Source
r/todayilearned•
MassesOfTheOpiate

TIL Firefox backs up your tabs every 10 seconds; this can cause videos to stutter. Setting the interval to a higher number will fix the problem. (info)

In about:config, changing browser.sessionstore.interval to a much higher value (like 100000, = 100 seconds) will alleviate the problem.

It seems to have fixed my problem with using streaming Netflix, which would inexplicably drop a few frames every what-turns-out-to-be 10 seconds. This irritated me to no end (well, some end). It also works for YouTube, if that has been causing problems.

Original thread here. Be sure to give logantauranga some karma.

  • Pertinent info: You can get to about:config by typing it into your address bar. Read the notice and click "I'll be careful, I promise!" - You can find browser.sessionstore.interval by typing it into the text box that appears next to "Filter" at the top. Double-click what comes up, and change the value to 100000 (one hundred thousand).

Posted Aug 19, 2009, 4:08 AM UTC · edited

50698
[deleted]•

If this fixes firefox's horrendous stuttering problems (not only with videos, but with text input and even scrolling), I will sacrifice 20 virgins in your honor.

65
sfacets•

I too will sacrifice 20 virgins, and raise you a gnome.

33
patmools•

Where'd you find a gnome?

actually, where'd you find the virgins?

24
[deleted]•

[deleted]

64
t-shirt•

On one account.

30
QAOP_Space•

r/ladies

4
[deleted]•

Which are actually men.

1
[deleted]•

Damn the virgins! Bring me someone with experience!

3
[deleted]•

[deleted]

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

6
[deleted]•

you = 20 virgins? sorry, man.

11
hab136•

He's the size of 20 virgins?

2
Xet•

He's had the same amount of sex as 20 virgins.

17
SquareRoot•

I've been sacrificing 20 virgins everyday since having solved this problem. A worthy sacrifice it might have been, but my penis, it weeps.

1
captainLAGER•

thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you

28
lucasrfl•

http://www.millionthankyous.com/

11
btway•

And now I have this continuously running to see if it'll actually reach a million. Thank you!

3
[deleted]•

Well?!?!

2
btway•

CRAP. I forgot that I had Chrome open for that. I closed my Chrome after finding this thread.

3
[deleted]•

[deleted]

26
FillInTheBlank1•

Don't forget about:mozilla

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MassesOfTheOpiateOP•

Original thread was here.

Logantauranga says:

I used to have this problem in Firefox, and it was caused by tab data being backed up every ten seconds.

In about:config, change the browser.sessionstore.interval to a higher number. Mine is at 100000.

24
davega7•

I'm having probs finding "about:config", can you please speak to me like I'm 5 and tell me how I can get there? I'd love to see if this works for me.

Thanks in advance.

Edit: Found it! Thanks for the tip :).

11
MassesOfTheOpiateOP•

In your address bar (where you might normally type http://www.reddit.com) - type or copy about:config. It will say "This will void your warranty," which is a little tongue-in-cheek, because Firefox doesn't really have a warranty, but many people will still follow its word of caution. - Click "I'll be careful, I promise!" -

Now, at the top, it says "Filter." This is the bar you will look for the setting. Type in browser.sessionstore.interval - [ It will narrow it down to a few by the point you've typed browser.session --].

Keep typing browser.sessionstore.interval, or select what is probably the third entry [after typing browser.session] and make sure it says "browser.sessionstore.interval." - Double-click on this. You will note that it says "10000" (ten thousand). This is the equivalent to ten seconds. It is recommended that you change it to "100000" (one hundred thousand - no quotes); this is one hundred seconds. Click OK, and close the tab for "about:config."

Problem? Solved.

31
[deleted]•

[deleted]

-4
MassesOfTheOpiateOP•

I'm considering not responding to this for some weird sense of irony.

14
charbo187•

wow thanks, I couldn't understand why my videos were so stuttery

20
zxn0•

Why don't Firefox just backup tab data everytime a new tab opens?

10
MassesOfTheOpiateOP•

I would presume that it has to do with the fact that, inside a single tab, you will click multiple links. So, whatever the tab started out as, it may be something else entirely by the time you've crashed. However, never has my memory span been so short that I need my tabs to be saved every 10 seconds. Especially with the huge downside of lagging the entire browser.

18
chaoskitty•

I vote you King of the Internet for the day. Thanks!

1
MassesOfTheOpiateOP•

I'm just the very-motivated messenger. This is the guy you should send all your thanks to! He figured it all out. His name is logantauranga.

9
[deleted]•

noob question here: where do I find the about:config file?

8
MassesOfTheOpiateOP•

See this comment I just wrote.

* Simple version: Type about:config into your address bar.

16
[deleted]•

awesome, thanks a lot man!

5
ani62511•

Backing up tabs is of least importance to me, so I set it to fairly large value (300000)

8
[deleted]•

Set it to 0 to disable it all together. That's what I did, I never have more than 3 tabs open.

