385169 - combination of two pages with flash content locks up with high CPU utilisation and becomes unusable

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core Graveyard :: Plug-ins, defect)

Description

[David Campbell]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a6pre) Gecko/20070619 Minefield/3.0a6pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a6pre) Gecko/20070619 Minefield/3.0a6pre

I find that these web pages I provide cause firefox to lock up, but not immediately, but after a short while.

This problem also visible in the production release of Firefox 2.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start a fresh firefox browser instance
2. In one tab view http://australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,21926288-5013046,00.html
3. In another tab view http://australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,21935040-15306,00.html
4. Wait...soon enough, after 5-10 minutes firefox will start burning lots of CPU and becomes non-responsive and you have to kill it off

Actual Results:  
Firefox locks up

Expected Results:  
Firefox shouldn't lock up

Comment 1

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Confirmed.

Comment 2

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Attachment: Interesting task manager screenshot

Comment 3

[Malcolm Kantzler]

I have this problem pretty regularly now, and it seems that at least one thing that triggers it is when using a sites "browse" tab to locate and download a file (image) to be displayed on the web site, as though the interaction with file manager (it is file manager that's invoked?) causes the problem.  Twice, when uploading images using site's "browse" button to retrieve HD-stored files, it repetitively locked up, again and again, as I kept going back after ending the process and relaunching to get the car pics uploaded to the auto sale site.  Another time it happened repetitively like that on a photography site where images were being uploaded to a profile using the "browse" button on the site, and it has happened sometimes when right-clicking on browser images to save them to the HD (which is another case of file manager interaction?  File manager in XP is buggy too--might be a factor?)

On a very few occasions it stopped itself (2% tops) after grabbing the CPU for a minute, but rest of time must use task manager to end the Firefox process.  The high CPU usage (97% and up) makes the rest of the system useless. Another thing that may or may not matter, there are always multiple tabs open, at least 8.

This is critical.  Have even thought of going to damn MS's Explorer!

Dell Inspiron 8200 1GB Ram 2.4GHz CPU; XP(2) Home.

Thx.  

Comment 4

[Malcolm Kantzler]

Firefox 2.0.0.8

Comment 5

[Malcolm Kantzler]

Didn't have this problem before 2.0.0.8 .  How can I get back the previous version??

Comment 6

[Malcolm Kantzler]

Or maybe the version two updates back, don't recall.

Comment 7

[Malcolm Kantzler]

Have not had the problem since 2.0.0.9 update, but did not see where this problem was one that the update fixed.

Comment 8

[Malcolm Kantzler]

This went away after 2.0.0.9 update, but now, since 2.0.0.10 update it's BACK!  CPU usage goes to 98-99, must KILL with task manager, initiated by clicking browse button on a site to select image-file upload.  REPETETIVE.  Cannot get upload to site through upload button process.  Where can I GO BACK to previous version (.9)??

Comment 9

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b2pre) Gecko/2007112810 Minefield/3.0b2pre

I can't reproduce this on the latest trunk build. I think for security reasons you could better use trunk (it's a usable browser at the moment if you don't drag bookmarks to organize them) than to downgrade to 2.0.0.9.
But if you really want: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/

Comment 10

[Malcolm Kantzler]

I didn't get an e-mail on that, and I can't tell what I.m supposed to download to get the 2.0.0.9 version loader, but I'll have to say that If you can't get this fixed (last three versions now) the program isn't worth keeping, despite how nice everything else is.  Not that I'd ever go to Explorer, but I'm beginning to think alternatives.

Comment 11

[Malcolm Kantzler]

Don't know about Trunk.  Can you e-mail a URL?  THX

Comment 12

[Malcolm Kantzler]

BTW, this time it went into its frenzied CPU dance of death when I clicked a link to go from a PayPal payment detail page back to my account overview.  I had clicked a different link, and just before it left the page, I clicked the overview link to go there instead.  Transitioning link re-assignment causes problem??

Comment 13

[Tim]

My comment is an overall view of what I have read.  I don't recall reading what operating system everyone is using.  I have high cpu usage when downloading a page and downloading a streaming video.  My operating system is Windows XP and this is the problem I have and it started about the same time Microsoft did a security update 11/14/07.  That is when I started have my problems. Another thing that gets me is my brother has Vista for his operating system and he has no problems with Firefox.

Comment 14

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

What version of flash player are you running?

Install flashblock and I think you will see the problem of comment 0 is flash related. With no flash images running, CPU is nominal, 0-5%.

There are 6 flash images on both pages.
- Enabling the 4 video control/selection items in the "IT Video" area on one or both pages has little impact.  
- Enabling the 2 advertisements (1 above and 1 below "Latest Blog"), on one page has a significant increase in CPU.
- Enabling the 2 advertisements on the other page, in addition to the first, seems to cause more than a simple additive, linear increase in CPU - 30-50% cpu
- scroll the 2 adverts of the active tab out of view and CPU goes nominal
- come back a little later and cpu is at 20-40% - more than one would expect for flash images that are out of view.

I cannot confirm that it locks up.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9b4pre) Gecko/2008021504
Shockwave Flash 9.0 r115

Comment 15

[David Campbell]

Here's the flash player detail:

[root@clevo ~]# rpm -q -a | grep flash
libflashsupport-000-0.1.svn20070904
flash-plugin-9.0.124.0-release

Comment 16

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

do you see this problem with flash v10?

Comment 17

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

This is WFM 3.1 beta 1, flash v10

please reopen bug if you can reproduce under those conditions