Bug#591397: Iceweasel produces error popups before starting and runs incredibly slowly

[Richard Kettlewell]

Package: iceweasel
Version: 3.5.11-1

Iceweasel runs extremely slowly in my unstable VM.  This is a relatively 
new development (it used to be acceptable fast).

First, it displays dialog box but removes it too quickly to read it, 
then after a while displays one which reads:

   An error occurred while loading or saving
   configuration information for firefox-bin. Some of
   your configuration settings may not work properly.

There are Details and OK buttons, neither of which appear to do anything.

After waiting a bit more a large, empty window appears.  A bit after 
that the title changes to match the page I wanted to visit.  With 
sufficient patience it does actually display the web page.

System load remains very low (<0.1) during all of this.

An strace fragment while it's failing to get anywhere:

open("/var/lib/dbus/machine-id", O_RDONLY) = 46
fstat64(46, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=33, ...}) = 0
read(46, "620e4e5789a46d4838ff0b004746dfa0"..., 33) = 33
close(46)                               = 0
rt_sigprocmask(SIG_BLOCK, [CHLD], [], 8) = 0
pipe([46, 48])                          = 0
pipe([55, 60])                          = 0
clone(child_stack=0, 
flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, 
child_tidptr=0xb7583748) = 2517
close(48)                               = 0
close(60)                               = 0
read(46, "unix:abstract=/tmp/dbus-VqVjSbtp"..., 1024) = 81
read(46, "", 1024)                      = 0
waitpid(2517, [{WIFEXITED(s) && WEXITSTATUS(s) == 0}], 0) = 2517
rt_sigprocmask(SIG_SETMASK, [], NULL, 8) = 0
close(46)                               = 0
close(55)                               = 0
socket(PF_FILE, SOCK_STREAM, 0)         = 46
connect(46, {sa_family=AF_FILE, path=@"/tmp/dbus-VqVjSbtpYZ"}, 23) = -1 
ECONNREFUSED (Connection refused)
close(46)                               = 0
open("/var/lib/dbus/machine-id", O_RDONLY) = 46
fstat64(46, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=33, ...}) = 0
read(46, "620e4e5789a46d4838ff0b004746dfa0"..., 33) = 33
close(46)                               = 0
rt_sigprocmask(SIG_BLOCK, [CHLD], [], 8) = 0
pipe([46, 48])                          = 0
pipe([55, 60])                          = 0
clone(child_stack=0, 
flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, 
child_tidptr=0xb7583748) = 2522
close(48)                               = 0
close(60)                               = 0
read(46, ^C <unfinished ...>
Process 1748 detached

I tried erasing ~/.mozilla and reinstalling both iceweasel and dbus, but 
the behavior is the same (possibly a little faster but still hopelessly 
slow).  However a later strace doesn't show any mention of dbus, so it 
might well be unrelated.

There is nothing at all relevant-looking in /var/log/kern.log or 
/var/log/daemon.log.

$ uname -a
Linux deodand 2.6.32-5-686-bigmem #1 SMP Sat Jul 24 03:13:16 UTC 2010 
i686 GNU/Linux

ii  iceweasel      3.5.11-1       Web browser based on Firefox
ii  libc6          2.11.2-2       Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries

ttfn/rjk