Closed Bug 646680 Opened 14 years ago Closed 12 years ago

High CPU Usage with large number of tabs open

Categories

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
General
Version:
4.0 Branch
Platform:
x86_64
Windows Vista
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

People

(Reporter: rokeefe1, Unassigned)

Details

(Keywords: perf)

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; Trident/4.0; chromeframe; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E) Build Identifier: Firefox 4 I am experiencing very high CPU usage when I have a large number of tabs open (~140) If I kill Firefox and reload it then the CPU usage is normal for a while. Over time the CPU usage will increase and so will the amount of memory consumed. I'm suspecting that there is a tab or plugin that is causing this, but I have no way to track down the problem. It is very frustrating because the browser becomes unusable when this happens. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Have a large number of tabs open 2. Keep the browser open for a long period of time and navigate to pages 3. CPU Usage and memory usage will increase. Eventually CPU usage will spike and stay high until restarting the browser Actual Results: The CPU usage stays high. If you close and reopen the browser CPU usage returns to normal. However, over time the same problem occurrs again. Expected Results: CPU Usage does not spike.
Component: General → Security
Version: unspecified → 4.0 Branch
does it happen if you have started in safe mode? http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe%20Mode mostly https links? or gmail or flash?
Severity: normal → major
Component: Security → General
Keywords: perf
I have not tested safe mode, but I can try it out and report back my findings. I believe that Flash could be causing the problem, but I'm not convinced it is the only issue. Are there any sort of diagnostics tools I could use? I have observed that leaving sites like Pandora, which uses Flash, open for extended periods of time can raise CPU usage. I've also observed that when closing the Pandora tab CPU usage will decrease. However, I sometimes experience high CPU usage even when I don't have anything like Pandora or YouTube open. I thought the plugin container was supposed to control all of that and keep the main firefox.exe process safe. I unfortunately can't use an addon like Flashblock because the Wells Fargo web site doesn't work with it installed. Their login process is messed up and uses some sort of flash component when logging in. Flashblock prevents the login process from working normally and makes the site think that the login failed. It seems that if you leave Facebook open for a long period of time that will degrade browser performance as well. I'm guessing that the JavaScript is causing problems. I do also keep Gmail open for extended periods of time. Is that known to cause problems? Another observation that I've had... I was using the browser, I had about 140 tabs open. The browser at one point was consuming 1.2 GB of memory. Performance was so bad that I killed the firefox.exe process. I relaunched it with the wireless off so that the browser wouldn't reload the data in any of the tabs. I then turned the wireless back on. CPU usage was normal. Memory usage was about 150Mb. I reloaded the content in about 25% of the open tabs. Over time the memory usage climbed up to about 850Mb. Does this sound like some sort of JavaScript memory leak? One last observation... I don't have these same problems on the two desktop computers that I use. The only difference is the operating system. The computer that is having a problem is a Windows Vista x64 laptop. The other two computers that I use frequently and in a similar manner are Windows XP desktops. One is an x64 machine and the other is an x86 machine. Both are running the x86 version of Windows XP.
Severity: major → normal
Flash definitely causes a problem. Is there anything I can do about that? I still can't tell one way or another if Javascript is causing problems or if it is something else. I also put my computer in and out of standby quite a bit. I can't tell if that's causing problems or not either. Are there any ways I can further test out these two things? Going in and out of hibernation would be a big difference between my laptop and the desktops that I use. The desktops never go into hibernation.
It would probably help you if the bugs that bug 595574 depends on would be fixed.
Also some other ones, like bug 588975.
installing flashblock may help determine if the issue is really flash or not. Not knowing what are on the tabs makes Comment 4 and 5 are somewhat speculative. Anyway, do you see the problem when using version 8 or 9, and flash at the most recent version (11,1,102,55), and started in safe mode? http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe%20Mode
Whiteboard: [closeme 2012-01-05]
I haven't been seeing the issue of high CPU usage with the newer versions of Flash and Firefox. The memory usage is still an issue, but there are tickets open that are addressing that specific issue (699489).
WFM per comment 7
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 13 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
Whiteboard: [closeme 2012-01-05]
I've started noticing this problem again. It looks like the problem is with Flash or Acrobat reader. I didn't notice this for a while because I wasn't using either. The problem occurs when the laptop goes into hibernation and back out several times. The CPU usage problem isn't quite as bad as it used to be, but the issue is still there. Since the problem appears to be with a third party component I'm not sure if there is anything that can be done about this or not.
Status: RESOLVED → UNCONFIRMED
Resolution: WORKSFORME → ---
If it's an issue with a OOP plugin then killing the plugin container process should help. Please try to do this next time and report back.
It would be great to reduce this bug to a single issue, and ensure that someone other than you to reproduce that single issue. And of all the things you mention, I suggest your point about facebook is very much worth pursuing ... (In reply to rokeefe1 from comment #2) > It seems that if you leave Facebook open for a long period of time that will > degrade browser performance as well. I'm guessing that the JavaScript is > causing problems. I do also keep Gmail open for extended periods of time. > Is that known to cause problems? And you might profile when facebook is causing firefox to behave badly. I've used the profiler on Thunderbird, but not on firefox. So I can only point you to https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.platform/jOklwc7AdC8
Whiteboard: [closeme 2012-10-01]
Resolved per whiteboard.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 13 years ago → 12 years ago
Resolution: --- → INCOMPLETE
Whiteboard: [closeme 2012-10-01]
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