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FillInTheBlank1•

Shit, my FF opens with 14 tabs on average.

15
[deleted]•

I didn't know that many porn sites even existed.

12
qwerty_0_o•

I didn't know that many porn sites even existed.

Are you a nun living in a monastery somewhere in the Andes?

7
Failquail•

Did the same, my Firefox lagged a little bit when I was mass opening pages of links in r/pics. Hopefully this was the reason!

3
[deleted]•

10 seconds? Yeesh, what a bad practice. Should be every minute at the most.

5
[deleted]•

You're forgetting that we're talking about the minds behind Netscape, Mozilla, and Firefox here.

Efficient design has never been terribly high on their list of priorities.

-4
[deleted]•

Which is why I now use Chrome.

1
Shalmanese•

What's amazing is that this is even necessary and that Firefox would make a decision that so degrades user experience.

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scragar•

They do it in case firefox should crash, after a crash your tabs can be perfectly restored without messing about.

If I remember correctly there's a way to turn it completely off, I can't remember what it is though.

1
Shalmanese•

I'm glad they do they but they should do it in a way that doesn't interrupt a higher priority thread.

1
pHreaksYcle•

Mozilla, not Firefox =)

0
saad85•

I love you.

4
[deleted]•

thank you. What about when typing in the address bar, it freezes for several seconds (i guess its looking for matches) very annoying

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MassesOfTheOpiateOP•

Notice: THIS IS IN REGARD TO MODIFYING THE 'AwesomeBar.'
Don't follow these instructions unless you want to do what airjaw is requesting.

Additional Note: This is more than what airjaw is requesting. It more or less neuters the AwesomeBar. You probably don't want that. [Also note dopo's more recent comment, an easier way to do this in FF 3.5.]

This may? help you. If nothing else, it will probably help bricker over in the other comment.

Step 1. Type about:config in the location bar.
Step 2. Type urlbar next to filter.
Step 3. Change two of the values. - browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped to "true" and browser.urlbar.maxRichResults to "1" or "0." (If you want the location bar to act like Firefox 2 did, set it to 1. Otherwise set to 0.)

http://www.pcmech.com/article/firefox-3-disable-the-smart-location-bar-sort-of/

There is also an add-on called Oldbar. I have never used it, but it claims to bring back the appearance of FF2's address bar, (but still uses FF3's algorithm.) I'm not sure if changing the about:config settings will help you out, but it's worth a shot.

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[deleted]•

Thanks. I set maxRichResults to 3 because I sort of like what the AwesomeBar does, but hate the stutter, so I made a compromise with Firefox.

Fuck it, I'm going back to IE6.

1
userd•

Seriously, the address bar in IE6 is better at guessing what address I am typing than the awesome bar. Every day I go to google.com/reader and the awesome bar can never figure it out.

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MassesOfTheOpiateOP•

Not to get off-topic, but what if you bookmark "google.com/reader"? Does it give it any sort of priority?

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elektroholunder•

I found that cleaning Firefoxes SQLite databases regularly helps.

  1. If you can spare it, delete your browsing history via Tools -> Clear Recent History

  2. Close Firefox and navigate to your profile folder on the command line

  3. In Linux:

    for i in *.sqlite; do echo "VACUUM;" | sqlite3 $i ; done

In Windows:

for %i in (*.sqlite) do @echo VACUUM; | sqlite3 %i

Enjoy a snappy Firefox, at least for another couple days or so :)

4
chadmill3r•

A better Linux version:

$ find $HOME/.mozilla/firefox* -name *.sqlite -exec sqlite3 {} "VACUUM;" ;

2
SquareRoot•

What would cleaning the SQLite databases result in? Any loss in private data (bookmarks/passwords etc)?

1
ludwig1024•

The vacuum command doesn't destroy any existing data. It only cleans out old entries or entries that have already been deleted (they're only marked as deleted, so that means the file will grow in size over time).

3
MassesOfTheOpiateOP•

This helped me out a lot. At the very least, the AwesomeBar responds much quicker, but probably other parts of Firefox, as well. - I did this without clearing my history, and it seems to be quick regardless of that.

Somebody could give better instructions than me here, but, you'll need SQLite, which is free and legit. The Windows exe (in zip format) is available here. - From this point on, do this at your own discretion and don't blame me if it doesn't work; I'm just passing on information.

Find your Firefox profile. I don't know where to tell you to look, but this will probably help you out. The actual folder will be (random-string-of-letters-and-numbers).default - Something like 1g8uequb.default

Here's where I'm almost making stuff up (it may not be the most efficient route), but this is what worked for me. - Opening the zip file for SQLite, drag or otherwise extract the sqlite3.exe into your profile folder. - I know this is an .exe and those can be dangerous to handle, but don't take my word for it, read the Wikipedia article on SQLite or whatever else you need to do in order to feel confident.

