1669098 - Shunwang I-cafe Manager causes severe performance problems due to accessibility API calls

Status: RESOLVED INACTIVE

(Core :: Disability Access APIs, defect)

Description

[Kajamin]

Attachment: event manager snapshot.png

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/86.0.4195.1 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

1. Fresh install Firefox
2. First run is fast
3. Close Firefox and restart, open any website.

Actual results:

Browser is becoming much slower (switching tabs, opening menu, scrolling or anyother operation) until the browser UI is almost stucked. I cannot even close Firefox.

Refresh from "about:support" will partially resolve the issue. First run from Refresh is fast, however, restart Firefox makes it slow again.
"Safemode" behaves the same as Refresh.

I didn't make any modification to firefox. Everything keeps identical as newly installed.

78esr has the same issue.

Expected results:

Fast as normally.

Comment 1

[Andrei Purice]

Setting a component for this issue in order to get the dev team involved.
If you feel it's an incorrect one please feel free to change it to a more appropriate one.

Comment 2

[Olli Pettay [:smaug][[e-mail]]]

Kajamin, could you try to create a performance profile using
https://profiler.firefox.com/ and share the url created using Publish button in the profiler's UI?
Try to create the profile when the browser is starting to show up signs of slowness.

This is obviously not normal behavior, but we need some more information. Does some external software (some antivirus program for example) cause the issue or what?

Comment 3

[Kajamin]

(In reply to Olli Pettay [:smaug] from comment #2)

Kajamin, could you try to create a performance profile using
https://profiler.firefox.com/ and share the url created using Publish button in the profiler's UI?
Try to create the profile when the browser is starting to show up signs of slowness.

This is obviously not normal behavior, but we need some more information. Does some external software (some antivirus program for example) cause the issue or what?

Hello, the profiler website seems to be blocked by the ISP. I cannot publish it directly from the machine in question. So I downloaded the profiler data and share it with OneDrive urls. Hope it helps.
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AskY_u9RN_cWcZBA12M0Etc8o-Q
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AskY_u9RN_cWcEQOKZ0SvFzniHc

Comment 4

[Olli Pettay [:smaug][[e-mail]]]

I see uiautomationcore.dll in parent process doing something unexpected. https://share.firefox.dev/2IKjkkY
Kajamin, do you have some accessibility software running, or perhaps some test automation?

Yura, does this ring any bells from accessibility point of view?

Comment 5

[Marco Zehe (:MarcoZ)]

CC also Jamie in case he can spot something we already know about.

Comment 6

[James Teh [:Jamie]]

Kajamin, could you please also provide the info from the Accessibility section of about:support? That is, go to the address about:support using the address bar, find the Accessibility heading and copy the information in that section. Thanks.

Comment 7

[Kajamin]

First boot after fresh install or Refresh (normal)

Accessibility
Activated false
Prevent Accessibility 0
Accessible Handler Used true
Accessibility Instantiator

Restart Firefox (very slow)

Accessibility
Activated false
Prevent Accessibility 0
Accessible Handler Used true
Accessibility Instantiator UNKNOWN|C:\Windows\SysWOW64\AppUtilHD2.exe

The only accessibility software should be Sougou input method. Didn't find any test automation.

Comment 8

[Kajamin]

Sorry, a correction for the above information.

Restart Firefox (very slow)

Accessibility
Activated *true
Prevent Accessibility 0
Accessible Handler Used true
Accessibility Instantiator UNKNOWN|C:\Windows\SysWOW64\AppUtilHD2.exe

Also I found this information appeared only once.

Accessibility
Activated true
Prevent Accessibility 0
Accessible Handler Used true
Accessibility Instantiator UIAUTOMATION|

Comment 9

[Yura Zenevich [:yzen] (please use "needinfo")]

Looks like this is Windows specific, and Jamie is already aware of this issue.

Comment 10

[Kajamin]

Checked AppUtilHD2.exe, I found it was signatured by Shunwang (an internet cafe management software). Turn off accessiblity from about:config, problem resloved.

Comment 11

[James Teh [:Jamie]]

(In reply to Kajamin from comment #10)

Checked AppUtilHD2.exe, I found it was signatured by Shunwang (an internet cafe management software).

Did you expect this to be installed on your system? If not, uninstalling it might be a good idea.

Turn off accessiblity from about:config, problem resloved.

That will resolve it, but only because it prevents AppUtilHD2.exe from doing whatever it's trying to do. It also prevents anyone using accessibility tools from using Firefox, which is problematic in an internet cafe situation.

It doesn't seem like AppUtilHD2.exe has any good reason to use accessibility, so we might want to consider blocking this in Firefox.

Comment 12

[Kajamin]

(In reply to James Teh [:Jamie] from comment #11)

Did you expect this to be installed on your system? If not, uninstalling it might be a good idea.
The issue was first found in a local internet cafe which equiped with Windows 10 LTSC 2019 + Shunwang manager. Then it reappeared in a nearby internet cafe with the same system and Shunwang manager. Previously I thought it was Windows 10 specific because Firefox used to work fine in the same cafe before the they upgrade Windows 7 to Windows 10. BTW, Firefox works perfect on my own PC with Windows 7.

That will resolve it, but only because it prevents AppUtilHD2.exe from doing whatever it's trying to do. It also prevents anyone using accessibility tools from using Firefox, which is problematic in an internet cafe situation.

It doesn't seem like AppUtilHD2.exe has any good reason to use accessibility, so we might want to consider blocking this in Firefox.

Shunwang I-cafe Manager is widely used in Chinese internet cafes. I've no idea why it uses accessibility but it does cause the terrible experience for Firefox users. If you could, please block this malware. Thank you.

Comment 13

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:Jamie, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 14

[James Teh [:Jamie]]

Kajamin, can you still reproduce this? This should hopefully be resolved by Cache the World, which is enabled by default in Firefox 113, as it significantly increases the speed of accessibility queries.

Comment 15

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

Redirect a needinfo that is pending on an inactive user to the triage owner.
:Jamie, since the bug has recent activity, could you please find another way to get the information or close the bug as INCOMPLETE if it is not actionable?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 16

[James Teh [:Jamie]]

Since we can no longer reach the reporter and we don't have access to this software, this is not actionable. That said, it is hopefully resolved as per comment 14.