1434850 - Firefox is freezing up every 5-10 seconds for about 2-4 seconds

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[Preston]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/60.0
Build ID: 20180131220303

Steps to reproduce:

Using firefox nightly (latest build)


Actual results:

Every 5-10 seconds, Firefox will completely stop showing any new changes. For example, if I were typing (this problem is occurring at this moment), it wouldn't show any new characters, and after 2-4 seconds they would all show up extremely quickly. This is only in Firefox, other applications work fine. In addition to this, when unloaded pages get reloaded, they are slow and sometimes even warrant a browser restart. 


Expected results:

Should be smooth like good old firefox.

Comment 1

[[:philipp]]

hi, could you capture a performance profile for this like described at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Performance/Reporting_a_Performance_Problem ?

Comment 2

[Preston]

(In reply to [:philipp] from comment #1)
> hi, could you capture a performance profile for this like described at
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Performance/
> Reporting_a_Performance_Problem ?

I have captured a performance profile, how would you like me to send it?

Comment 3

[[:philipp]]

there should be a share button on top of it, which will upload the profile and provide a link which you can but into a comment here in the bug. thanks

Comment 4

[Preston]

https://perfht.ml/2EvwXy3
got it

Comment 5

[Preston]

(In reply to [:philipp] from comment #3)
> there should be a share button on top of it, which will upload the profile
> and provide a link which you can but into a comment here in the bug. thanks

Firefox nightly has been updated about three times still I have this issue. Is anyone else having this problem?

Comment 6

[Cristina Badescu [:cbadescu], Experiments QA]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/60.0
Build ID: 20180205220102

Hello,

I have tested this issue on latest Nightly build 60.0a1 (2018-02-05) and could not reproduce it. I have accessed different websites and reloaded them, performed different queries on www.google.com and in the search address bar to see if there is any delay in typing, also typed an e-mail using www.gmail.com and everything worked as expected.

Did you encounter this issue on specific websites or it didn't matter what website you've accessed? Where did you encounter the typing delay?

Also, can you please retest this using latest Nightly build 60.0a1 (https://nightly.mozilla.org/) and report back the results? When doing this, please use a new clean Firefox profile (https://goo.gl/AWo6h8), maybe even safe mode (https://goo.gl/AR5o9d), to eliminate custom settings as a possible cause. 

Mike, can you please take a look at the provided Cleopatra profile in comment 4  and see if it helps to find out what caused the issue?

Comment 7

[Preston]

This hitching seems to be happening for every nightly build, and for just about every website. It also renders flash games unplayable, like Tetris at tetrisfriends.com, as the spikes are so common and long. 

My PC is quite far from the router, but I doubt that these spikes are a result of mediocre WiFi connection, and I also doubt that it's because of my CPU, because everything is smooth on other application, like MS Word or Google Chrome. I have been using the latest nightly build at all times, and even reinstalled Firefox. I am currently writing this comment in safe mode, and although the hiccups are less frequent/long, they are still present.

Comment 8

[Preston]

I have the following addons:
Themes:
Firefox Quantum Nightly
Dark (Disabled)
Default (Disabled)
FFX Nightly (Disabled)
Light (Disabled)

Plugins:
OpenH264 Video Codec provided by Cisco Systems, Inc.
Widevine Content Decryption Module provided by Google Inc.
Shockwave Flash

Extensions:
CaretTab - New Tab Clock and Date
Enhancer for Youtube
Gecko Profiler
Grammarly for Firefox
McAfee WebAdvisor
True Key by Intel Security
uBlock Origin
Youtube Dark Purple

Comment 9

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

I see a WebExtension has injected some JS into your content, and it's running rather slowly. 

The internal UUID of the add-on is 3c0313d0-79eb-416f-970b-d6751b1f6a78.

If you go to about:debugging, and compare against the internal UUIDs of your add-ons in that list, which add-on does it map to?

I'm also seeing a few content processes spending time GC'ing and CC'ing, suggesting maybe a large heap and maybe a memory leak there. Possibly related to that same add-on (just speculating there).

Comment 10

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

ni?ing Preston for the add-on that matches the UUID.

Comment 11

[Preston]

It seems to be True Key. I've always had problems with that extension ever since I switched to Firefox.

Comment 12

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

(In reply to Preston from comment #11)
> It seems to be True Key. I've always had problems with that extension ever
> since I switched to Firefox.

If you disable that extension and restart Firefox, do the performance characteristics change?

Comment 13

[Preston]

There seem to be no differences, just as I'm typing this first sentence half of it shows up in half a second. Should I disable Firefox from the True Key panel?

Comment 14

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

(In reply to Preston from comment #13)
> There seem to be no differences, just as I'm typing this first sentence half
> of it shows up in half a second. Should I disable Firefox from the True Key
> panel?

Yes, let's try that.

Comment 15

[Preston]

(In reply to Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️) from comment #14)
> (In reply to Preston from comment #13)
> > There seem to be no differences, just as I'm typing this first sentence half
> > of it shows up in half a second. Should I disable Firefox from the True Key
> > panel?
> 
> Yes, let's try that.

