327722 - Firefox freezes for 15 seconds on The Independent (major UK newpaper)

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[AM]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060111 Firefox/1.5.0.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060111 Firefox/1.5.0.1

mozilla.org build of firefox.

Go to
http://comment.independent.co.uk/letters/
and click on a link to a letters page. They start

Letters:.....

The user interface then freezes for 15 seconds before the page comes up.
The effect is particularly easy to see when using tabs since the
"loading tab" animation freezes too after about 5 seconds.

I am reporting this on a G3 powerbook using a cable modem,
 but the same thing occurs
to me on Linux too (Suse rpm build from ftp.suse.com) on a high end
biprocessor, 64 bit xeon- Thus it seems to be a more general than just mac os x.
Despite the great difference in performance of the machines the freeze
is still about 15 seconds. "Top" does /not/ show firefox using large
amounts of CPU.

This is a major UK web site which is very difficult to navigate with
firefox. 

Cross checking with Safari (to see that network is OK) leads to
rapid loading of page.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Go to http://comment.independent.co.uk/letters/

2. Click on a "Letters:..." link

3. Try to switch tabs or open a menu

Actual Results:  
Browser freezes 15 seconds every time

Expected Results:  
Link should open rapidly

I see this on very high level linux workstations,
as well as under mac os. (Suse 10)

Comment 1

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060111 Firefox/1.5.0.1
The site takes about 3 - 4 seconds to load here. Computer has average specs.

Comment 2

[tnp]

I get similar on Win98 Firefox 1.5.X on www.ft.com

It is associated with huge numbers of javascript errors.

Seems to absorb the whole of the CPU - all tabs and all instances of firefox lock for up to 90 seconds before the page displays.

Its a fairly poor CPU - celeron 433 - but even so..

I have confirmed this with several other firefox users on the local usenet groups. I suspect it is some (de;liberate?) incompatibility between Mozilla browsers and Microsft oriented javsacript generators.

Comment 3

[Hiro]

WFM
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20060902 Minefield/3.0a1

Comment 4

[Steve England [:stevee]]

Reporter, do you still see this problem with Firefox 2.0? If not, can you please close this bug as WORKSFORME. Thanks!

Comment 5

[tnp]

2.0 seems a little slower than IE on my problem sites, but at last they actually work without errors.

That is, they render correctly? well they render as in IE6 and do not show errors. :-)

As far as I am concerned my issues at least are fixed. Or should that be FOXED haha.


Thank you guys.