298789 - Means of identifying "bad" tabs

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, enhancement)

Description

[Gavin Lambert]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4

I frequently browse with about 20-30 tabs open.  And I frequently find that --
even when supposedly idle -- Firefox can be consuming ~300MB of RAM and 95% CPU
or more.  This is not entirely unexpected, although a little irritating.  I've
actually taken to forcing Firefox's process priority to BelowNormal so that it
doesn't interfere (much) with my other apps.

However sometimes I really do need to clean out memory and/or get spare CPU
cycles, and I don't want to close Firefox as a whole.  I'm sure that the
problems are being caused by one or two "rogue" tabs (typically either
containing lots of graphics or plugins), but at present there is no good way of
identifying them.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:



Expected Results:  
So: what I would like to see in Firefox is a window/dialog that shows you the
amount of RAM and CPU being used on a per-tab basis (ie. if I closed that tab,
how much CPU/RAM would it free up?).  Being able to leave that window open while
performing other actions (such as switching to the "bad" tabs, bookmarking them,
and/or closing them) would be a bonus, but not strictly essential.

As an aside, page-based JavaScript and plugins should always be running in a
thread with lower priority than the chrome, so that rogue tabs won't slow the UI
to a crawl.  Not sure if this is already the case or not, but it doesn't seem
like it.

It's not immediately obvious from the Firefox website where feature requests
should be posted.  This seemed like the best place at the time.  If it isn't,
then you need to make your website clearer :)

Comment 1

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

This is not something that has any end user appeal, and therefor isn't going to
get any UI in Firefox. Marking WONTFIX.

Comment 2

[Gavin Lambert]

On what grounds?  I'm an end user, and it appeals to me.  I know several other
people it would appeal to as well.

Comment 3

[Wolf [:wolf]]

As in, its not likely to appeal to more than a small number of users. The
average end-user has no idea of things like Chrome, JavaScript or really a solid
understanding of CPU/RAM use.
To me, It sounds like alot of code for very little usable worth. Java applets
and plugins are usually the culprits of CPU use. If you're experiencing 90%+ cpu
use alot, there's probably something wrong.

I agree with Comment #1, marking as wontfix again.

Comment 4

[Gavin Lambert]

If you're not willing to make a fully-fledged UI for it (as seems common, given
the number of settings not covered in the Preferences UI), then can we at least
have *some* way of obtaining this information?  Maybe even something as obscure
as navigating to "about:bloat" or something.  But currently you just can't get
that information anywhere.

To be useful, though, whatever mechanism is used to call it up must be
accessible when a rogue page or plugin is trying to use up 100% CPU.  Which is
why I said that the chrome needs to run on a higher-priority thread than the
page content.  I remain convinced that this is not currently the case, what with
the frequency that Firefox displays the "white screen of boredom".

Comment 5

[Gavin Lambert]

Most users *don't* need to know about chrome or plugins or anything like that,
you're right.  But they will be concerned with "what page is making my computer
run dog-slow?  And how do I fix it without losing all my other pages?"

That's exactly what I want to know, too.

Comment 6

[Gavin Lambert]

Another alternative: since you've mentioned that plugins are usually the culprit
(and I tend to agree, although I suspect that Flash plugins are more likely to
be the cause than Java plugins -- they're a lot more common), how about a
user-settable option to pause processing on any plugins whenever they're not on
the currently-visible tab.  (ie. Flash doesn't animate, sound doesn't play, etc.)

This would also help the "mysterious background music coming from WhoTF knows
where" problem :)

It might be a little tricky with some applets that do things like download
management, but perhaps you could put in an "exceptions" list.

This doesn't seem like it should be all that difficult, and it'd dramatically
improve Firefox's visual performance (especially since every site and their dog
seem to be using Flash these days).