Interestingly enough, True Key didn't recognize the fact that I had True Key in Firefox, so the option wasn't there. I don't believe that True Key is an official Firefox Addon, it isn't in the Addon store.

Comment 16

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

With the True Key extension disabled, can you provide me a new performance profile?

Comment 17

[Preston]

(In reply to Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️) from comment #16)
> With the True Key extension disabled, can you provide me a new performance
> profile?

Sorry I took so long, here it is:
https://perfht.ml/2FRGQWv

Comment 18

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

I see a lot of Grammarly samples in the profile[1]. If you disable that profile, do the performance characteristics change?

[1]: https://perfht.ml/2nOUumA

Comment 19

[Preston]

(In reply to Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️) from comment #18)
> I see a lot of Grammarly samples in the profile[1]. If you disable that
> profile, do the performance characteristics change?
> 
> [1]: https://perfht.ml/2nOUumA

This is with True Key and Grammarly disabled.

The lag is definitely still there but it's much less frequent.

https://perfht.ml/2H5Qwhp

Comment 20

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Thanks, Preston.

This has definitely cleared up the profile. What's remaining seems to be a lot of JS execution for the Polymer polyfill that YouTube is using for Web Components.

Do you have a lot of YouTube subscriptions? If so, this might be bug 1419833.

So, just to confirm, if you experience this behaviour, and then you close all of your tabs at YouTube, does performance return to normal?

If so, we can probably sum up the issues as follows:

1) YouTube Polymer performance issue (bug 1419833)
2) Grammarly add-on performance issue (to be filed)
3) Intel True Key add-on performance issue (to be filed)

Comment 21

[Preston]

(In reply to Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️) from comment #20)
> Thanks, Preston.
> 
> This has definitely cleared up the profile. What's remaining seems to be a
> lot of JS execution for the Polymer polyfill that YouTube is using for Web
> Components.
> 
> Do you have a lot of YouTube subscriptions? If so, this might be bug 1419833.
> 
> So, just to confirm, if you experience this behaviour, and then you close
> all of your tabs at YouTube, does performance return to normal?
> 
> If so, we can probably sum up the issues as follows:
> 
> 1) YouTube Polymer performance issue (bug 1419833)
> 2) Grammarly add-on performance issue (to be filed)
> 3) Intel True Key add-on performance issue (to be filed)

I absolutely have a heck ton of YouTube subscriptions.

With all three disabled my experience was much better.

Should I file the Grammarly and True Key bugs?

Here is the performance profile: https://perfht.ml/2EuT9ee

Thanks so much!

Comment 22

[BP]

I'm unsure if my issue is related to Preston's, but I'm experiencing intermittent performance issues along the same lines. With extensions installed the slowdowns/hangs are as frequent as described in the titles, once every 10 or so seconds, but with both a totally clean, refreshed Firefox Nightly install, as well as a totally cleaned Firefox Nightly install from complete scratch, both with no add-ons, there still remains significant, intermittent (every couple of minutes) slowdown/hang which persists for a seemingly random amount of time.

My slowdowns/hangs seem website and content agnostic. I could merely be browsing a website, watching a video, typing into a form, etc, and no action seems to elicit it more than any other.

Here is a perf report: https://perfht.ml/2Cbga0y

This is my first bug report/comment so if there is any additional information I can provide please feel free to let me know.

Comment 23

[Preston]

(In reply to BP from comment #22)
> I'm unsure if my issue is related to Preston's, but I'm experiencing
> intermittent performance issues along the same lines. With extensions
> installed the slowdowns/hangs are as frequent as described in the titles,
> once every 10 or so seconds, but with both a totally clean, refreshed
> Firefox Nightly install, as well as a totally cleaned Firefox Nightly
> install from complete scratch, both with no add-ons, there still remains
> significant, intermittent (every couple of minutes) slowdown/hang which
> persists for a seemingly random amount of time.
> 
> My slowdowns/hangs seem website and content agnostic. I could merely be
> browsing a website, watching a video, typing into a form, etc, and no action
> seems to elicit it more than any other.
> 
> Here is a perf report: https://perfht.ml/2Cbga0y
> 
> This is my first bug report/comment so if there is any additional
> information I can provide please feel free to let me know.

I agree, the stutters are still there absolutely.

Comment 24

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

(In reply to Preston from comment #21)
> Should I file the Grammarly and True Key bugs?
> 

Yes, please!

(In reply to Preston from comment #23)
> 
> I agree, the stutters are still there absolutely.

The stutters that BP is seeing, according to the profile, are not related to YouTube, so I suspect are not related to the problem you're seeing.

BP - would you mind filing a new bug for the issue you're seeing?

Comment 25

[Ciprian Muresan [:cmuresan], Formerly of Ecosystem QA - please needinfo @mcoman for things regarding the team]

Will close this report given that it was broken down into multiple issues.

2) Grammarly add-on performance issue (bug 1441429) 
3) Intel True Key add-on performance issue (bug 1441431)