546683 - Extremely slow typing in gmail window (seen on both Windows and Mac)

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: General, defect)

Description

[Derek Winters]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2) Gecko/20100115 Firefox/3.6 GTB6 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2) Gecko/20100115 Firefox/3.6 GTB6 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

Ever since installing Firefox 3.6 on my WinXp and Snow Leopard machines I have experienced extremely slow response while typing replies to long email threads.  Normal emails do not cause any problems.  But as soon as I try replying to threads that have roughly 80+ replies the typing speed starts dropping off dramatically.  I never saw this issue on FF 3.5.x and I do not see it on Chrome.  But 3.6 is handling this case very badly.  In some instances I see it banging out characters I've typed every 5-10 seconds (and no, I'm not exaggerating).

I can reproduce this on multiple long email threads with friends on my gmail account.

The only common extensions I have installed between my two WinXP machines and my Mac are AdBlock Plus and Xmarks.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Log onto gmail account
2.  Create an email thread to other email account(s).
3.  Continue sending paragraphs of text, web links, etc. back and forth until the thread count gets really high
4.  Watch for degraded typing speed in reply windows.  It will get slower and slower and slower.
Actual Results:  
Typing gets very slow.  The more emails on the thread the slower it goes.  In some instances it takes 5-10 seconds for EACH character to appear from a sentence you have already typed.

Expected Results:  
Typing should be instantaneous

Comment 1

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.3a2pre) Gecko/20100217 Minefield/3.7a2pre

I don't experience this problem. Can you retest in safe-mode / with a new profile?
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Basic+Troubleshooting#Make_a_new_profile

Comment 2

[Derek Winters]

I tried in safe mode on WinXp.  Reproduced successfully.

I tried with a new profile on WinXp.  Reproduced successfully.

I'll have to wait till I get home to try on my MacBook but I am guessing the result will be the same.  I don't think this bug is platform specific.

Comment 3

[Noah (NoahSUMO/SolidSnake) [:Noah]]

I think having 80+ replies in a single email is the key here. Although I don't think it would be possible to forward all those to another email, if the emails are too personal or private.

But if they aren't, I have a test email account setup at [e-mail] for that purpose and I can try reproducing this problem.

Otherwise, I'll see if I can copy an essay or something then send myself that same message over and over again. Maybe you should post the emails in a Word document then do a word count to see how many words are present.

Comment 4

[Derek Winters]

I have sent you one of the sample emails that has been causing me problems for bug 546683.  However, I'm not convinced it's the size of this actual email because the thing looks to be chopped to pieces by all the different email programs being used to reply to it.  I'm thinking it has more to do with the work the gmail javascript has to do to keep track of all the previous replies in the thread.  If I scroll down through this email it only has a very small portion of the actual replies on this thread.  So I'm not sure this will actually help you out at all.

Comment 5

[Almeida]

Happens exactly the same with me at Windows 7 Ultimate, only since updating to v3.6.1. Never happened before. Also tested a new profile or in safe-mode. Always the same behaviour.

After not even 5 minutes of use it becomes nearly unusable, with very slow reaction and even the mouse pointer or the typing become slow, kind of "dragged", like if it was a very old PC running it.

It only happens at Firefox, all other programs run perfectly (so it doesn't seem RAM problem to me).

Also, "Close" button doesn't responde. Only closable by right clicking in task bar and then choosing "Close".

Comment 6

[Almeida]

Updated to v3.6.3 and problem remains.
Also reproduced at safe-mode or with a new profile or with new clean install.

It's unbearable, on any website or page you type it kind of freezes... one character per second or less.

Again, it only happens a few time after using it, about 5 minutes.

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

reproducible also with trunk?
 ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/

Comment 8

[Almeida]

Not reproducible anymore since latest versions/builds

Comment 9

[Derek Winters]

I have not tested this in a long while as I was forced to switch to Chrome to work around this exact issue and it seemed like it was never going to be fixed in Firefox.  I'll attempt to retry Firefox over the next week or so to see if it's still happening.

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Thanks Almeida. Hopefully Derek can confirm, and close with resolution set to WORKSFORME.

Comment 11

[Stephanie Daugherty [:sdaugherty]]

WFM per comments and lack of reporter's response. Reporter - if this is still 
an issue please reopen the bug.