How do I eliminate plugincontainer.exe for Firefox on Windows?

[Bill Moinihan]

When Firefox is running, and when opened to a seemingly arbitrary web page,
when I kill plugincontainer.exe, my cpu repeatedly drops from 100% to a
reasonable percentage. Every single time plugincontainer.exe comes back, the
CPU goes up to 100%, and then when I kill it, the CPU drops back (in a few
moments).

Likewise the CPU drops almost immediately from 100% to a reasonable number
when I pull out the Ethernet cable (and have WiFi turned off). Every single
time.

Both of these are very repeatable.

What's not as repeatable is the other direction.

When I plug back in the Ethernet cable, the Firefox-caused CPU goes back to
100% if Firefox is running, and if opened to whatever web page causes that
to happen (which is less predictable). And when plugincontainer.exe starts
back up on its own, the CPU goes back to 100% if Firefox was already
consuming all the CPU resources.

As a workaround, I can't really be pulling the plug in the Ethernet cable.
But maybe I can pull the plug in this plugincontainer.exe program?

Do I really need this "plugincontainer.exe"?
Where did it come from?
What does it do (with respect to Firefox)?

Is there a way to permanently kill plugincontainer.exe forever?

Please?

[Keith Nuttle]

It is my understanding the plugin container is Firefox's attempt to
isolate, some troublesome plugins that have been a continuing problem.
These plugins can crash the computer or Firefox. These plug ins are
used a lot in web pages, but some are upgraded nearly weekly to plug
security holes.


When you say the CPU goes up to 100% what website are you trying to
access. Does it go up to 100% if you open a web site with no fancy
flash content, or similar site that require mo special plugins. One of
the sites is the main page for Google.com. There are other examples

I suspect that the site you are trying to access requires a plugin that
has gone rogue on you computer.

[Paul in Houston, TX]

Google and Youtube search.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pyUYrFYJRQ
Google: About 196,000 results (0.22 seconds)

[Bill Moinihan]

Keith Nuttle wrote:

> It is my understanding the plugin container is Firefox's attempt to
> isolate, some troublesome plugins that have been a continuing problem.
> These plugins can crash the computer or Firefox. These plug ins are
> used a lot in web pages, but some are upgraded nearly weekly to plug
> security holes.

I think I've isolated the problem to plugincontainer.exe since I killed the
plugincontainerprocess.exe and quickly renamed the Firefox
plugincontainer.exe file and, so far, in an hour only of testing, Firefox no
longer brings the CPU to 100%.

> When you say the CPU goes up to 100% what website are you trying to
> access.

It happens almost all the time, which is to say it happens on almost all the
web sites. So I do NOT think it's a specific web site problem.

So far, in an hour only of testing with plugincontainer.exe renamed, Firefox
has NOT sent the CPU to 100%, where it would have done so. It's so
consistent, that I don't even have to list the web pages, because it's
almost all of them that cause the problem to happen.

My main test now is to go a couple of days with plugincontainer.exe renamed,
and, if Firefox never brings the computer to 100% ever again, I'll have
solved my problem.

But I'm only 1 hour into the test.

> Does it go up to 100% if you open a web site with no fancy
> flash content, or similar site that require mo special plugins. One of
> the sites is the main page for Google.com. There are other examples

It happens within ten or twenty minutes of using the computer and it really
doesn't seem to matter which web page I go to. It's 100 percent related to
browsing (but it also happened on other browsers such as SeaMonkey).

I've never found anything suspicious in the web pages, where some have video
content but most (the vast majority in fact) don't. If they have "hidden"
flash content, I wouldn't know but the point is that it happens with so many
web pages that it's not a web page thing.

If the solution were to avoid the specific web pages that cause the problem,
I would have almost no access to the net - it's that many web pages that
cause the problem.

So I'm not going down that route.
Right now, I'm going down the route to kill plugincontainer.exe forever.

If that works, I'm very happy.

> I suspect that the site you are trying to access requires a plugin that
> has gone rogue on you computer.

Except that it's almost all web sites.

