736602 - Change inactive tab timer clamp setting to something higher than 1hz

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

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

Inactive tabs clamp the timers to 1hz. We could clamp them higher and save some battery life. Suspend forever is not an option, so we need to pick a "high" value.

What value? 1 day?

The pref is "dom.min_background_timeout_value" (see bug 633421)

Comment 1

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

We'd like to get some data on power usage versus clamping frequency. The A-team is working on power monitoring solutions.

Comment 2

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

For the record, I have no issue with bumping this value up, but I do not want to use the pref to disable timers completely. Note that the value affects any tab that is not the selected tab when Firefox is in the foreground and all tabs when Firefox is in the background.

I think there is a bug about disabling timers, JS and events after a period of being in the background built into the platform. I think that's a better approach and I don't want to use some front-end hacks to simulate that either.

We should also provide a way for users to allow pages to request running in the background.

Again, what value should we use? I see no harm in bumping the threshold to anything in the 10 to 30 second range. Maybe up to 60 seconds.

Comment 3

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

Let's test with a 15min throttle. A test page can be found here:
http://people.mozilla.org/~kgupta/bug/761731.html

Comment 5

[Kevin Brosnan [Ex-Mozilla]]

Attachment: patch to increase the timeout to 15m

Comment 6

[microrffr]

Comment on attachment 632069 [details] [diff] [review]
patch to increase the timeout to 15m

Review of attachment 632069 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Doesn't this just add an empty line?

Comment 7

[Kevin Brosnan [Ex-Mozilla]]

Comment on attachment 632069 [details] [diff] [review]
patch to increase the timeout to 15m

Doh qupdate why do you hate me.

Comment 8

[Kevin Brosnan [Ex-Mozilla]]

Attachment: a patch with some code

Comment 9

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

Comment on attachment 632085 [details] [diff] [review]
a patch with some code

I assume this has a noticeable effect on the test file

Comment 10

[Alex Keybl [:akeybl]]

Comment on attachment 632085 [details] [diff] [review]
a patch with some code

[Triage Comment]
Approving for Aurora and Beta in preparation for the B7 go to build. We can also test in QA with tinderbox builds in the morning.

Comment 11

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

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/23e8e357b19d
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-aurora/rev/6ccff991c3b1
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/e1f1b8aa81f8

Comment 12

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

Attachment: follow up to disable a test that times out

Comment 13

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

Might be better to just force the pref back to normal for tests:
http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/build/automation.py.in#309

Comment 14

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

Comment on attachment 632118 [details] [diff] [review]
follow up to disable a test that times out

I'm OK with disabling the test in the short-term, but I think we need to reset the timeout pref for mochitests using the link I posted.

Comment 15

[Matt Brubeck (:mbrubeck)]

Comment on attachment 632118 [details] [diff] [review]
follow up to disable a test that times out

[Approval Request Comment]
Risk to taking this patch (and alternatives if risky): Android-only test-only change to silence a failing test.

String or UUID changes made by this patch: None.

Comment 16

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

Attachment: patch to change pref for tests

Comment 17

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

Comment on attachment 632134 [details] [diff] [review]
patch to change pref for tests

I think this method is preferred

Comment 18

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto [:gcp]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/9d7563ac386c
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-aurora/rev/776c453ae0ea
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/62cad754d390

Comment 19

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

Comment on attachment 632134 [details] [diff] [review]
patch to change pref for tests

[Triage Comment]