Issue with Firefox Nightly
Hi, I've been using Nightly due to the stable version of Firefox having stutter/performance issues that doesn't seem to occur in Nightly (something to do with Vsync and/or FPS on high refresh rate gaming monitors perhaps? This can be seen on testufo.com as well as in general when scrolling pages).
The issue I'm having with Nightly is that it often leaves background processes open in Task Manger after exiting. This does not occur in stable as far as I can tell. These background processes are causing issues when trying to update Nightly via the menu, as Nightly closes and tries to update but the background processes remain. The only thing to do is to kill the processes (sometimes as many as 20 of them) and then Nightly is able to update by itself and restart.
I've noticed that the command line for some of these processes show links that I have clicked from outside of Nightly (In Discord for example), but the processes do not immediately appear when clicking links and seem to appear at random while using the browser. Some of them also show stuff along the lines of "contentprocess" and "gecko-crash-server-pipe" which seems to be normal firefox.exe processes that run in the foreground, perhaps before being "converted" into background processes which in turn won't close.
Another thing I've noticed is when these background processes exist, it causes lag and other issues in, as well as a huge delay when clicking links outside of Nightly.
This has been going on for about a month (through all the daily updates) since I've installed Nightly. I've tried disabling add-ons, refreshing, and even completely uninstalling, wiping all traces of, and reinstalling Nightly, to no avail.
الحل المُختار
I believe I've figured out the problem. I happened to see under the 'see also' section next to this question this article: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/identify-problems-third-party-modules-firefox-windows
By going to about:third-party I found 4 modules, 2 loaded by the nvidia driver (nvwgf2umx_cfg.dll, nvldumdx.dll), and 2 loaded by Razer Cortex (EasyHook64.dll, K_FPS64.dll). Despite not showing any issues in that area, I only use Razer Cortex for basic system maintenance and game "boost" support, so it has no business being loaded by my browser.
By exiting Razer Cortex through the system tray icon, those modules no longer load, and just like that, Nightly can now close and update properly. I suspect the Razer modules were not intended to work with Nightly and therefore could be why it's causing this issue.
I do however still see the firefox.exe instances being "converted" into background apps in the Task Manager but this seems to be more an issue (if it even is one) with Task Manager than Firefox, because it only happens after closing and re-opening Task Manager once Nightly is already loaded. I noticed it happens with stable Firefox as well, so perhaps it's just some bug with the Windows 11 Task Manager.
Either way, this may be the only solution for now, as Firefox does not seem to provide a way to block/disable modules (at least not ones that aren't "malfunctioning"). I have not tried deleting or renaming the Razer modules as I don't know what kind of side effects that would lead to in say other apps or Cortex itself.
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It's always best to show evidence of the issue. A video showing that you closed Nightly and process some processes are still running would help your case. I also think opening Nightly in Safe Mode and then closing it and checking for processes would help. Let me go try it Win11.
الحل المُختار
I believe I've figured out the problem. I happened to see under the 'see also' section next to this question this article: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/identify-problems-third-party-modules-firefox-windows
By going to about:third-party I found 4 modules, 2 loaded by the nvidia driver (nvwgf2umx_cfg.dll, nvldumdx.dll), and 2 loaded by Razer Cortex (EasyHook64.dll, K_FPS64.dll). Despite not showing any issues in that area, I only use Razer Cortex for basic system maintenance and game "boost" support, so it has no business being loaded by my browser.
By exiting Razer Cortex through the system tray icon, those modules no longer load, and just like that, Nightly can now close and update properly. I suspect the Razer modules were not intended to work with Nightly and therefore could be why it's causing this issue.
I do however still see the firefox.exe instances being "converted" into background apps in the Task Manager but this seems to be more an issue (if it even is one) with Task Manager than Firefox, because it only happens after closing and re-opening Task Manager once Nightly is already loaded. I noticed it happens with stable Firefox as well, so perhaps it's just some bug with the Windows 11 Task Manager.
Either way, this may be the only solution for now, as Firefox does not seem to provide a way to block/disable modules (at least not ones that aren't "malfunctioning"). I have not tried deleting or renaming the Razer modules as I don't know what kind of side effects that would lead to in say other apps or Cortex itself.