1269972 - Gif images make firefox freeze and stutter

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[ashen]

After updating to Firefox 46 I started noticing that when I browse 9gag or any site that has gif images performance is horrendous and the browser simply freezes. I started disabling add-ons one by one to rule out influence but nothing helped. Restarting in safe mode(no add-ons enabled) fixes this immediately, performance is as smooth as you can wish it to be. Hence I did a refresh of Firefox but this did not solve the problem at all. However if I restart my just refreshed Firefox in safe mode then the problem fixes.

Comment 1

[Loic]

Safe mode disables HWA. Can you test with HWA turned off.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/forum-response-disable-hardware-acceleration

In addition, enter about:support in the location bar and paste the section graphics.

Comment 2

[ashen]

HWA was it, when disabled specifically everything improves. Jees, I resorted to using IE for some time.
Anyway, here's the graphics section:

Adapter Description	NVIDIA Quadro 2000M
Adapter Drivers	nvd3dumx,nvwgf2umx,nvwgf2umx,nvwgf2umx nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um
Adapter RAM	2048
Asynchronous Pan/Zoom	none
ClearType Parameters	Gamma: 2200 Pixel Structure: R ClearType Level: 50 Enhanced Contrast: 0
Device ID	0x0dda
DirectWrite Enabled	false (10.0.10586.0)
Driver Date	3-18-2016
Driver Version	10.18.13.6213
GPU #2 Active	false
GPU Accelerated Windows	0/1 Basic (OMTC)
Subsys ID	1631103c
Supports Hardware H264 Decoding	No; Hardware video decoding disabled or blacklisted
Vendor ID	0x10de
WebGL Renderer	Google Inc. -- ANGLE (NVIDIA Quadro 2000M Direct3D11 vs_5_0 ps_5_0)
windowLayerManagerRemote	true
AzureCanvasBackend	skia
AzureContentBackend	cairo
AzureFallbackCanvasBackend	cairo
AzureSkiaAccelerated	0

Comment 3

[Ciprian Muresan [:cmuresan], Ecosystem QA]

I have tested your issue on latest FF release (46.0.1) with HWA enabled/disabled, I've browsed on 9gag home page and also on 9gag "GIF" category, images seem to load as usual and I haven't observed any performance issues in loading gifs. The page is loading fast and scrolling down the website works as smooth as possible, I haven't encountered any rendering issues or latency. 
I haven't managed to reproduce it using a PC with the following specifications:
 - Windows 10 x32 Bit
 - Processor: i5-6500 CPU @ 3.20GHz (4 CPU's)
 - Memory: 16384MB RAM, Available OS Memory: 2290MB RAM

The issue might be something related to your configuration, could please you give us more information regarding your hardware specifications?
Also could you please take a profile as you are experiencing your issue and post your results.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Performance/Profiling_with_the_Built-in_Profiler

Comment 4

[pringo4]

I have been running into this issue as well. It is present in Firefox 46 but I have noticed it for a few versions now.

I can crash Firefox fairly consistently by following these steps:

1. Open http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=798812&page=19 (page with a number of large GIFs) in new tab. Do not actually go into the tab at first however. Just let it load in the background.

2. Wait for a few minutes then open the tab and try to scroll to the bottom. It's not necessary for the tab to be finished loading yet.

3. Firefox will stutter and freeze.

This is in Firefox 46.0.1 64-bit Windows 10.

Comment 5

[pringo4]

I just tested with HWA disabled as well and it seems to help somewhat but Firefox still has issues with stuttering and briefly freezing up. It did not outright crash when I had HWA disabled however.

Graphics info from about:support

Adapter Description	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580
Adapter Drivers	nvd3dumx,nvwgf2umx,nvwgf2umx,nvwgf2umx nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um
Adapter RAM	1536
Asynchronous Pan/Zoom	none
Device ID	0x1080
Direct2D Enabled	true
DirectWrite Enabled	true (10.0.10586.0)
Driver Date	5-9-2016
Driver Version	10.18.13.6519
GPU #2 Active	false
GPU Accelerated Windows	1/1 Direct3D 11 (OMTC)
Subsys ID	086a196e
Supports Hardware H264 Decoding	Yes
Vendor ID	0x10de
WebGL Renderer	Google Inc. -- ANGLE (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 Direct3D11 vs_5_0 ps_5_0)
windowLayerManagerRemote	true
AzureCanvasBackend	direct2d 1.1
AzureContentBackend	direct2d 1.1
AzureFallbackCanvasBackend	cairo
AzureSkiaAccelerated	0

Comment 6

[Ciprian Muresan [:cmuresan], Ecosystem QA]

I was able to reproduce the stuttering and freezing using the URL from comment 4 on the latest Firefox Release (46.0.1, Build ID 20160502172042). However I wasn't able to do the same with the latest Nightly (49.0a1, Build ID 20160530071207).
Would you mind retesting this issue on the latest Nightly (https://nightly.mozilla.org) and provide the results? When doing this, please use a new clean Firefox profile.

Comment 7

[pringo4]

(In reply to Ciprian Muresan [:cmuresan] from comment #6)
> I was able to reproduce the stuttering and freezing using the URL from
> comment 4 on the latest Firefox Release (46.0.1, Build ID 20160502172042).
> However I wasn't able to do the same with the latest Nightly (49.0a1, Build
> ID 20160530071207).
> Would you mind retesting this issue on the latest Nightly
> (https://nightly.mozilla.org) and provide the results? When doing this,
> please use a new clean Firefox profile.

I got the same results as you did. On a clean profile with Nightly 49.0a1 I did not encounter the issue and was able to scroll down the page smoothly.

Comment 8

[Ciprian Muresan [:cmuresan], Ecosystem QA]

I have further investigated the issue and found that it is not reproducible on the latest Firefox beta (47.0b9) and Aurora (48.0a2). Seeing as a new release will soon come(June 7, 2016) I will mark the issue as Resolved-Worksforme based on comment 6 and comment 7.