[Jeremy Nicoll]

On Sun, 6 Nov 2016, at 03:05, Bill Moinihan wrote:
> When Firefox is running, and when opened to a seemingly arbitrary web
> page,
> when I kill plugincontainer.exe, my cpu repeatedly drops from 100% to a
> reasonable percentage.

What version of Firefx are you running, and with which installed
plugins/extensions?

Does the problem also happen if you run Firefox in safe mode?

--
Jeremy Nicoll - my opinions are my own.

[Luis]

Bill read this:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/what-is-plugin-container

BTW, there is no plugincontainer.exe in my computer.

[VanguardLH]

Don't run the Flash Player plug-in. The process you mentioned is the
sandbox within which plug-ins are fenced.

Alternatively, don't let Flash play just because some web page wants to
shove streamed content at you. Configure the Flash Player plug-in to
"Ask to activate". Then it will be YOUR choice when Flash runs.

[Bill Moinihan]

Luis wrote:

> Bill read this:
> https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/what-is-plugin-container
>
> BTW, there is no plugincontainer.exe in my computer.

Thank you for that reference, but I hate pages like that page, which don't
reference any details.

For example, that page says "Each plugin is loaded separately from Firefox
in a plugin-container.exe process, allowing the main Firefox process
(firefox.exe) to stay open if a plugin crashes. There are as many
plugin-container.exe processes as plugins launched since the Firefox session
startup."

But once a plugin-container.exe is launched, the reference doesn't tell me
*which* plugin launched it.

If I knew which plugin launched the plugin-container.exe, that would help me
isolate the problem.

Do folks know how to tell which plugin launched any particular
plugin-container.exe?

[Bill Moinihan]

Jeremy Nicoll wrote:

> Does the problem also happen if you run Firefox in safe mode?

I already did all the normal things.
Firefox is 49.0.2 and Flash is set to ask to activate.

Since renaming the plugin container, it hasn't happened but I need to test
it further to make sure since it can come back at any time.

[Jeremy Nicoll]

So, maybe it's not Flash. How about Silverlight - does that also use
plugincontainer?

[Dave Pyles]

You probably don't have more than a few plugins. Set them all to "Never
Activate" and restart Thunderbird. Then, activate the plug-ins one at a
time, restarting Firefox between each change and check for the plugin
container process with each restart. It should only take a few restarts
to figure it out.
Dave Pyles

[Luis]

I have used Dependency Walker to know what program runs what. There are
other programs that do the same. But in a case like yours I would rename
plugin-container.exe in order to see what plugin fails. If you do this
remember to restart Windows before testing.

[WaltS48]

I believe the only plugin that launches it, is, or will be the Flash
plugin, since all other plugins are no longer going to be supported
after the end of this year, and are not supported in the 64-bit version
of Firefox now.


--
Visit Pittsburgh <http://www.visitpittsburgh.com/>
Coexist <https://www.coexist.org/>
National Popular Vote <http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/>
Ubuntu 16.04LTS

[MrGatoChile]

El 05/11/2016 a las 23:05, Bill Moinihan escribió:
> When Firefox is running, and when opened to a seemingly arbitrary web page,
> when I kill plugincontainer.exe, my cpu repeatedly drops from 100% to a
> reasonable percentage. Every single time plugincontainer.exe comes back, the
> CPU goes up to 100%, and then when I kill it, the CPU drops back (in a few
> moments).
>

Plugincontainer is related to the plugin management of firefox for
prevent the crash of the computer or firefox if the plugin crash.

If you have flash, is probable to be related to the hardware accel of
gpu used by firefox, are you tried to run Firefox with HW disabled?

In about:config
layers.acceleration.disabled to true
gfx.direct2d.disabled to true

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message
<mailman.592.1478471565...@lists.mozilla.org>, Dave
Pyles <dnp...@user.invalid> writes:
[]

>You probably don't have more than a few plugins. Set them all to
>"Never Activate" and restart Thunderbird. Then, activate the plug-ins
>one at a time, restarting Firefox between each change and check for the
>plugin container process with each restart. It should only take a few
>restarts to figure it out.
>Dave Pyles

I'd say enable half of them, not one at a time. If you have as few as 8
plugins, that'll cut your number of necessary restarts to three; more
time saving if you have more.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

The early worm gets the bird.

