Still having problems with Firefox.exe...

[Scott]

I'm sorry to bring this up again.  I thought that this would solve the issue, but it has not.  I have Explorer.exe excluded from restraint, yet Firefox.exe is often set to Below Normal priority, and stays there.

I'm running 3.54.2, so it's not that I haven't upgraded in a year.

I'm going to turn on logging and try seeing what's going on, but it's strange that no one else reports this.  (Maybe it's happening on other systems and people don't notice.)

[Jeremy Collake]

I emailed you this as well, but... I think the cause is this:

It is that foreground detection will not work when you are running the core engine as a service (http://www.bitsum.com/changelog/pl/changes.htm#errata). I recommend running the core engine as a normal process. This should fix everything. Running it as a service requires more elaborate configuration, as you should exclude processes that are commonly in the foreground. I am adding warnings about this now. I should have added them before, instead of relegating them to the 'known errata' in the revision history.

UPDATE: This wasn't the cause in this case. With heterodox's investigation, the problem was tracked down to the firefox self-restart capability. When it restarts itself on a slow system, it can sometimes be lowered in priority during the restart, and that lowered priority gets inherited by the new instance of firefox. A work-around will be to set a default normal priority on Firefox, and be sure the 'strictly enforce default priorities and affinities' option is turned OFF.

[Scott]

I typed this all out before noticing that Jeremy had already provided an explanation.  Oh well!  I'll leave it in place although parts of it are redundant to what he's already said.

Just in case other users notice the same problem, here is some insight:  When you enable, disable, or update an add-on, Firefox presents a "Restart Firefox" button.  When you click that button, Firefox's window disappears, but it still works in the background, launching another copy of firefox.exe.  Depending on what your doing (e.g. updating/enabling/disabling several add-ons, etc.), this can cause enough of a CPU spike that Process Lasso restrains the original firefox.exe process.  (Is it just that my system sucks?  Sheesh, Jeremy, now you've gone and made me sad! )

The problem is that if firefox.exe launches the new instance while being restrained by Process Lasso, the new firefox.exe process inherits the restrained priority level from its parent.  By default, this means the new firefox.exe process will be running at "Below Normal" priority.  And since that is the true original priority level of that copy of firefox.exe, Process Lasso does not set it back to Normal priority.

An easy workaround is to set the default priority of firefox.exe to Normal.  However, this will only work if the "More strictly enforce default priorities and affinities" option is disabled.

[Jeremy Collake]

Ok, I have made adjustments to v3.54.7, which will be available soon. I believe this should fix up the firefox problem for most users. It is still possible it could occur under rare circumstances, but it is MUCH less likely. I have additional adjustments planned that will all but remove the possibility of this ever occurring, but they must be deferred a little more as I don't want to make such large changes to the current code base. Other large (and cool) changes are coming to the next beta series, and I will incrementally introduce these adjustments beginning in that beta series.

I used to worry about competitors emerging in this field, but I can tell you that any new competitor is going to spend a LONG time achieving the level of performance Process Lasso has. It has taken years of tweaking the ProBalance algorithm to get it where it is today. Users like heterodox have been instrumental in providing real-world feedback, as my test beds can only show me so much ;o.

[Scott]

I'm glad to hear it, and thank you for mentioning that my feedback has been helpful.  It's funny that some douchebag users have condemned me in the past for offering what they thought was "useless criticism" of Process Lasso.  People are so stupid.

Anyway--LOL--I'm going out of town for a couple days, and may not be able to get back to you on this until April 14th.

[Jeremy Collake]

I'm glad to hear it, and thank you for mentioning that my feedback has been helpful.  It's funny that some douchebag users have condemned me in the past for offering what they thought was "useless criticism" of Process Lasso.  People are so stupid.

Hehe, yes you have been very, very helpful. I'm sorry about those users, and for any time that I've resisted bug reports. Sometimes developers and even users get defensive over software they love.

Anyway--LOL--I'm going out of town for a couple days, and may not be able to get back to you on this until April 14th.

Have a good Easter my friend. I think by the time you get back I may have this next beta out, which will be the start of awesome improvements. I'm sure you'll like it .