1307125 - Slow script dialog is irrelevant to non-technical users.

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?)]

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #1306683 +++

Firefox 50.0b2, Mac OS X v10.11.6, MacBook Pro 2.7 GHz

STR:

1) Launch Firefox and have 10-15 tabs open (possibly more)
2) Allow browser to go idle overnight at least once
3) Visit https://www.wellsfargo.com
4) The site will start to load, then kind of freeze, then sometimes you see the progress spinner (from the OS) and for sure you will see the slow script dialog prompt

As a user, this dialog is meaningless and the various options make it worse. If we can't fix this problem, I'd recommend we at least improve the user experience. 

This issue has become worse as of 49 and 50. It seemed to get better with 48. It was bad in 46 and 47. This is my #1 problem with Firefox and I use it for hours all day, every day. If there are profiles needed, please send me instructions via IRC.

Comment 1

[Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?)]

Shorlander, seems like we could do better for our release population here. I'd suggest we put the debug option behind a pref. We could also simplify the messaging to something like "wellsfargo.com seems to be hung" and use less technical language than "stop script".

Also note that Android has a similar dialog for hung apps. I think the options it gives are "kill app" and "wait".

Comment 2

[Stephen Horlander [:shorlander]]

(In reply to Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?) from comment #1)
> 
> Shorlander, seems like we could do better for our release population here.
> I'd suggest we put the debug option behind a pref. We could also simplify
> the messaging to something like "wellsfargo.com seems to be hung" and use
> less technical language than "stop script".
> 
> Also note that Android has a similar dialog for hung apps. I think the
> options it gives are "kill app" and "wait".

Do you know if there a better way to reproduce a Slow Script notification bar than wait for https://www.wellsfargo.com to hang Firefox?

Comment 3

[Stephen Horlander [:shorlander]]

Never mind, I found infiniteloop2.html on bug 1164286

Comment 4

[Stephen Horlander [:shorlander]]

(In reply to Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?) from comment #1)
> 
> Shorlander, seems like we could do better for our release population here.
> I'd suggest we put the debug option behind a pref. We could also simplify
> the messaging to something like "wellsfargo.com seems to be hung" and use
> less technical language than "stop script".
> 
> Also note that Android has a similar dialog for hung apps. I think the
> options it gives are "kill app" and "wait".

I think the messaging from the notification bar in Nightly is closer to what we would want.

We could change it to (for example):

The site wellsfargo.com is causing Firefox to slow down.

Would you like to stop it or wait and see if it recovers?

[Stop It] [Wait]


I agree we should not show the Debug button to release users. Maybe leave it on for Nightly and Dev Edition?

This sounds like a quality of experience UX issue to me, CCing Markus since his team is working on that. Also CCing Michelle to see if she has any thoughts on copy.

Comment 5

[Markus Jaritz [:markus] (UX)]

Thanks. We will look into it.

Comment 6

[mheubusch]

The proposed copy looks good to me - I will let Markus determine if this is a priority fix for UX.

Comment 7

[:Gijs (he/him)]

We've removed the parent process version of this dialog; the notification bar wording is already very close and we'll evaluate any further improvements there separately.