10 Sec Delay Launching new Browser from hyperlink - Windows 10

[schwartz1030 0]

schwartz1030 0 last edited by

OS: Windows 10 (up to date)
Browser: Opera for windows up to date

Clicking links from Outlook (32 bit) desktop or Slack or any other application results in a 10 second delay before web page is launched in already open browser.

When I change my default browser to Edge the pages open instantaneously.

When running Process Explorer I can see that a new instance of Opera.exe gets created right away and then there is a ~ 10 second delay, at which point the new tab opens, and the extra process disappears. It seems like it's stuck inside Opera for those 10 seconds.

Any ideas?

(see screen shot)

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer last edited by

Same issue if you open a command prompt and do:

start "test" "https://example.com/"

?

Same issue if you do:

"path to Opera's launcher.exe" "https://example.com/"

?

[schwartz1030 0]

schwartz1030 0 @burnout426 last edited by

@burnout426

Yes, I did all of those and they all have exactly the same 10 second delay.
I also tried both Opera.exe and launcher.exe and same behaviour.

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer last edited by

Okay. Make a standalone installation to a folder on your desktop and try the command line with its launcher.exe.

If it works fine there, I would guess it has something to do with Opera Sync or the number of bookmarks you have.

[leocg]

leocg Moderator Volunteer @schwartz1030 0 last edited by

@schwartz1030-0 What about other browsers, like Chrome, Vivaldi, etc?

[schwartz1030 0]

schwartz1030 0 @leocg last edited by

@leocg Edge is instant when i designate it as default browser.

[leocg]

leocg Moderator Volunteer @schwartz1030 0 last edited by

@schwartz1030-0 Anyone other than Edge or IE.

[schwartz1030 0]

schwartz1030 0 @leocg last edited by

@leocg Chrome is instantaneous as well.

[donq]

donq @leocg last edited by

@leocg said in 10 Sec Delay Launching new Browser from hyperlink - Windows 10:

@schwartz1030-0 Anyone other than Edge or IE.

Newer Edge is Chromium based, no need to ignore it - esp if you don't have Chrome installed.

[leocg]

leocg Moderator Volunteer @donq last edited by

@donq I was more interested in see if Edge being quick had anything to do to the fact that it's probably prefetched.

[donq]

donq @schwartz1030 0 last edited by

@schwartz1030-0 said in 10 Sec Delay Launching new Browser from hyperlink - Windows 10:

Clicking links from Outlook (32 bit) desktop or Slack or any other application results in a 10 second delay before web page is launched in already open browser.

I forgot to ask - if Opera is not already running, do links open fast?

If yes, then there seems to be some problem with Opera interprocess communication - new instance locates running Opera process quickly, but has hard time to communicate new link opening to it.

I don't know, how Opera finds running instance; many-many years ago I encountered some (phone) utility, which effectively blocked DDE requests for a minute or so, delaying our software startup in similar manner - DDE was de-facto standard for interprocess communication then, not so anymore.

Have you installed some (third party) security tool/site? They may interfere somehow.

@leocg
Already running Opera is 'prefetched' anyway

[schwartz1030 0]

schwartz1030 0 @donq last edited by

@donq

Just tried it with opera fully shut down. When I click the link, I watch in process explorer, it starts right away, then ~ 10 second delay before Opera opens with all my tabs and the new link. (I have a lot of tabs FWIW).

[schwartz1030 0]

schwartz1030 0 @burnout426 last edited by

@burnout426 said in 10 Sec Delay Launching new Browser from hyperlink - Windows 10:

Okay. Make a standalone installation to a folder on your desktop and try the command line with its launcher.exe.

If it works fine there, I would guess it has something to do with Opera Sync or the number of bookmarks you have.

OK, that was interesting. I do have 174 tabs open usually. So I renamed my profile and started clean.

When launching clean opera, I see the process start immediately -- then it pauses for ~5-7 seconds, then I get 6-8 processes started and it launches with my web link.

When already open, I click a link again. Same strange delay, 7 seconds before it shows up. Very strange.

[schwartz1030 0]

schwartz1030 0 @donq last edited by

@donq said in 10 Sec Delay Launching new Browser from hyperlink - Windows 10:

@schwartz1030-0 said in 10 Sec Delay Launching new Browser from hyperlink - Windows 10:

Clicking links from Outlook (32 bit) desktop or Slack or any other application results in a 10 second delay before web page is launched in already open browser.

I forgot to ask - if Opera is not already running, do links open fast?

If yes, then there seems to be some problem with Opera interprocess communication - new instance locates running Opera process quickly, but has hard time to communicate new link opening to it.

I don't know, how Opera finds running instance; many-many years ago I encountered some (phone) utility, which effectively blocked DDE requests for a minute or so, delaying our software startup in similar manner - DDE was de-facto standard for interprocess communication then, not so anymore.

