processes launched by TB, Skype etc being left over,
• went to reintroduce the osint flags in the registry entry, and... surprise! It was already back.

What put it back there, Windows Settings, or PM itself when doing the "default browser" check?
And what does osint do anyway?

At this stage, I feel I should state that although this issue is a curiosity for me as it has been going on for so long, it is not a burning issue — I don't want to burn anyone's precious time if this an issue that no one else is facing. If I have to kill a few processes manually every couple of days, that is a minimal price to pay for having a killer browser which, in all respects that matter to me, provide the features and flexibility that I love. I love Pale Moon!!!

Do not do that.

Sorry @Tobin… Saw your post after the changes were made (and reverted).

[therube]

SeaMonkey 2.49.5 (akin to FF 52) (& no concept of multi-process), XP...

Code: Select all

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\SeaMonkeyURL\shell\open\command

reads (FWIW):

Code: Select all

"C:\WLIB\Mozilla\SeaMonkey\seamonkey.exe" -requestPending -osint -url "%1"

Opening a link from Eudora (mail client) opens a tab in SeaMonkey.
There is, & will only be I seamonkey.exe PID (except for any separately opened instances).
Closing SeaMonkey, whether I close Eudora or not, exits, fully, as expected, from memory.

[therube]

Curiosity or not, there is certainly something going on that is not right.

[therube]

In XP, PM 26.5.0, sandboxed (Sandboxie)...

from a command prompt:
I open PM, palemoon.exe
then:

Code: Select all

palemoon.exe -url "www.google.com"

With that, I momentarily see a second palemoon.exe PID be created, then it disappears a moment later, with google.com being opened in a new tab in the initial PM instance (PID).

(SeaMonkey does the same thing, a second PID is temporarily spawned. So I take that to be expected behavior.)

[therube]

@firefoxed, are you using the Portable version of PM?
If so, you should be running Palemoon-Portable.exe rather then palemoon.exe.

Likewise, presumably... actually, there seemingly shouldn't be any (Windows) registry entry?
And if there were, presumably it should point to Palemoon-Portable.exe...
(Hmm... That's an odd one there. If Portable, then PM wouldn't be your default browser either, perhaps?)

[firefoxed]

@firefoxed, are you using the Portable version of PM?

No, running the 32-bit install.
Help / About → 28.4.0 (32-bit)

[yami_]

It works like this: When you open a HTTP link in a not-browser application the application will ask the OS to open the link. Then the OS searches for the default HTTP handler (this is why the HKCU\Software\Classes\PaleMoonURL\shell\open\command exists) and if the default handler is set it runs the application with the URL given in one of the arguments. In case of Mozilla-based browsers a separate process will be launched that will (unless you explicitly change your settings) use IPC to tell the existing browser process to open the URL. The handler process should then terminate.

[vannilla]

Maybe the lingering processes are just zombies?
It can happen if Thunderbird&co make some assumptions that Pale Moon does not meet.
Of course not meeting them is not necessarily a bad thing, just that it can be the case.

If you still want to experiment, what happens if you open a link from Interlink, rather than Thunderbird?

[therube]

As a test, create a new, clean Profile.
Set that Profile as your default.
Then try opening your links from TB, WhatsApp, editor, skype...

What happens with that?
Do still you end up with multiple palemoon.exe processes?


What OS are you running?

[Moonchild]

Please understand that a process not shutting down when it should (which would be the case if it finds an already-running process and will be passing the URL on to that) is usually caused by third party software hooking into it -- something common for antivirus programs, for example. A small, 12 MB inactive and non-listening process would not slow down your computer, by the way.

[firefoxed]

Please understand that a process not shutting down when it should (which would be the case if it finds an already-running process and will be passing the URL on to that) is usually caused by third party software hooking into it -- something common for antivirus programs, for example. A small, 12 MB inactive and non-listening process would not slow down your computer, by the way.

Ha, maybe ESET NOD32 is involved, then.
Okay, thank you, I will leave it at that.

Big thanks to all of you who have participated on this thread!