565578 - Performance rapidly degrades, and eventually starts dragging down all of OS X

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Jeff Simon]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_3; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.22.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Safari/531.22.7
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 GTB7.0

At first this seemed similar to Bug 554689. However, it is not the same. I had severe problems with Firefox a number of months back, that got so severe that I stopped using it and switched to Safari for several months. Then the problem was apparently fixed and I resumed using Firefox, which I have now been using for several months.

However, in the last week or two, the type of symptoms has apparently returned.

Please note, this is on OS X 10.6.3.

The problem gets really bad after only a couple of hours since loading Firefox. I see in Activity Monitor that Firefox is using a lot of CPU, and the whole system is slow. After quitting Firefox, the system speeds up. Often I have to Force-Quit at this point, as it won't just exit on its own. And after restarting Firefox, it is initially responsive, but the cycle repeats in a few hours, as stated.

So for now I am forced back to Safari, as the pattern is that soon after restarting Firefox, it gets really slow. Slow to load pages, slow to respond to clicks on its controls.

Here are the installed Addons:

1Password 3.1.2
Firebug 1.5.4
Google Toolbar for Firefox 7.0.20100326M
Keyfixer 0.4.3
Xmarks 3.6.14

I am reporting this in the hope that it helps, as Firefox is (normally) my preferred browser.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Start Firefox
2.Use it for a few hours.
3.Force-Quit Firefox and go to step 1.
Actual Results:  
Performance of Firefox becomes unacceptable, and the whole OS does too.

Expected Results:  
Performance of Firefox and OS X should remain stable and acceptable.

I have given the Severity as Major. But the actual result for me is the workaround of not using Firefox. You decide how severe you consider that, as for me, the workaround is acceptable but not preferred, whereas for Mozilla, it could be a show stopper.

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Do you get this without addons -> http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode ?
Such problems are often caused by bugs in third-party addons.

Comment 2

[Jeff Simon]

I have not tried without addons. However, nothing new in the way of addons lately, except Firebug updates. Is that know to cause issues?

Unfortunately I have not been able to reproduce the Firefox issue since this morning when I rebooted the Mac.

Comment 3

[Jeff Simon]

Yesterday after rebooting the Mac, performance of everything was restored to normal. However, today when running Firefox, it got to a point after about 2 hours where the problem recurred. I am going to try to add an attachment showing the Activity Monitor.

Comment 4

[Jeff Simon]

Attachment: Screen shot: showing Firebox eating the processor at 97.7%

When this state was reaching, the browser was thrashing heavily in that even entering keystrokes into a form required several seconds between each keypress to appear. The rest of the system was acting normally.

Comment 5

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

The key question is if you get this issue without addons (safemode).
In most cases this is caused by addons.

Comment 6

[Jeff Simon]

I will endeavor to test without addons. However, not having Firebug nearly defeats the purpose of using Firefox. So it would be only as a test to see what happens to not have the addons.

However, since the problem is intermittent, it would take a pretty long test period in the hopes of seeing that over time no problems occurs.

So - how do you run FF in safe mode on the Mac?

Comment 7

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

>However, since the problem is intermittent, it would take a pretty long test
>period in the hopes of seeing that over time no problems occurs.

I know, that's the bad thing with such errors.

>So - how do you run FF in safe mode on the Mac?
see comment #1

Comment 8

[Jeff Simon]

This issue has returned with a vengance, forcing me to switch yet again to Safari. I drags the whole mac down to the point of unusability. After force-quit Firefox, the mac gets happy again.

I am going to disable all Firefox addons, just let it run, and see what happens.

Comment 9

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Reporter, are you still seeing this issue with Firefox 3.6.13 or later in safe mode? If not, please close. These links can help you in your testing.
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+Mode
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles

You can also try to reproduce in Firefox 4 Beta 8 or later, there are many improvements in the new version, http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

Comment 10

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.13 or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). If you continue to see this issue with the newest firefox and a new profile, then please comment on this bug.