Have you installed some (third party) security tool/site? They may interfere somehow.

@leocg
Already running Opera is 'prefetched' anyway

I was thinking the same thing when I went with vanilla Opera (new profile) and it had the same pause. Even when opening clean the first time.

I completely disabled Windows Defender and nothing changed. I don't run any other security software or anti-virus. It's very weird... and frustrating.

I have Opera on my work computer, and it has no such problem.

[donq]

donq @schwartz1030 0 last edited by

@schwartz1030-0
Weird.

No VPN? No extensions? No malware?
No suspicious events in windows event viewer?
No inaccessible storage/network resources?

I have (very rarely) seen programs to access all mapped drives at startup and waiting for some network resource or removable storage to time out or come online.

If you watch Opera traffic (with Fiddler or similar, no need for https decryption) - does it connect to somewhere or is all this 7-10 seconds without network activity?

[schwartz1030 0]

schwartz1030 0 @donq last edited by

@donq said in 10 Sec Delay Launching new Browser from hyperlink - Windows 10:

@schwartz1030-0
Weird.

No VPN? No extensions? No malware?
No suspicious events in windows event viewer?
No inaccessible storage/network resources?

I have (very rarely) seen programs to access all mapped drives at startup and waiting for some network resource or removable storage to time out or come online.

If you watch Opera traffic (with Fiddler or similar, no need for https decryption) - does it connect to somewhere or is all this 7-10 seconds without network activity?

Good suggestions. I checked event viewer months ago, nothing. I did a lot of investigations there first. No VPN, I do that from a VM when I need to use one.

I will do a Malware scan again, but nothing last time. Also, Opera is the only browser affected. I have a couple opera extensions -- probably through the Chrome. I'll try vanilla to rule them out.

I have a NAS that I can access from Windows Explorer but it's not mapped. I will load up fiddler and see what I find.

[schwartz1030 0]

schwartz1030 0 @donq last edited by

@donq said in 10 Sec Delay Launching new Browser from hyperlink - Windows 10:

@schwartz1030-0
Weird.

No VPN? No extensions? No malware?
No suspicious events in windows event viewer?
No inaccessible storage/network resources?

I have (very rarely) seen programs to access all mapped drives at startup and waiting for some network resource or removable storage to time out or come online.

If you watch Opera traffic (with Fiddler or similar, no need for https decryption) - does it connect to somewhere or is all this 7-10 seconds without network activity?

Negative on Malwarebytes.

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer @schwartz1030 0 last edited by

@schwartz1030-0 said in 10 Sec Delay Launching new Browser from hyperlink - Windows 10:

So I renamed my profile and started clean.

Try in actual standalone installation too just for good measure. And, for your regular Opera install, uninstall it (no need to delete your profile when uninstalling since that doesn't make a difference), delete the install folder if it remains, and reinstall. That's just to make sure everything is good with Opera's program files.

You can also try clearing the "C:\windows\prefetch" folder so that Windows rebuilds the cache for Opera.

And, also, try something non-related like going to opera://settings/system and disabling hardware acceleration just to see if Opera on your system is taking a while to do GPU initialization stuff for some reason.

[schwartz1030 0]

schwartz1030 0 @burnout426 last edited by

@burnout426 said in 10 Sec Delay Launching new Browser from hyperlink - Windows 10:

@schwartz1030-0 said in 10 Sec Delay Launching new Browser from hyperlink - Windows 10:

So I renamed my profile and started clean.

Try in actual standalone installation too just for good measure. And, for your regular Opera install, uninstall it (no need to delete your profile when uninstalling since that doesn't make a difference), delete the install folder if it remains, and reinstall. That's just to make sure everything is good with Opera's program files.

You can also try clearing the "C:\windows\prefetch" folder so that Windows rebuilds the cache for Opera.

And, also, try something non-related like going to opera://settings/system and disabling hardware acceleration just to see if Opera on your system is taking a while to do GPU initialization stuff for some reason.

Well, it gets more interesting. Before trying clean, I disabled hardware and things changed. Now, most links open the new tab within 2 seconds. Some links/sites take a bit longer so it's not consistent anymore, seems more aligned with page complexity.

Now when I reenable hardware processing, it is slightly slower but inconsistent. Before it was consistently 7 secs or more. Now it is highly variable. Very weird. I wonder if it was somehow connected to older video drivers/API before?

For now I will keep hardware accelerate disabled.

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer @schwartz1030 0 last edited by

@schwartz1030-0 said in 10 Sec Delay Launching new Browser from hyperlink - Windows 10:

I wonder if it was somehow connected to older video drivers/API before?

There have been weirder things, so it's possible.