Firefox memory leak and startup time

I notice for a long time Firefox launch was quite slow (5-7 seconds with a i7 processor...). See [1] for the startup time of my Firefox.

I have some time now to investigate.

I detected a error message related to memory in about:memory page. It says:

WARNING: the following values are negative or unreasonably large.

explicit/storage/sqlite/(8 tiny)/other

This indicates a defect in one or more memory reporters. The invalid values are highlighted.

(see [2] for the memory tree and the red entry which locates the problem)

I tried to clear the memory but the message was still there. I disabled each of my addon one by one and the error message stops showing when Zotero was disable. And with no zotero, Firefox start a lot quicker...

Should I try to use the standalone version or is there a way to speed up (i.e. go back to normal) Firefox launch with Zotero addon activate?

I have a large Zotero library and I understand it could slow down the addon. But I think zotero shouldn"t slow down Firefox startup even if it means to wait few seconds when I start Zotero inside Firefox (I don't use Zotero 90% I start Firefox).

[1] http://pix.toile-libre.org/upload/original/1465163909.png
[2] http://pix.toile-libre.org/upload/original/1465165157.png
  • The memory thing seems like a Firefox issue, but it also doesn't seem like something worth worrying about.

    In terms of startup time, Zotero 4.0 does a tiny amount of work at startup so that it can detect items on webpages, but it should be pretty insignificant. It doesn't load your library data until you open the Zotero pane, so the size of your library shouldn't have much of any effect on startup time. Looking at debug output on a 2.5-year-old Mac, I get "Initialized in 454 ms" for startup to about:blank, followed by "Cached 484 translators in 92 ms" for the first webpage load. If you provide a Debug ID for startup (using the "Enable after restart" option), I can take a look.

    But in any case, the next major version of Zotero probably won't exist as a full-featured Firefox version, so if this is posing a problem for you, it probably makes sense to just switch to Standalone + the Firefox connector now, since that will likely be what you'll need to use in the near future anyway.
  • Thanks for the quick reply.

    I switched to the standalone version. I installed my addons (Zotfile + Better Bib(La)Tex) on the standalone version.

    1 - It seems the zotero connector is in fact the same version of the zotero full Firefox extension (same download address, same file). Is it normal ?

    2 - I noticed the zotero button inside firefox was not working (to open zotero) when zotero standalone is launched. When Zotero standalone is not launched, the firefox extension start Zotero inside Firefox like I didn't install the standalone version (one could expect Firefox to launch the standalone version). But the Zotero inside Firefox has no addons installed. So It a little bit like I have two zotero and I should install twice my zotero addons...

    Maybe I did something wrong.
  • Yes, the current Firefox connector is part of the same extension, which works in two modes. When Standalone is open the Z button should bring Standalone to the front. Otherwise the extension runs in full mode.
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