660808 - Extremely slow startup on Nexus S compared to HTC Desire HD

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Kadir Topal [:atopal]]

I have a Nexus S with the latest Google provided Android version, and installed Firefox 4.0 on it. Cold start takes over 10 seconds, reproducibly. The same app on an HTC Desire HD starts in about 3 seconds. Since both phones are of comparable hardware the startup time should be about the same. The extremely long startup time makes Firefox rather hard to use for me.

That seems to be a bug. Is there anything I can try to reduce the startup time or a way to provide data to fix the bug, if it is one indeed?

Comment 1

[Kevin Brosnan [Ex-Mozilla]]

If you enable the error console (about:config devtools.errorconsole.enabled) you should be able to get exact timings for startup.

Comment 2

[David Tenser [:djst]]

What code do you run to get the startup time?

Comment 3

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

Just set devtools.errorconsole.enabled = true in about:config and look at the error console. It will show the timings.

Comment 4

[David Tenser [:djst]]

Kadir, you need to download the latest nightly build: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Platforms/Android#Download_Nightly, and then enable the error console as per above. You should then see the startup figures. Please report those back here. Thanks!

Comment 5

[Kadir Topal [:atopal]]

So, here are the results:
Could not read chome manifest file '/data/dataorg.mozilla.fennec/chrome.manifest
timing main: 4805ms
timing first paint: 8103ms
timing session restored 7497ms

this is with the latest nightly.

Comment 6

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

On my Nexus One, using the Nightly I get:
timing main: 1592ms
timing first paint: 2817ms
timing session restored 2472ms

Comparing the two, "main" and "firstPaint" are the largest differences. Taking almost 5 secs to get to the "main" checkpoint is horrible.

Kadir, do you happen to have the Android SDK installed? If so you can use "adb logcat" to get a trace of the startup and it will give us data on the Gecko library loading times.

If you don't have the Android SDK installed, you can install "aLogcat" from the Android Market. It is an app that let's you see the trace and you can get the log off the device and attach it to this bug.

Just start aLogcat and clear the log, then start Fennec Nightly and attach the results of the log.

Comment 7

[Kevin Brosnan [Ex-Mozilla]]

Link to alogcat adb.http://market.android.com/details?id=org.jtb.alogcat

Comment 8

[Kadir Topal [:atopal]]

That's strange, now it just works, more or less the same results as mfinkle :/ Unfortunately I don't know what caused it to start so slow in the first place. I'll leave this bug open and try it a bit more.

Comment 9

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

For comparison, my Nexus One and S

Nexus One -- 
timing main: 1905ms
timing first paint: 3265ms
timing session restores: 3604ms

Nexus S --
timing main: 4858ms
first paint: 9324ms
session restored: 9782ms

Getting similar results on the S, I wonder if it has something to do with installing libraries which I only see on the S.

Comment 10

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

(In reply to comment #9)

> Getting similar results on the S, I wonder if it has something to do with
> installing libraries which I only see on the S.

Got any logcat output?

Comment 11

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

Attachment: Nexus S (logcat)

(In reply to comment #10)
> (In reply to comment #9)
> 
> > Getting similar results on the S, I wonder if it has something to do with
> > installing libraries which I only see on the S.
> 
> Got any logcat output?

See attachment

Comment 12

[Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?)]

Attachment: patch

Comment 13

[Doug Turner (:dougt)]

Comment on attachment 546650 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

i really hate the idea that two threads are racing on this.

Can we first add something like:

+    NS_ABORT_IF_FALSE(NS_IsMainThread(), "not main thread");


to nsWindow:GetLayerManager?

Comment 14

[Doug Turner (:dougt)]

Comment on attachment 546650 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

we need to know why this is happening before patching it.

Comment 15

[Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?)]

I don't have a nexus s to investigate this with, assigning to dougt

Comment 16

[Doug Turner (:dougt)]

I see:

  7 seconds to startup and create a profile.

  3 seconds to warm startup

This phone is stock, no additional software was installed.



Aaron, are you still seeing this?  If so, can you run:

adb shell pm list packages

Do you have your profile on the SD card?

If you move your profile to the SD card (or move it back from the SD card), does this problem go away?

Comment 17

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

Nightly: 08/01, Android 2.3.4, Nexus S 

Cold startup, new profile: [timing] main: 6554ms, firstPaint: 14031ms, sessionRestored: 13134ms --- (Data: 0.0B, Cache, 0.0B)

Warm startup, existing profile: [timing] main: 1138ms, firstPaint: 2331ms, sessionRestored: 2045ms --- Total (20.60MB), Application (15.00MB), Data (5.60MB), Cache (16.26MB)

 - Moving to USB - 
Cold startup, new profile: [timing] main: 6820ms, firstPaint: 11881ms, sessionRestored: 11206ms
Warm startup, existing profile: [timing] main: 1296ms, firstPaint: 2930ms, sessionRestored: 2683ms


Only first-run on a new profile is this a problem, either on the phone or moving to USB.

Comment 18

[Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?)]

by moving to usb do you you mean moving the profile to SD?

Comment 19

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

(In reply to comment #18)
> by moving to usb do you you mean moving the profile to SD?

"Move to USB storage" in Nightly application preferences in Android.

Comment 20

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

The Nexus S does not have Micro SD storage.

Comment 21

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

Aaron - Does this mean we can close this bug? Those warm times are as fast as we get. The cold times seem reasonable given we are extracting the libs.

There might be some dispute over whether extracting and caching the libs is faster overall (cold and warm balance) versus just extracting the libs from the APK all the time.