[PietB]

WaltS48 wrote:

> Bill Moinihan wrote:
>> Do folks know how to tell which plugin launched any particular
>> plugin-container.exe?
>
> I believe the only plugin that launches it, is, or will be the Flash
> plugin, since all other plugins are no longer going to be supported
> after the end of this year

Which means exit Firefox. A browser that doesn't support the
plugin for my bank's smartcard reader is a no go. And yes,
that plugin too launches a plugin-container.exe process.

-p

[WaltS48]

I'm sure it does launch a plugin-container.exe process.

What browser will you use?

Chrome <https://java.com/en/download/faq/chrome.xml>

A Microsoft product?
<https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh968248(v=vs.85).aspx>

Seems to me that your bank doesn't care about its customers security and
the IT department doesn't keep up with technology news.

Maybe you should contact them with those links and add this one to your
email.

<https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2015/10/08/npapi-plugins-in-firefox/>

Meanwhile you can use the next ESR version until your bank gets up to date.

<https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.tech.plugins/Cu1rOVEn45M/FYHz_XIoAAAJ>

[PietB]

WaltS48 wrote:
> PietB wrote:
>> WaltS48 wrote:
>>> Bill Moinihan wrote:
>>>> Do folks know how to tell which plugin launched any particular
>>>> plugin-container.exe?
>>>
>>> I believe the only plugin that launches it, is, or will be the Flash
>>> plugin, since all other plugins are no longer going to be supported
>>> after the end of this year
>>
>> Which means exit Firefox. A browser that doesn't support the
>> plugin for my bank's smartcard reader is a no go. And yes,
>> that plugin too launches a plugin-container.exe process.
>

> What browser will you use?

Dunno yet, but PaleMoon works fine.

> Chrome

No way.

> A Microsoft product?

No way.

> Seems to me that your bank doesn't care about its customers security
> and the IT department doesn't keep up with technology news.

That's your opinion.

-p

[Ed Mullen]

On 11/6/2016 at 7:23 PM, WaltS48's prodigious digits fired off:

It starts when you start Firefox and ends when you quit FF.


--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net/
The good old days: When sex was dirty & Michael Jackson was black.

[Bill Moinihan]

MrGatoChile wrote:

> are you tried to run Firefox with HW disabled?

I never know what to set for hardware acceleration.

What's the logic?

On the one hand, it seems "efficient" to let the CPU/GPU (which one?)
accelerate the rendering of text (which is all I pretty much do on Firefox).

On the other hand, it seems inefficient to do in software what can be done
in hardware.

So which is the correct setting when you want to minimize CPU cycles?
HW acceleration on? Or off?

[Bill Moinihan]

Bill Moinihan wrote:

> So which is the correct setting when you want to minimize CPU cycles?
> HW acceleration on? Or off?

I just turned it off but I don't know the *correct* setting.
https://s22.postimg.org/c6aqlzl3l/hardware.jpg

What's the logic of NOT doing something in hardware that you then have to do
in software?

Seems to me *both* raise CPU cycles in different ways.

What's the logic when all you care about is 100% cpu?

[Wolf K.]

On 2016-11-09 13:01, Bill Moinihan wrote:
> Bill Moinihan wrote:
>
>> So which is the correct setting when you want to minimize CPU cycles?
>> HW acceleration on? Or off?
>
> I just turned it off but I don't know the *correct* setting.
> https://s22.postimg.org/c6aqlzl3l/hardware.jpg
>
> What's the logic of NOT doing something in hardware that you then have to do
> in software?
>
> Seems to me *both* raise CPU cycles in different ways.
>

It's all software. CPU/GPU both have onboard code, without they couldn't
function.

