The "thread dump" feature should be an absolute requirement for any language runtime environment. Java has perfected this with the SIGQUIT signal. Thread dumps

The "thread dump" feature should be an absolute requirement for any language runtime environment. Java has perfected this with the SIGQUIT signal. Thread dumps give you readable stacks of all threads with a simple user command (kill -3 on Linux/Unix, although a bit more difficult on Windows), without having to install symbol files, install additional software, run "scary" commands (for end users), etc. This is a textbook example of taking a few thread dumps, a few minutes apart, immediately showing what is going on. IBM has one of these as their Performance or Hang "MustGather" script: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21115785&aid=4 http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21115785&#3... .NET thread dumps suck -- you have to use adplus to attach and they're not easy to read. Native programs (e.g. C/C++) work better with symbols and are just too scary for end users. DTrace on Solaris with Ruby/Python/PHP extensions is nice, but too cumbersome to install, and again too scary for end users. I'm not aware of built-in thread dumps-by-signal in other non-Java languages (please note in a comment if there is), but this feature is so basic and needs to be baked in to every runtime environment and easy enough for end users to use. Firefox, being a native program, is in a bad problem determination position here and the haphazard nature of the problem determination process in the forum and bug report shows that. I suggest Firefox create something like IBM's MustGather scripts (starting with a performance one such as IBM's hang MustGather -- http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21115785 http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21115785 [click "Show Details" for the steps]). A hang MustGather should go through the process of installing symbol files, getting the thread stacks, submitting the information, etc. This will allow users to at least feel like they can do something valuable to help the developers fix the problem.