671448 - CPU usage spikes causing unresponsiveness

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 686025

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[Daniel]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:8.0a1) Gecko/20110713 Firefox/8.0a1
Build ID: 20110713030741

Steps to reproduce:

Browsing normally for about one minute.


Actual results:

CPU usage raised to 25% (on quad core) without obvious reason. Clicking especially the panorama button or the bookmarks button makes the browser freeze completely (for ~10 s).

Scrolling the page, typing in a text box or switching tabs does not cause a freeze.

I can not reproduce this on a clean profile, but the issue still appears with all add-ons disabled (and sync deactivated).

I have experienced the problem on a dual core machine as well where the CPU usage hit ~50%. It was synced with my current computer.

How can I investigate this issue further?

Comment 1

[Tim (fmdeveloper)]

Please post the contents from about:support for the profile exhibiting the issue as an attachment to this bug

Comment 2

[Daniel]

Attachment: about support contents in safe mode

Comment 3

[Tim (fmdeveloper)]

You should update your graphics driver to the latest release - http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/radeonmob_win7-64.aspx#1 should be the one you need

Nothing jumps out in the about:support

Are their reliable steps to get the spike?

Comment 4

[Daniel]

I don't know what actions trigger the spike but it happens every time. Usually after 1-2 minutes after startup and then every couple of minutes.

Thanks for the link but I can unfortunately only install drivers from HP... No updated ones available. I don't think it's the graphic drivers though. I have two cards (Inter/AMD) and it happens with both.

Comment 5

[Daniel]

I've been able to reproduce on a fresh profile after connecting to sync

Comment 6

[Tim (fmdeveloper)]

How much data are you syncing? Moving to the Sync category -> you should probably post a sync-log and that usually helps track down the issue

Comment 7

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

More importantly, what kind of machine are you running? I've seen one report from a user experiencing slowness and lockups, and it turned out that the user was using a 1.6 Atom netbook with 1GB RAM and Windows 7.

OS + Firefox + Sync requires modern hardware. If you're using a modern CPU with a decent amount of memory, that will be of interest.

Comment 8

[Daniel]

(In reply to comment #7)
> More importantly, what kind of machine are you running? I've seen one report
> from a user experiencing slowness and lockups, and it turned out that the
> user was using a 1.6 Atom netbook with 1GB RAM and Windows 7.
> 
> OS + Firefox + Sync requires modern hardware. If you're using a modern CPU
> with a decent amount of memory, that will be of interest.

Yes, I'm using a modern CPU (Intel Core i5 M480 2.67GHz) with 6GB RAM. It's a relatively new HP laptop.

Comment 9

[Daniel]

Attachment: Sync log

Here's my most resent sync log but the spikes are more frequent than the dates in about:sync-log show so I'm not sure it is the syncing itself.

Comment 10

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

> Here's my most resent sync log but the spikes are more frequent than the
> dates in about:sync-log show so I'm not sure it is the syncing itself.

Quite possibly not. Seems like Bug 670064…

Comment 11

[Daniel]

(In reply to comment #10)
> Quite possibly not. Seems like Bug 670064…

Indeed it does :)

I have done some more testing and confirmed that the bug isn't connected to sync. Here is what I did:

1. Created a new profile - no problems
2. Connected profile to my sync account - spikes and unresponsiveness
3. Unlinked from sync - still spikes and unresponsiveness
4. Cleared all history from the beginning of time - the problem went away

Seems much like bug 670064

My old profile is still around for investigation but I don't really know how to proceed.

Comment 12

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

Anything you'd like to investigate, mak?

Comment 13

[Daniel]

I've had issues with my Firefox Mobile as well but I didn't connect these two problems until now. Clearing the history there got rid of the lagginess I had experienced and I think it is the same root cause.

There was no total UI freeze on mobile, but the issue was severe there too. 

Is there any more information I can provide to help sort this out?

Comment 14

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

(In reply to comment #13)

> There was no total UI freeze on mobile, but the issue was severe there too. 
> 
> Is there any more information I can provide to help sort this out?

This is outside of my area of expertise. I'd be interested to know:

* Which device
* Which Firefox Mobile version
* Approximately how much history you had

Comment 15

[Daniel]

(In reply to comment #14)
> (In reply to comment #13)
> 
> > There was no total UI freeze on mobile, but the issue was severe there too. 
> > 
> > Is there any more information I can provide to help sort this out?
> 
> This is outside of my area of expertise. I'd be interested to know:
> 
> * Which device
> * Which Firefox Mobile version
> * Approximately how much history you had

* The device is a Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo
* running Firefox 5.0
* with 5.2 MB of history data (Atccording to sync server quote on my laptop. I don't know if it's accurate)

Comment 16

[Daniel]

If it's of interest I've found out that the supposedly corrupted data is in the "Browsing & Download History" category in the "Clear All History" dialog box. I cleared the categories one by one until the spikes disappeared.

Comment 17

[Daniel]

Some new info:

I am unable to reproduce the bug anymore with the old profile. Perhaps the history was cleaned automatically?

Similar symptoms as before are now starting to show up on my new default profile. I am not sure if it is "infected" in the same way though (let's hope not...), and I have no idea what caused it in that case.

Comment 18

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

This looks like it might be Bug 686025.

Comment 19

[Daniel]

(In reply to Richard Newman [:rnewman] from comment #18)
> This looks like it might be Bug 686025.

Yes that is quite possible. If i remember correctly the ui froze more often than once every 10 min in my case though.

Comment 20

[Daniel]

(In reply to Daniel from comment #17)
> Similar symptoms as before are now starting to show up on my new default
> profile. I am not sure if it is "infected" in the same way though (let's
> hope not...), and I have no idea what caused it in that case.

This new issue with my current profile disappeared after following the simple steps described here: http://blog.bonardo.net/2011/09/30/is-your-firefor-freezing-at-regular-intervals

Comment 21

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

Sounds like this was fixed by bug 686025, if the add-on cleared it up. Should close this, or dupe against that bug?

Comment 22

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

(In reply to Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich) from comment #21)
> Sounds like this was fixed by bug 686025, if the add-on cleared it up.
> Should close this, or dupe against that bug?

That works for me. mak can reopen if he disagrees :D

Comment 23

[Daniel]

(In reply to Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich) from comment #21)
> Sounds like this was fixed by bug 686025, if the add-on cleared it up.
> Should close this, or dupe against that bug?

The second time it was clearly bug 686025, but I can't know for sure it was the same as the original problem. Duping is fine though since it might have been the same and I can't reproduce anymore.