622024 - Display sometimes freezes for 1-2 seconds (due to activity in other tabs?)

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core :: General, defect)

Description

[Vincent Lefevre]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.16) Gecko/20101226 Iceweasel/3.5.16 (like Firefox/3.5.16)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.16) Gecko/20101226 Iceweasel/3.5.16 (like Firefox/3.5.16)

From time to time, in particular when there are many other tabs and/or when Firefox has been started for a long time, the display freezes for 1 or 2 seconds. For instance:

* For Flash videos, the image freezes (even though there are enough data in the buffer), but the sound continues; so, this is only a display problem. After these 1-2 seconds, the image display resumes, but remains synchronized with the sound, i.e. the images during these 1-2 seconds ***have never been displayed*** (so, this is very different from what happens in a lack buffering).

* In a multi-line text form with some text, when I press the left or right arrow key (and don't release it), the text cursor moves, but sometimes stops for 1 or 2 seconds. After this freeze, the text cursor jumps about 50 characters (perhaps not a real jump, but this is immediate). This is very similar to the problem I have with the videos.

* When I type text, text sometimes no longer appears, but everything I typed appears after 1 or 2 seconds.

* Similar problem when I scroll vertically. If this is done with a press + drag on the slider, there is a single jump. If this is done with the scrolling feature of the trackpad, there are a few small jumps.

Note: this freeze is quite irregular but can occur several times in a minute.

It seems that the problem is less likely to occur after Firefox is restarted (even with the same tab session).

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open Firefox with several tabs. It seems that the more tabs are opened, the more likely and the more often the problem appears. I'm not sure, but it may be useful to wait for several hours or days.
2. Try one of the things in the details above.
Actual Results:  
The display sometimes freezes for 1 or 2 seconds.

Expected Results:  
There should be no freeze.

The same problem seems to occur under Mac OS X (at least with Firefox 3.6.8).

I had reported bug 543266 concerning the problem with the Flash videos, but now I'm quite sure that this is unrelated to the plugin and it is a more general problem.

Comment 1

[Vincent Lefevre]

Reloading all tabs at once is a good way to make the problem appear more often.

BTW, the whole display is concerned: same text cursor problem in the search bar; the throbbers also freeze for 1 or 2 seconds.

Comment 2

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

Could you see if the issue occurs with a new, empty profile:
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Basic%20Troubleshooting#w_make-a-new-profile
...and also safe mode:
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode

Also, does 3.6.13 make things any better (3.6.8 mentioned above is now quite old)?

Thanks!

Comment 3

[Vincent Lefevre]

3.6.13 in safe mode under Mac OS X has the same problem (reproduced by opening 35 tabs at once).

Comment 5

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

Reporter, please can you confirm whether this issue still occurs using Firefox 4.0.1 (http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/new/) or higher, in Firefox safe mode (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+Mode) and/or with a clean profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Basic+Troubleshooting#w_8-make-a-new-profile). Ideally, also check using the latest nightly: http://nightly.mozilla.org/

If this issue no longer occurs, please close as "Resolved Worksforme".

It it in fact still occurs, please provide as much extra information as possible, including what versions tried, whether safe mode/new profile tested etc. Thanks! :-)

(Template reply to inactive UNCO bugs; also setting closemedate for 2 weeks time, given lack of activity).

Comment 6

[Vincent Lefevre]

I'm currently using my PowerPC-based Mac, but FF 3.6.17 is the latest version.

Comment 7

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

Have you tried TenFourFox? http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/

It's not an official Firefox 4 release, but now that PPC support has been dropped by Firefox 4, is the only way you'll get to see new features or anything other than small fixes, since 3.6.x is no longer going to be updated significantly.

Comment 8

[Vincent Lefevre]

I'm not interested in TenFourFox as plugins will be disabled. Now I'll probably use my Linux machine instead.

Unfortunately I couldn't find a Linux/x86_64 version for Firefox 4.0.1.

I've tried the nightly from http://nightly.mozilla.org/ but I'm really disappointed. The bug seems much worse than with the 3.x versions.

FYI, the build identifier is:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:6.0a1) Gecko/20110515 Firefox/6.0a1

Comment 9

[Vincent Lefevre]

I'm seeing exactly this problem with Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:9.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/9.0.1 Iceweasel/9.0.1 on my laptop. I currently have 53 normal tabs and 4 app tabs.

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

you might install memchaser addon to see if the problem is related to cycle or garbage collection

Comment 11

[Vincent Lefevre]

In practice I no longer see freezes. However this doesn't mean that the problem no longer exists, just that the context (open tabs...) has changed. For instance, I can still notice irregularities in display update when I reload all tabs (something I never do in practice). When this happens, iGC is red with a high value (> 200 ms, sometimes more than 600 ms). The opposite is not true: when it is red, a freeze isn't necessarily noticeable.

Comment 12

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Vincent Lefevre from comment #11)
> In practice I no longer see freezes. However this doesn't mean that the
> problem no longer exists, just that the context (open tabs...) has changed.
> For instance, I can still notice irregularities in display update when I
> reload all tabs (something I never do in practice). When this happens, iGC
> is red with a high value (> 200 ms, sometimes more than 600 ms). The
> opposite is not true: when it is red, a freeze isn't necessarily noticeable.

Still happens?
Better with e10s enabled?

Comment 13

[Vincent Lefevre]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk, use Needinfo for questions) from comment #12)
> Still happens?

Yes, I still get 1-2 second freeze, even after removing the tabs I was working on when the problem appeared.

> Better with e10s enabled?

If I understand correctly, I need a nightly, but they are currently broken (bug 1190621).

Comment 14

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Vincent Lefevre from comment #13)
> (In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk, use Needinfo for questions) from comment
> #12)
> > Still happens?
> 
> Yes, I still get 1-2 second freeze, even after removing the tabs I was
> working on when the problem appeared.
> 
> > Better with e10s enabled?
> 
> If I understand correctly, I need a nightly, but they are currently broken
> (bug 1190621).

you might try https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profilist/ or https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profileswitcher/ instead

Comment 15

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Vincent Lefevre from comment #13)
> (In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk, use Needinfo for questions) from comment
> #12)
> ...
> 
> > Better with e10s enabled?
> 
> If I understand correctly, I need a nightly, but they are currently broken
> (bug 1190621).

OK now?

Comment 16

[Vincent Lefevre]

With Firefox 52.7.3, this is better most of the time, but I can still get freeze for several seconds. I don't know how to reproduce such problems. However, I have never noticed any freeze when playing a HTML video (and I no longer have Flash installed, for security reasons).

Note: I currently don't use more recent Firefox versions as some extensions have not been rewritten yet.

Comment 17

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I don't see such things on win7 nightly build even with 500+ tabs.
But I don't typically have video/flash sites running.

There's not much hope resolving your issue unless it can be narrowed to some websites.
If you are unable to try version 60 I suggest we close this incomplete