673365 - IBM Java plugin consumes more CPU cycles with firefox 3.5 and 3.6

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core Graveyard :: Plug-ins, defect)

Description

[sithirug]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.18) Gecko/20110614 Firefox/3.6.18 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build ID: 20110614230723

Steps to reproduce:

Recreation steps:
1) Install IBM Java on windows (Happening on IBM Java7 which is under development)
2) open two tabs with firefox 3.5 or 3.6
3) In one tab, open swing Java awt text area applet (which uses IBM Java plugin)
4) In another tab, open Java swing text area applet (which internally uses IBM Java plugin)
5) Change input method to Japanese and start typing characters in both swing and awt tabs alternatively
6) AWT window stop responding. Clicking on enter will bring up text in the screen. It is not repainted properly.

I have attached word document, which has bitmap pictures which explains the scenario. This issue seen on windows xp/7/vista.

It happens only with firefox 3.5 and 3.6. Does not happen with firefox 4 and above.


Actual results:

Reason for this issue (not repainting when two tabs are opened with input boxes), is because during the testcase scenario, CPU usage is more and some of the paint messages are lost. When I was browsing bugzilla, got to know there is already an issue raised https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=473580 and it is fixed by checking for plugin name "Java(TM) Platform" and firefox does not do some of the operations. IBM Java does not use the "Java(TM) Platform". It uses "IBM Development Toolkit for Java" for its plugin dll. 

So the workaround provided by https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=473580  is not helping IBM Java. It works only for Oracle Java.

I came across another bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=605928, where the whole section which increases CPU cycle is been removed (in firefox 4 and above)






Expected results:

Here we need firefox team to fix this issue on firefox 3.5 and 3.6 by doing either

1) Removing the section which consumes more CPU cycle as in firefox 4 and above (fix for https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=605928 should be applied to firefox3.5 and 3.6)

2) Make the workaround in firefox 3.5 and 3.6 ((ie) ignoring section which consumes more CPU cycles for Java plugin),  work for any Java plugin. Instead of checking for Product name as "Java(TM) Platform", check for some other way which is common in all Java plugins. Like look for keyword "Java"

This will fix the issue of more cpu cycles while using IBM Java plugins

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

It's unlikely that such a change will be made for FF33.6 as they are in the security maintenance mode.
CC'ing vlad who fixed that bug with a "Java(TM) Platform" exception.

Comment 2

[sithirug]

Can you please let me know whether this bug will get fixed in ff 3.5 and 3.6

Comment 3

[Josh Aas]

We're almost certainly not going to take further changes to Firefox 3.5 and 3.6 unless they are security fixes. Steve Michaud may have more to say about this particular situation, cc'd him.

Comment 4

[Steven Michaud [:smichaud] (Retired)]

We've stopped releasing new updates for FF 3.5.

And FF 3.6 is now in "maintenance mode", which means we only fix bugs
that effect "security or stability".  This bug isn't security-related,
but it might be considered a stability issue.

Chris, what do you think?

If we do fix this bug in an FF 3.6 release, we'd want to do it as
simply as possible (to avoid unanticipated side effects).  This means
we'd probably choose alternative #2 from comment #0 (change the patch
for bug 473580 to also check for the IBM Java plugin).

Comment 5

[LegNeato]

We wouldn't take this in 2.6 and as you say 3.5 is dead / EOL. I'd be midly curious if this was a regression somewhere in 3.6.x or if it happened in 3.6 proper, but that will only slightly tip the scales to doing something about it.

Comment 6

[sithirug]

Problem is seen even with 3.6. As it is also seen with 3.5, it is regression introduced before 3.6. 

As 3.6 is still in support, please fix 3.6 stream.

Comment 7

[Virtual_ManPL [:Virtual] 🇵🇱 - (please needinfo? me - so I will see your comment/message/reply/question/etc.)]

I'm marking this bug as WONTFIX per bug #1269807.

For more information see - https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2015/10/08/npapi-plugins-in-firefox/