firefox: java_vm stays active forever!

[Gustavo Seabra]

On Apr 3, 2005 9:19 PM, Cameron Simpson <cs at zip.com.au> wrote:
> On 03Apr2005 16:07, Gustavo Seabra <gustavo.seabra at gmail.com> wrote:
> | Ie noticed a weird thing here. I using firefox and, whenever I open a
> | web page that needs java, for example,
> |
> | http://www.nyu.edu/pages/mathmol/txtbk2/btube.htm
> |
> | it opens a java_vm process. So far so good. The problem is that, if I
> | close the tab (or even the window) that needed the java, or go to
> | another page that doesn need java, the java_vm process just stays
> | there forever. It never stops, unless I close all instances of
> | firefox, or kill the process manually, which crashes firefox
> | completely.
> |
> | Is there anywhere I can set it to kill the java_vm process when it's
> | not needed anymore? (I know I can do that in Konqueror, so I thought
> | it should be possible in Firefox as well...)
> 
> Possibly not. The JVM gets started once and hangs around because a JVM
> has a noticable startup cost. If you want web pages with Java content to
> be "snappy" in loading (bandwidth aside) it helps if the JVM is already
> present and initialised, and so it doesn't go away when idle.
> 
> Provided it's consuming no CPU then it's no added burden on your system;
> memory contention will page it out to your swap space if necessary.
> 
> Do you have a technical reason for wanting it gone or does it just seem
> "untidy" to your eye?
> 

Yes, unfortunately I have. I use KDE. Whenever the java needs to use
sounds, it takes control of the sound system, and doesn give this
control back untill the JVM exits. So, if I ever visit a web page with
Java that makes sounds, all system sounds disappear untill I close all
instances of the browser, which may be very inconvenient. And the
funniest thing is that while the JVM controls the sound system, the
system sounds just get stacked somewhere, waiting for KDE to have the
sond again. So, when I close the browser, they all come immediately,
one after the other!

In Konqueror, we can at least select an option to close the jvm if
it's not needed anymore, so the same problem doesn't happen there.

-- 
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Gustavo Seabra                 Graduate Student
Chemistry Dept.         Kansas State University
Registered Linux user number 381680
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If at first you don't succeed...
                              ...skydiving is not for you.