Anyhow, here's how I understand the relation between CPU and GPU:

The CPU sends data to the GPU about the graphics data to be processed.
The GPU uses that to send a Fetch order, and gets the data. It processes
the data, and passes it on to the video subsystem, which in turn
processes the data and sends it to the monitor. If you accelerate the
GPU, the CPU must supply information about the graphics data at a higher
rate. So accelerating the GPU means a higher rate of CPU operation, too.

Video is just graphics data that changes 60 or 120 times a second. IOW,
it's all graphics, really.

HTH

--
Wolf K.
kirkwood40.blogspot.ca
It's called "opinion" because it's not knowledge.

[Mark12547]

In article <mailman.761.1478714286.16819.support-
fir...@lists.mozilla.org>, m...@example.com says...

> I never know what to set for hardware acceleration.
>

If there are compatibility issues (such as Flash issues), try turning it
off.

If videos don't display smoothly, and there are no compatibility issues,
try turning it on.

You would think it would automatically detect and work correctly, but
something happened in a recent version of Flash or a recent version of
Firefox (I am not sure which) that broke hardware acceleration on my
machine so I now have it off.

[MrGatoChile]

El 08/11/2016 a las 17:47, J. P. Gilliver (John) escribió:
> In message
> <mailman.592.1478471565...@lists.mozilla.org>, Dave
> Pyles <dnp...@user.invalid> writes:
> []
>> You probably don't have more than a few plugins. Set them all to
>> "Never Activate" and restart Thunderbird. Then, activate the plug-ins
>> one at a time, restarting Firefox between each change and check for
>> the plugin container process with each restart. It should only take a
>> few restarts to figure it out.
>> Dave Pyles
>
> I'd say enable half of them, not one at a time. If you have as few as 8
> plugins, that'll cut your number of necessary restarts to three; more
> time saving if you have more.

I getting crashes with plugin-container, perhaps related to E10, trying
with E10 disabled and:
dom.ipc.plugins.asyncdrawing.enabled;false
layers.async-pan-zoom.enabled;false
layers.async-video-oop.enabled;false
layers.async-video.enabled;false
layers.offmainthreadcomposition.async-animations;false

[VanguardLH]

Ed Mullen wrote:

> WaltS48:

>
>> I believe the only plugin that launches it, is, or will be the Flash
>> plugin, since all other plugins are no longer going to be supported
>> after the end of this year, and are not supported in the 64-bit
>> version of Firefox now.
>
> It starts when you start Firefox and ends when you quit FF.

plugin-container.exe only launches when a plug-in gets loaded whether
you set the plug-in to "Always activate" or "Ask to activate". Set
Firefox to load about:blank as its home page. Exit and reload Firefox.
Just firefox.exe loads, not plugin-container.exe. You must be loading a
home page that loads a plug-in.

Peculiarly plug-container.exe will momentarily launch when you exit
Firefox even if it wasn't loaded before. I suspect this is to ensure it
unloads as a bug in the past is that exiting Firefox did not always get
plugin-container.exe to unload.

I'm using Firefox 49.0.1. Maybe they changed behavior in 40.0.2. I've
tried searching bugzilla.mozilla.org but could not come up with the
magic elixir of search terms that got me a reasonable count of bugs to
review (always hit the 500 max count and that's way too many to review).
Not all users visit Flash-enabled sites during a web browser session,
and Flash is in its death throes so sites are moving to HTML5 <video>.
Twould be a waste of memory to load plugin-container.exe before it is
was even needed. Do you have the Flash plug-in configured for "Always
activate" or "Ask to activate"?

There have been reports of plugin-container.exe loading on starting
Firefox (with the web page not using Flash content) and even multiple
instances of this process loading on Firefox startup, like
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=666354. That reporter said
disabling and reenabling the plug-in got rid of the phantom instances of
plugin-container.exe on Firefox startup.

[Wolf K.]

