Closed Bug 1427325 Opened 6 years ago Closed 9 months ago

Firefox Quantum Causes Mac OS Intel GPU Spikes

Categories

(Core :: Audio/Video: Playback, defect, P2)

57 Branch
defect

Tracking

()

RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: zhoumarc, Unassigned)

References

(Blocks 1 open bug)

Details

(Whiteboard: [gfx-noted])

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.12; rv:57.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/57.0
Build ID: 20171226083017

Steps to reproduce:

I couldn't locate when the bug would appear, it happens randomly on different types of websites. Sometimes it occurs on Youtube, sometimes it doesn't, same occurs for other websites.


Actual results:

When the bug occurs, my Intel GPU temperature would spike up for unknown reasons. The temperature will not come down unless I reopen Firefox or putting Firefox in the background and using other software. I've checked my system, my GPU memory and my GPU processor were normal, not spiking up, the same for my CPU, but the GPU temperature would still spike up.


Expected results:

The temperature shouldn't spike up unless I am doing some GPU intensive tasks, which I wasn't.
Component: Untriaged → Graphics
Product: Firefox → Core
see also bug 1420699 and its dependencies
Does it only happen when you visit some video websites? How about general web pages or WebGL pages? Thanks!
Flags: needinfo?(zhoumarc)
After a week of testing, I've been able to locate where the bug is located at. Well... I don't think it's a bug now, but it occurs mainly on Youtube when I'm watching 4k videos, but still occurring on other pages BBC, Netflix etc. I'm pretty sure it is an optimisation or hardware acceleration problem cause my GPU won't go crazy if I watch 4k on chrome or safari.
Flags: needinfo?(zhoumarc)
I think this should be a video hardware acceleration issue. Let me forward it to Media team.
Component: Graphics → Audio/Video
Based on Bug 1400787 comment 4,

I will set the dependency on bug 1265824 and bug 1282797.
Component: Audio/Video → Audio/Video: Playback
Depends on: 1265824, 1282797
Whiteboard: [gfx-noted]
Dan, here's another reproduction of your profile spikes. Feel free to close this as a duplicate of a more relevant tracking bug. Do the blocking graphics bugs look like promising avenues to you? Might be another place to start.
Assignee: nobody → dglastonbury
Priority: -- → P2
Hey guys,
I know that you guys are busy debugging, but is it possible to give me an update regarding this issue? For the past few days, my Intel GPU has been spiking 100% constantly reaching 95C when using quantum without any known ways to stop it.
Assignee: dglastonbury → giles
Assignee: giles → nobody
I set out to investigate why I can no longer watch videos on Firefox due to high CPU temps. It turns out it's actually the integrated Intel GPU that's working overtime, so this bug seems to fit the bill.

During HD video playback on YouTube, iStat reports the following:

Chrome: https://imgur.com/DRV2H2Y
Firefox: https://imgur.com/m1l4yh9

CPU consumption on both browsers is roughly similar, so it's not like one is offloading more legitimate work onto the GPU.

I tried switching codecs (H.264 vs VP9) and turning hardware acceleration off altogether. Nothing made any difference, not even setting media.hardware-video-decoding.enabled to false.
Firefox's habit of pushing the GPU beyond all reason is proving to be the cause of most of my temperature issues. Is this bug not reproducible or is the Mac platform simply not a priority? It's crazy that I can't even browse Reddit without getting near 100 °C temps on occasion just because there happens to be an animated ad in the sidebar.
Severity: normal → S3

Is anyone still able to reproduce?

Flags: needinfo?(zhoumarc)
Flags: needinfo?(kalle)

Redirect a needinfo that is pending on an inactive user to the triage owner.
:jimm, since the bug has recent activity, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Flags: needinfo?(zhoumarc) → needinfo?(jmathies)

I believe we can resolve this as WFM. I'm happy to report that I haven't seen such abnormal GPU usage in a long time.

Around the time I wrote comment 9, I ended up switching to Chrome, as the situation with Firefox was unbearable. But there was an effort to improve performance on the Mac platform that really changed things for the better. I think I was able to switch back already sometime in 2019.

Flags: needinfo?(kalle)

Thanks for confirming!

Please open a new bug if you find more issues with Firefox in the future.

Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 9 months ago
Flags: needinfo?(jmathies)
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
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