291278 - Form elements (especially text-fields) are very slow since Firefox 1.0.3 Update

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[jmksf]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WinNT4.0; en-US; rv:1.7.7) Gecko/20050414 Firefox/1.0.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WinNT4.0; en-US; rv:1.7.7) Gecko/20050414 Firefox/1.0.3

I have a slow 450 Mhz computer with Windows NT 4.0. With Firefox 1.0.2,
everything worked fine, but since I updated to 1.0.3, form elements like
input-fields, textareas and listboxes are very slow and limp behind the cursor.
E.g. when I type "Hello World" into a textarea-field, I can see the whole text
one or two seconds after I finished typing.

This problem is very bad when I enter text into a phpBB-forum, in any other
forms it is also slow, but not that slow as in the phpBB-forum (e.g. when I want
to edit a new topic).

The result of this problem is that it is heavily to edit text, because I always
have to wait until Firefox really displays the text I typed.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. For example, open http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/search.php
2. Enter a text into the seach field; Note that this problem exists only on slow
computers (not that 1,5 Ghz machines or something like that...)


Expected Results:  
It should be that fast as in 1.0.2 ;)

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Do you get the same result if you run Firefox in the Firefox safemode ?

Comment 2

[Peter van der Woude [:Peter6]]

NT4 is officially not supported is it ?

Comment 3

[jmksf]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Do you get the same result if you run Firefox in the Firefox safemode ?
> 

Hello yes I can reproduce it also in saver mode.

Comment 4

[Grant Gould]

I am also observing this behaviour, but on a 2GHz machine running Windows XP
Home edition.  The text lags so far behind the cursor that after typing for a
while I may have to wait as long as 20 seconds for the text to catch up with the
cursor.

Comment 5

[Alexander Amzin]

I got W2k and PII-400 on my working machine. It's VERY slow.
Well, it is slower at my home machine (Athlon 1500) but not so bad.

Comment 6

[Vincent Lefevre]

I'm also seeing the same behavior under Linux/PPC. I don't remember since which
upgrade, Firefox 1.0.3 or 1.0.4. When I'm typing, the "top" command says that
Firefox is taking something like 50 - 60% CPU time!

Hardware/OS should be set to All/All.

Comment 7

[Vincent Lefevre]

Some additional information:
  * Moving the cursor is slow too.
  * Pasting text is fast (as normal).
  * Listboxes are slow, as described in the bug report.
  * The Firefox interface is fast (only element from pages are slow).

Comment 8

[Peter van der Woude [:Peter6]]

This does not seem to be a problem on trunk so you probably have to patiently
wait untill Firefox 1.1 Preview Release is out

->New
->1.0 branch

Comment 9

[Jean-Marc Desperrier]

Sorry if this means lengthly work, but can you localize a release where it
regressed ? Does it still do the same with a fresh re-install ?

The nightly releases from the 1.0.x branch to localize the regression are
available by going to ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/ or
http://archive.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/nightly/ and looking for the directories
names that end with "-aviary1.0.1".

Comment 10

[Jay Patel [:jay]]

We need to port the Trunk changes in bug 289074 if we are ever going to consider
thi on the branch.  Please renominate if we get to that point.

Comment 11

[Jay Patel [:jay]]

See Mozilla Security Advisory:
http://www.mozilla.org/security/announce/mfsa2005-41.html for more information
and a list of bugs fixed on the Trunk.

Comment 12

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

(In reply to comment #10)
> We need to port the Trunk changes in bug 289074 if we are ever going to consider
> thi on the branch.  Please renominate if we get to that point.

bug 289074 was the starting point for the *branch* changes. To fix this we'd
likely have to switch to the alternate implementation checked into the trunk
covered by bug 281988 and dependencies. The trunk approach performs better, but
it's less compatible with extensions. They're also very involved multiple patch
and regression checkins, difficult to backout and replace without more risk than
we generally want on the stable branches.

Comment 13

[jmksf]

I just downloaded Firefox 1.0.5, and the problem is fixed! I can now enter text
into any edit field Firefox displays and got no slowing or limping effects
anymore on my 450 Mhz WinNT machine.

VERY GOOD WORK, FIREFOX TEAM! :)

Comment 14

[Vincent Lefevre]

I would just like to note that after the upgrade to Firefox 1.0.5, the problem
still occurred. But several other problems appeared. They were all (including
this bug) solved after disabling the Tabbrowser Extensions.

Comment 15

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Then it's clear that this is another TBE bug