726370 - [tablet] Tab switching takes 1-6 seconds, depending on number of tabs open. Ditto opening tabs.

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect, P2)

Description

[nemo]

Firefox 10 works great.  I can browse with perhaps 8 tabs open, and apart from missing the old multicolumn tab display that worked so well on this tablet, there is no lag or delay.

Firefox Nightly, however, if I have only 2 tabs open, switching from one to the other usually takes a second or two, although sometimes longer, especially when first starting up.  There is no obvious pattern but page size seems to influence it.
As the number of tabs climbs, it gets worse and worse

As is my habit on Reddit, I open the cute pictures of animals and memes in new tabs (same as on Firefox 10), to inflict on those nearby.  As the number of tabs climbs, Firefox Nightly slows down more and more.  For 3-4 tabs, opening tab display shows a slight hesitation, and switching between tabs is perhaps 2-4 seconds per tab.

For 6-8 tabs, opening the tab switching will freeze for about 5 seconds.  Tab thumbnail then refreshes (related?).  Actually touching a tab will then take 4-6 seconds before the tab opens.

In addition, once it crashed on me after the freeze and immediately after touching on a tab to switch to.  The crash did not get picked up by firefox crash reported, did not show up in about:crashes - only Android application abnormal termination.

All this began around January or so.  It was more usable in December.  Prior to fixing the bug on slow tab switching, even 1 or 2 tabs would take 5-10 seconds to switch.  That has improved, but it is far from fixed.
Also, it seems to me that as this happens, I see more and more often large areas checkerboarding on pages, especially when scrolling or immediately after switching to a tab.

I've been trying to use the Nightly just to catch any surprises, but it is pretty much unusable for browsing, and I've been forced to retreat back to stable.

Acer Iconia A500, unrooted, stock Honeycomb w/ usual updates.  Restarting device does not appear to help anything.

Comment 1

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

This seems to be better now. Can we close this? Remember that this is for tablets.

Comment 2

[nemo]

Um. Lemme check once I get home. Don't have tablet with me at the moment.

Acer still hasn't pushed out ICS, so environment hasn't changed, fortunately.

Comment 3

[nemo]

Is indeed all better! Thanks guys!

Can go back to using nightly on a regular basis (will, still would be nice to have more tablet friendly tab switching, but hey)

Comment 4

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

based on comment 3