InformAction Forums

Hi everybody,

whenever I try to download something from download.com my FF freezes with one CPU at 100%. This even happens when I add all domains showing up to NoScript's whitelist. Deactivating the NoScript add-on resolves the problem.

My questions are:
1) Is this the right place to report bugs?
2) If so: What information do you need to analyze/reproduce the problem?

Try this, Standard diagnostic - Firefox.

Say you want to download this

"Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.35"
http://download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes-A ... 04572.html

You click the Download Now button

This page opens

http://download.cnet.com/3001-8022_4-10804572.html

And for me, mbam-setup.exe is automatically offered for download.

I have nothing allowed (in NoScript) in this scenario & all is working as expected for me.

... disabling all sites removes the problem. Thanks for the hint!

The problem only occurs when the sites are enabled...

You shouldn't have to have all the sites blocked? At least it worked by doing so.

therube wrote:You shouldn't have to have all the sites blocked?

Sorry, I didn't understand this question.

My immediate problem has been solved, I can now use download.com without problem. If you are interested in researching the root causes of the problem and are unable to reproduce it I can provide you with more information if you like. You just have to tell me what you need to know.

I believe it means you don't have to disable the full site functionality of NS to achieve this, just don't need to give allow permissions to make it work. I agree with therube, I download from them just fine.

Thanks for your answer! It really cleared things up to me. And thanks to therube again for his workaround.

GµårÐïåñ wrote:I agree with therube, I download from them just fine.

What you and therube wrote so far (as far as I understood) is that you do not experience trouble when using download.com with all or some sites disabled. I agree with you on that, too. This is, however, just a workaround to what seems a bug in NS to me.

IMO:
1) The user should never have to disallow JavaScript on some or all sites referenced to make a site work with NS installed.
2) NS should never completely freeze FF even if it blocks functionality in the background.
3) It seems that NS is causing the trouble as disabling the add-on altogether or allowing some sites in NS solves the problem.

If this is not the place to report bugs, then where can I report them?

No, what I was trying to point out was that the site worked correctly for me regardless of my NoScript settings.
If everything was blocked, it worked. And if everything was allowed, it worked too.

My post, with the ? mark, was (me scratching my head) questioning why you happened to have run into trouble when you had the sites allowed (& not that I'm expecting an answer from you necessarily).

Ok, as you couldn't reproduce the problem I'll try to make it easier to reproduce. Give me a little time for me to try around what's the minimal configuration that still produces the effect. Then I'll come back to you, ok? It may be some funny interaction with other add-ons as well. I'll try to find that out.

Ok the result is:
- I de-activated all add-ons except NS
- I reset NS to default settings (including NS's whitelist)
- I rebooted my PC
- I temporarily stopped potentially interfering background processes (e.g. anti-virus, firewall)
- I closed all other programs
- I loaded http://download.cnet.com/AVG-Anti-Virus ... 20142.html into the only open browser tab
- I added com.com, download.com and cnet.com to NS's whitelist

The symptoms are as follows:
- after adding the above sites to whitelist, the page partially loads, then FF freezes
- one CPU core stays at 100%
- the task manager shows me that FF slowly accumulates system memory until something like 400MB

That's it.

...oh yes, and of course I used the latest version of NS (1.9.1.6)...

Strange.

How about plugins?
You've got that .NET plugin loading (for whatever it is that it may do)?

Also take a look in Task Manager & see if CTFMON.EXE is running.
Kill it & see if there is any change.
(You may be using it? & if you kill it & need it, you'd need to restart it back up. If you don't need it, best to stop it entirely IMO.)

Just another data point. I'm unable to reproduce jerico's issue either. Following most of jerico's steps to reproduce in a test profile: default profile with the NS 1.9.1.6 as the only extension, i.e.
- I reset NS to default settings (including NS's whitelist)
- I loaded http://download.cnet.com/AVG-Anti-Virus ... 20142.html into the only open browser tab
- I added com.com, download.com and cnet.com to NS's whitelist

Result: Page loads normally with no persistent cpu max or large memory use.

I also loaded the page into a clean test profile: default theme, no extensions, except for the one automatically installed by Free Download Manager into all of my Firefox profiles. Same result.

Note: CTFMON.EXE is running because it's automatically started when I login to my account. I don't see why it's singled out as possibly problematic, or why the user should stop it entirely.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/282599

Because it's been known to, because I have seen it interact poorly with other (certain) softwares.

And if you have no need for what it offers (alternative language whatever it is), then it serves no purpose to have it running.

Me, I don't use Office, so normally I wouldn't have ever seen it. But IE7 (& IE8 I assume) also causes it to spring to life.

Jerico being -DE & being in an English forum, or someone else, say a linguist, who needs what CTFMON.EXE offers, may not want to kill it, but otherwise, it's just taking up space, using resources ... & possibly interfering in some odd way ... with FF & download.com.

So you kill, test, & if that's it, you've found something out. If that's not it, then the problem is elsewhere yet.

Alan Baxter wrote:I also loaded the page into a clean test profile:

That was a good hint. I created a new profile, installed NS into it and whoop: everything works just normal in the newly created profile.

therube wrote:How about plugins?

I went into the old profile (which causes the problem) and deactivated all plugins. (I went do add-ons->plug-ins and deactivated all plug-ins in there. Firefox didn't require a restart but I restarted FF anyway. I assumed that there is no need to reboot after de-activating the plugins.) No difference, still get the freeze.

I went into the new profile and activated all plugins. The page loads as it should!

I admit, I'm stuck. I've got no idea where to look further. What can it be that makes the difference between the two profiles if it's neither add-ons nor plugins?