On 2016-11-09 14:14, VanguardLH wrote:
> Ed Mullen wrote:
>
>> > WaltS48:
>> >
>>> >> I believe the only plugin that launches it, is, or will be the Flash
>>> >> plugin, since all other plugins are no longer going to be supported
>>> >> after the end of this year, and are not supported in the 64-bit
>>> >> version of Firefox now.
>> >
>> > It starts when you start Firefox and ends when you quit FF.
> plugin-container.exe only launches when a plug-in gets loaded whether
> you set the plug-in to "Always activate" or "Ask to activate". Set
> Firefox to load about:blank as its home page. Exit and reload Firefox.
> Just firefox.exe loads, not plugin-container.exe. You must be loading a

> home page that loads a plug-in. [...]

So the answer to OP is that you better not disable plugincontainer.exe.

Have a good day,

[Ed Mullen]

On 11/9/2016 at 2:14 PM, VanguardLH's prodigious digits fired off:

> Ed Mullen wrote:
>
>> WaltS48:
>>
>>> I believe the only plugin that launches it, is, or will be the Flash
>>> plugin, since all other plugins are no longer going to be supported
>>> after the end of this year, and are not supported in the 64-bit
>>> version of Firefox now.
>>
>> It starts when you start Firefox and ends when you quit FF.
>
> plugin-container.exe only launches when a plug-in gets loaded whether
> you set the plug-in to "Always activate" or "Ask to activate". Set
> Firefox to load about:blank as its home page. Exit and reload Firefox.
> Just firefox.exe loads, not plugin-container.exe. You must be loading a
> home page that loads a plug-in.

Nope. My home page is a static HTML document. Load FF and
plugin-container also loads. FF 49.0.2

--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net/

Friction can be a real drag.

[WaltS48]

Not here. I had to activate Flash for it to appear in my System Monitor.

Fx 50.0rc2.

[WaltS48]

On 11/10/2016 10:46 AM, Ed Mullen wrote:

It also disappeared from my System Monitor when I closed the tab with
Flash content.

[Ed Mullen]

On 11/10/2016 at 12:40 PM, WaltS48's prodigious digits fired off:

> On 11/10/2016 10:46 AM, Ed Mullen wrote:
>> On 11/9/2016 at 2:14 PM, VanguardLH's prodigious digits fired off:
>>> Ed Mullen wrote:
>>>
>>>> WaltS48:
>>>>
>>>>> I believe the only plugin that launches it, is, or will be the Flash
>>>>> plugin, since all other plugins are no longer going to be supported
>>>>> after the end of this year, and are not supported in the 64-bit
>>>>> version of Firefox now.
>>>>
>>>> It starts when you start Firefox and ends when you quit FF.
>>>
>>> plugin-container.exe only launches when a plug-in gets loaded whether
>>> you set the plug-in to "Always activate" or "Ask to activate". Set
>>> Firefox to load about:blank as its home page. Exit and reload Firefox.
>>> Just firefox.exe loads, not plugin-container.exe. You must be loading a
>>> home page that loads a plug-in.
>>
>> Nope. My home page is a static HTML document. Load FF and
>> plugin-container also loads. FF 49.0.2
>>
>
> Not here. I had to activate Flash for it to appear in my System Monitor.
>
> Fx 50.0rc2.
>
>

Tried Safe Mode - plugin-container loaded
Tried new clean profile - plugin-container loaded

<sigh>

--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net/

Have you noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days no one talks
about seeing UFOs like they used to?

[Ed Mullen]

On 11/10/2016 at 12:40 PM, WaltS48's prodigious digits fired off:

> On 11/10/2016 10:46 AM, Ed Mullen wrote:
>> On 11/9/2016 at 2:14 PM, VanguardLH's prodigious digits fired off:
>>> Ed Mullen wrote:
>>>
>>>> WaltS48:
>>>>
>>>>> I believe the only plugin that launches it, is, or will be the Flash
>>>>> plugin, since all other plugins are no longer going to be supported
>>>>> after the end of this year, and are not supported in the 64-bit
>>>>> version of Firefox now.
>>>>
>>>> It starts when you start Firefox and ends when you quit FF.
>>>
>>> plugin-container.exe only launches when a plug-in gets loaded whether
>>> you set the plug-in to "Always activate" or "Ask to activate". Set
>>> Firefox to load about:blank as its home page. Exit and reload Firefox.
>>> Just firefox.exe loads, not plugin-container.exe. You must be loading a
>>> home page that loads a plug-in.
>>
>> Nope. My home page is a static HTML document. Load FF and
>> plugin-container also loads. FF 49.0.2
>>
>
> Not here. I had to activate Flash for it to appear in my System Monitor.
>
> Fx 50.0rc2.
>
>