NOW, you'll need to open up a command prompt that will open up from that folder. In Vista (I just learned this), you can Shift-Right-click in the folder to "Open Command Window Here." - You will unfortunately have to close out of Firefox at this point. (Well, when I say "go.") -

COPY: for %i in (*.sqlite) do @echo VACUUM; | sqlite3 %i

In the command prompt, be prepared to right-click and select "Paste" to paste the text. - But first, close Firefox. - Now, paste the text. - It will do its thing for a minute.

Open Firefox again. Did it work? I hope so.

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elektroholunder•

Think of it as defrag for databases. A VACUUM compacts it as ludwig1024 said, and reorders the elements for faster access.

3
Pappenheimer•

For Windows you need to copy sqlite3.exe into your profile directory.

Also, if you want to make a batch file, note that you have to have two %% instead of one. Hence the line would be

for %%i in (*.sqlite) do @echo VACUUM; | sqlite3 %%i
1
[deleted]•

Yeah, I'd like to know how to disable the "Smart" bar... it's annoying as fuck.

2
dopo•

In FF 3.5, there's a setting in the Preferences, on the Privacy tab, at the bottom. "When using the location bar, suggest:" and the default is "History and Bookmarks". "Nothing" is an option, I assume it disables the smart bar. I haven't tried it though, I like the smart bar...

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MassesOfTheOpiateOP•

Dude. This deserves extra points. If you hate the AwesomeBar, do this. (I don't hate the AwesomeBar, but, I'm pretty sure that what dopo is saying works perfectly.) - But vacuuming the SQLite files (not quite a simple task, although quick and easy if you know what you're doing) will really speed the AwesomeBar up, too, if you do like it but feel it's slow.

2
sanitybit•

browser.urlbar.maxRichResults = 0 to disable rich results (or however many you do want it to display), or install the oldbar extension.

Edit: Fixed as per bricker, I actually knew that it should be 0, but I'm stoned.

4
[deleted]•

you da man!

edit: -1 didn't change anything, but setting it to 0 disabled it and fixed the issue. Thanks!

edit again: I suddenly realized that I am just disabling all of FF's unique features, essentially turning firefox into safari, in order to get it to function properly. Buzzkill.

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perezidentt•

I've been wondering and searching about this for so long! I can't thank you enough!

3
badgersbadgers•

Best TIL ever.

3
romcabrera•

I'd LOVE to have an option to delete tab history on-demand (for one tab, or for all tabs).

I know many will say that firefox's memory issues are solved. It might be. But hours after heavy surfing (opening images, videos, etc... the typical reddit use), memory ups to 350 Mb.

Closing the window, and restoring ALL the same tabs, will typically use ~90 MB. The only difference with this new window, is the lack of a history.

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MassesOfTheOpiateOP•

The Tab Mix Plus add-on may help you out in that regard, at least as far as keeping tab history intact with closing FF and restoring tabs.

There are actually a lot of things you can customize, to be able to move your tabs around, resize them... It's so good and I've been using it for so long that I can't quite remember all the things that it does, that regular Firefox hasn't been doing, (until I have to use Firefox without it). Everything that Firefox tabs should do, it does. Although Tab Scope is a pretty sweet deal, too.

The part of Tab Mix Plus that saves tab history is called 'Session Manager,' but there is so much more to the add-on. I highly recommend it for all situations.

2
QAOP_Space•

my TabMixPlus doesn't work with FF3.5 :'(

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MassesOfTheOpiateOP•

Oh, snap, I forgot that they broke it. - It's continuing to be developed, and I don't know why it doesn't update itself or allow it to be updated.

http://tmp.garyr.net/ is the developer. I'm pretty sure the right file is http://tmp.garyr.net/tab_mix_plus-dev-build.xpi

(As always, don't take my word that these are legitimate files. You can google "http://tmp.garyr.net" or "Tab Mix Plus" and see that that's the site for it.) - My link is to a development built that works with FF 3.5. It works just as well as it did before FF 3.5, so I don't know why it 'broke.'

Good luck.

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[deleted]•

I changed mine as well, thanks!

2
General_Lee•

I set mine over 9000; do I win?

Thanks!

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MassesOfTheOpiateOP•

By default, it's 10000, so I don't know if you win. :) You can still be a winrar, though.

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mypurplelighter•

This is why I love reddit.

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vanillasux•

Thank you so much. I kept trying to fix this annoying lagging and I assumed it was a problem with my flash player. I wondered why the problem got worse when I set up dual monitors. Thanks!

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pHreaksYcle•

When you set up dual monitors, you had like 40 instead of 20 tabs of porn open. That doesn't help ;)

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Unlucky13•

I thought I was the only one experiencing this problem! Thank you so much!

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