Why does plugin-container.exe start 15 times (and then stop) during shutdown (taking MINUTES to shut down)?
FF takes forever to close (minutes). When using process explorer I see that as many as 15 instances of plugin-container.exe will be opened during the shut down process. I think this means that a plugin is crashing. I disabled all of the plugins and it still happened (but maybe not so many times). An obvious answer is to leave FF open but that seems kinda dumb. I haven't seemed to be able to find this addressed anywhere. I am using updated Xp, on a many year old machine. Please help. Thanks, John Rooks
(also, my submit button doesn't work when I try to send this in via the feedback form. (happy, sad and idea page)
All Replies (4)
That can be caused by clearing the cookies via "Clear Recent History".
- Firefox/Tools > Options > Privacy > Firefox will: "Use custom settings for history" > [X] Clear history when Firefox closes > Settings
If you use "Clear Recent History" to clear the cookies then Firefox also tries to clear the cookies from plugins like Flash (LSO) and starts a plugin-container process for each plugin and that can add extra time and can cause an unresponsive script error to appear.
Exclude the cookies from "Clear Recent History" to see if that helps.
Let all cookies expire when you close Firefox to remove unwanted cookies and keep the ones with an allow exception.
Make sure that you do not clear the "Site Preferences" as that will remove all exceptions.
- Tools > Options > Privacy > Cookies: "Keep until": "I close Firefox"
Hi: OK, I am making progress. It IS resolved by not clearing cookies, however it is NOT cookies stored in the cookies folder. The problem still appears when the cookie folder is empty (ie nothing has tried to add any cookies to the folder), AND ALL of the add-ons are disabled. In other words, nothing has added anything to the empty cookie folder and all of the add-ons are set to disabled. So apparently Firefox is clearing out something via clear cookies that is not in the cookie folder and not disabled when the add-ons are disabled. Apparently some add-on is still doing something even though it is supposedly "disabled"(assuming that it is an add-on that is causing the problem). I sure wish somebody made a whitelist of all add-ons URLs so that I could just whitelist them all.
Anyway, I think I am low on ideas. I sure don't like the idea of abandoning that "clear cookies when I close Firefox" feature of Firefox, I find it a very neat feature. Thanks, John
It is caused by Firefox asking plugins like Flash to remove their cookies and other locally stored data.
Flash Local storage settings Help:
I went into the Flash control panel and told it to notify me whenever any new information was to be stored and I received no notifications. I am sorry, but I didn't see an obvious way to fix this via the Flash control panel.
Is there an answer here other than allowing Firefox to store cookies? It seems odd that a clear function would be provided which evokes this kind of response. Is there perhaps a different response in a previous version of Firefox? Or a different response in a beta version?
How do I keep the desired functionality (clear all cookies on exit) and prevent the long shut down time? Creating an exact whitelist with exact URLs of any possible add-on vendor would seem to be a nearly impossible task.
Thanks, John