Hmm. I set my home page to about:blank and plugin-container did NOT
load. I cannot imagine why it does when I load my normal HTML home
page. It's static HTML and CSS stored locally on disk. It's simply a
bunch of links to things I want to get to quickly.

<http://edmullen.net/temp/cap1110.jpg>

--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net/

"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree." - W. B. Yeats

[Jeremy Nicoll]

On Thu, 10 Nov 2016, at 18:28, Ed Mullen wrote:

> Hmm. I set my home page to about:blank and plugin-container did NOT
> load. I cannot imagine why it does when I load my normal HTML home
> page. It's static HTML and CSS stored locally on disk. It's simply a
> bunch of links to things I want to get to quickly.
>
> <http://edmullen.net/temp/cap1110.jpg>

I've a vague recollection that there's an option in FF that may cause it
to do some
pre-emptive fetching of resources used by pages referenced from any page
you
load. If that's the case, then one of those linked pages might contain
some Flash.

There's an option in the Browser console to see details of every fetch
request that
FF makes on your behalf; that might show fetches that you don't know
about being
done.

[VanguardLH]

Wolf K. wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>
>> plugin-container.exe only launches when a plug-in gets loaded whether
>> you set the plug-in to "Always activate" or "Ask to activate". Set
>> Firefox to load about:blank as its home page. Exit and reload Firefox.
>> Just firefox.exe loads, not plugin-container.exe. You must be loading a
>> home page that loads a plug-in. [...]
>
> So the answer to OP is that you better not disable plugincontainer.exe.

If the "disable" is b deleting or renaming the file, that may only last
until some future update replaces it. Then the problem reappears. I've
seen this same "fixed but reappears" workaround before: it lasts until a
later [re]install or update adds the deleted, renamed, or moved file.

Also, disabling by deleting or renaming the file means the sandbox won't
be available in which to run the plug-in. I haven't tried the brute
force disable method but I suspect a user that visits a Flash-enabled
web site and has it configured to "Always run" but has deleted, renamed,
or moved the sandbox handler would end up generating an error. I don't
know if Firefox would merely not show the Flash content (and put an
error in its console) or if the page might show an error message.

I don't see the point of the brute force method to disable the sandbox.
If the user configures "Ask to activate" then it is THEIR choice if that
plug-in can get called and loaded by a web page. I have the Flash
plug-in configured to "Ask to activate". For example, visiting Adobe's
Flash version check page (http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/) in
a fresh load of Firefox does NOT load the plugin-container.exe process.
I haven't yet granted the Flash player to load. Only after I allow
Flash to run does the plugin-container.exe process show up.

[VanguardLH]

Jeremy Nicoll wrote:

> Ed Mullen wrote:
>
>> Hmm. I set my home page to about:blank and plugin-container did NOT
>> load. I cannot imagine why it does when I load my normal HTML home
>> page. It's static HTML and CSS stored locally on disk. It's simply a
>> bunch of links to things I want to get to quickly.
>>
>> <http://edmullen.net/temp/cap1110.jpg>
>
> I've a vague recollection that there's an option in FF that may cause
> it to do some pre-emptive fetching of resources used by pages
> referenced from any page you load. If that's the case, then one of
> those linked pages might contain some Flash.

I installed the uBlock Origin extension. One of its options (by
default) is to disable pre-fetching in Firefox. If you are blocking
unwanted content from getting delivered, you certainly don't want it
pre-fetched (and not even visit that site) to circumvent the privacy and
security reasons for using adblocking.

In uBlock Origin, the option is called "Disable pre-fetching (to prevent
any connection for blocked network requests)". It also provides a link
to the following web page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_prefetching#Issues_and_criticisms

All this does is change a setting in Firefox under about:config, which
is:

network.prefetch-next

This setting is not available in the config UI. You have to wade into
the advanced config editor (about:config) to change this setting. The
default is True. Changing it to False eliminates the extra bandwidth
consumption by Firefox to download pages that you may never visit but
which may have content that you had intended to block.

Prefetch is one of those features that sound convenient but result in
loss of privacy, security, and obviate blocking of some content that you
did not want to retrieve. It is very likely that one of those links in
your home page goes to a page with Flash content. So Firefox prefetches
its content whether or not you ever visit there within a web browser
session. That's why I suggested using about:blank as the home page.

[VanguardLH]

Ed Mullen wrote:

> VanguardLH:

>
>> Ed Mullen wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> It starts when you start Firefox and ends when you quit FF.
>>
>> plugin-container.exe only launches when a plug-in gets loaded whether
>> you set the plug-in to "Always activate" or "Ask to activate". Set
>> Firefox to load about:blank as its home page. Exit and reload Firefox.
>> Just firefox.exe loads, not plugin-container.exe. You must be loading a
>> home page that loads a plug-in.
>
> Nope. My home page is a static HTML document. Load FF and
> plugin-container also loads. FF 49.0.2

And what happens when you change the home page to about:blank, exit
Firefox, make sure all firefox.exe instances have unloaded (along with
any instances of plugin-container.exe and FlashPlayerPlugin*.exe), and
then load Firefox to that blank home page?

If that still loads plugin-container.exe then I'd suggest disabling all
the extensions (aka add-ons) that you installed and retest.

[Ed Mullen]

On 11/10/2016 at 3:39 PM, Jeremy Nicoll's prodigious digits fired off:

Yeah, that might be it. I'll have to investigate pre-fetch settings and
such. Could be it.

Although, not having any problems with plugin-container so I don't know
how much effort I'll expend on this.

--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net/

Religion is for people who fear hell. Spirituality is for those who
have been there.

[PietB]

VanguardLH wrote:
> All this does is change a setting in Firefox under about:config,
> which is:
>
> network.prefetch-next
>
> This setting is not available in the config UI. You have to wade
> into the advanced config editor (about:config) to change this setting.

Type 'prefetch' in the search bar and it's right in view.

> The default is True.

Mine is set to false, but in bold, so it's a user setting.
However, when I change it to true, exit and restart FF, it
is back to false. Weird. So make sure you check the value
again after (re)starting FF.

-p

[Disaster Master]

On 11/11/2016 8:58 AM, PietB <www.godfatherof.nl/@opt-in.invalid> wrote:

Mine is set to false, but in bold, so it's a user setting.
However, when I change it to true, exit and restart FF, it
is back to false. Weird. So make sure you check the value
again after (re)starting FF.

Almost likely means you have iti set in your user.js file (used for custom settings like this), which gets loaded everytime Firefox starts, and will override any changes you made manually.

[Ed Mullen]

On 11/10/2016 at 3:39 PM, Jeremy Nicoll's prodigious digits fired off:

Can you explain how to get to that please?

--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net/

Evening news is where they begin with 'Good evening', and then proceed
to tell you why it isn't.

[VanguardLH]

PietB wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>
>> All this does is change a setting in Firefox under about:config,
>> which is:
>>
>> network.prefetch-next
>>
>> This setting is not available in the config UI. You have to wade
>> into the advanced config editor (about:config) to change this setting.
>
> Type 'prefetch' in the search bar and it's right in view.

Yes, in the advanced editor (about:config) you can search on "prefetch".
That will return a hit list of about 7 settings, not just the one. Only
one of them is relevant to this discussion. You can also enter the
setting's name (network.prefetch-next) to search on that setting and
have only that one show in the hits list.

You won't find the setting in the config *UI* (menu -> Options), only in
the advanced editor (about:config). There is no search on settings in
the config UI.

>> The default is True.
>
> Mine is set to false, but in bold, so it's a user setting.
> However, when I change it to true, exit and restart FF, it
> is back to false. Weird. So make sure you check the value
> again after (re)starting FF.

Sounds like you have an add-on aka extension that disables that setting.
When you change it and reload Firefox, the add-on obeys its config by
re-disabling that setting. I'm presuming that you are not copying over
the working user preferences file from a static/backup copy when you
load Firefox.

All bolding means is that a setting is not at its default value. That
could be caused by: using the config UI to change settings, using the
advanced editor (about:config), by a tweaker, or by an add-on. Bold
with status "user-set" doesn't really tell you how the setting got
changed from its default.

[PietB]

Ed Mullen wrote:

> Jeremy Nicoll wrote:
>> There's an option in the Browser console to see details of
>> every fetch request that FF makes on your behalf; that might
>> show fetches that you don't know about being done.
>
> Can you explain how to get to that please?

Never seen that console option, but I use the add-on
"Live HTTP Headers" to see the requests and responses.

-p

[WaltS48]

On 11/11/2016 10:49 AM, Ed Mullen wrote:
> On 11/10/2016 at 3:39 PM, Jeremy Nicoll's prodigious digits fired off:
>> On Thu, 10 Nov 2016, at 18:28, Ed Mullen wrote:
>>
>>> Hmm. I set my home page to about:blank and plugin-container did NOT
>>> load. I cannot imagine why it does when I load my normal HTML home
>>> page. It's static HTML and CSS stored locally on disk. It's simply a
>>> bunch of links to things I want to get to quickly.
>>>
>>> <http://edmullen.net/temp/cap1110.jpg>
>>
>> I've a vague recollection that there's an option in FF that may cause it
>> to do some
>> pre-emptive fetching of resources used by pages referenced from any page
>> you
>> load. If that's the case, then one of those linked pages might contain
>> some Flash.
>>
>> There's an option in the Browser console to see details of every fetch
>> request that
>> FF makes on your behalf; that might show fetches that you don't know
>> about being
>> done.
>>
>>
>
> Can you explain how to get to that please?
>

Ctrl+Shift+J is the keyboard shortcut to open the Browser Console.

[Jeremy Nicoll]

On Mon, 14 Nov 2016, at 08:17, PietB wrote:
> Ed Mullen wrote:
> > Jeremy Nicoll wrote:

> >> There's an option in the Browser console to see details of
> >> every fetch request that FF makes on your behalf; that might
> >> show fetches that you don't know about being done.
> >
> > Can you explain how to get to that please?
>

> Never seen that console option

You probably didn't look recently enough; the consoles get more features
added
to them quite often. The documentation is at

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Web_Console

- you want to read in particular about the Network Monitor.

[Ed Mullen]

On 11/10/2016 at 10:31 PM, Ed Mullen's prodigious digits fired off:

> On 11/10/2016 at 3:39 PM, Jeremy Nicoll's prodigious digits fired off:
>> On Thu, 10 Nov 2016, at 18:28, Ed Mullen wrote:
>>
>>> Hmm. I set my home page to about:blank and plugin-container did NOT
>>> load. I cannot imagine why it does when I load my normal HTML home
>>> page. It's static HTML and CSS stored locally on disk. It's simply a
>>> bunch of links to things I want to get to quickly.
>>>
>>> <http://edmullen.net/temp/cap1110.jpg>
>>
>> I've a vague recollection that there's an option in FF that may cause it
>> to do some
>> pre-emptive fetching of resources used by pages referenced from any page
>> you
>> load. If that's the case, then one of those linked pages might contain
>> some Flash.
>>
>> There's an option in the Browser console to see details of every fetch
>> request that
>> FF makes on your behalf; that might show fetches that you don't know
>> about being
>> done.
>>
>>
>
> Yeah, that might be it. I'll have to investigate pre-fetch settings and
> such. Could be it.
>
> Although, not having any problems with plugin-container so I don't know
> how much effort I'll expend on this.
>
>

There must have been something going on with the profile I was using. In
a new profile my home page does not cause plugin-container to load.

--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net/

If a book about failures does not sell, is it a success?