812911 - Adobe Flash Player Experiences 100% CPU Usage

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core Graveyard :: Plug-ins, defect)

Description

[zzzzzzzzzz.bugzilla]

The Bug:
When the context menu of Adobe Flash content that has a customized context menu is displayed, a CPU core experiences sustained 100% CPU usage.

Versions of Firefox:  Tested to occur on Firefox ESR 10 series, Firefox 6 series, and Firefox 3.6 series.  Other versions untested.

Considerations:
The Out-of-Process plug-in container ("plugin-container.exe") should not be used.  The bug is not observable when the plug-in container is used.

Other observations:  
The problem does not manifest for all customized Flash context menus; however, the problem does consistently manifest for flash content where the problem manifests.

Speculation:  The problem may manifests when the flash content's context menu is customized a certain way.

The bug has been tested to manifest with the following is used together:
- Windows 2000 Professional with Service Pack 4 or Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 or Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3
- Mozilla Firefox 3.6.28 or Mozilla Firefox 6.0.2 or Mozilla Firefox ESR 10.0.10esr
- Adobe Flash Player 10,3,183,43 or Adobe Flash Player 10,3,183,29 or Adobe Flash Player 10,3,183,18 or Adobe Flash Player 10,3,183,11

Procedure to reproduce:
Please use the software listed in the "The bug has been tested to manifest with the following is used together" section to perform the procedure described herein.
1.  Perform a clean installation of Mozilla Firefox and Adobe Flash Player. (The uninstaller for Adobe Flash Player should be available at: http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_14157 ; Windows 2000 compatible uninstaller seems no longer available)
2.  Disable the Out-of-process plug-in container (see procedure in next section for instructions)
2.  Completely close Mozilla Firefox.
3.  Open Mozilla Firefox and browse to http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/flash/as3contextmenu/ ()
4.  Open Windows Task Manager (Can easily be done using Shift + Ctrl + Esc), set it to remain always on top, and select the "Performance" tab.
5.  Position Windows Task Manager such that both the Adobe Flash Player Object labeled "Right-Click me to check Context Menu." in the Mozilla Firefox content area. and Windows Task Manager's "CPU Usage" meter are visible.
4. Right-Click the Adobe Flash Player Object labeled "Right-Click me to check Context Menu.".
5.  Observe Windows Task Manager's CPU Usage.

Procedure to Disable Out-Of-Process Plug-ins:
1.  Open Firefox and browse to about:config .
2.  Set the following variable to false:
For Firefox 6 and Mozilla Firefox (and ESR) 10 series:
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled
dom.ipc.plugins.java.enabled
For Firefox 3.6.x, where x is greater than or equal to 4:
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npctrl.dll
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npqtplugin.dll
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npswf32.dll
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.nptest.dll


Useful URLs:
Mozilla Firefox ESR download page: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all.html
Adobe Flash Player archives: http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_14266

Comment 1

[zzzzzzzzzz.bugzilla]

Also, the 100% CPU usage can be observed for YouTube videos.

Comment 2

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

>The bug is not observable when the plug-in container is used.
Disabling the plugin-container is not supported by Mozilla and also by Adobe in current Firefox versions.

Firefox3.x and Firefox6 are EOL and only Firefox10ESR is currently supported but it will be soon replaced by Firefox 17ESR. Disabling OOP in Firefox17 is afaik no longer possible on Vista+ (bug 769721)

Comment 3

[zzzzzzzzzz.bugzilla]

(In reply to Matthias Versen (Matti) from comment #2)
> >The bug is not observable when the plug-in container is used.
> Disabling the plugin-container is not supported by Mozilla and also by Adobe
> in current Firefox versions.
> 

Mozilla does however support the use Mozilla Firefox ESR 10 on Windows 2000 (I originally observed the problem on Windows 2000).  Mozilla Firefox always runs the Adobe Flash Player plugin in-process and not out-of-process in Windows 2000 family operating systems, regardless whether the plugin-container has been disabled.

Though I had no explicitly mentioned it, for Windows 2000, the disabling of the plugin-container is not necessary and may be skipped ("Procedure to reproduce" step 2 may be skipped). Even though the out-of-process preferences may be set to have the plugin-container used, the plugin-container would not be used and the 100% CPU usage problem manifests.

Wherefore, this issue does appear to be supported (so long as Windows 2000 cannot use the plugin-container) and I request that it be fixed in at least the Firefox ESR 10 series.

Comment 4

[zzzzzzzzzz.bugzilla]

I also forgot to mention in the bug report that I had also tested this issue in the Opera 10.63 web browser, which, from what I understand should make use of the same Adobe Flash Player plugin as Firefox.  Opera 10.63 does not use out-of-process plug-ins (that seems to have been introduced in Opera 12.00, but disabled by default as of Opera 12.02).

The 100% sustained CPU core usage could not be observed for Opera 10.63.

Comment 5

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Firefox10ESR gets only security fixes. Your bug report is valid for Firefox10ESR but will not be fixed. I guess that the 100% CPU is caused by a flash player change because it happens in several different Firefox versions and I don't remember an old bug about this.
The flash player is doing browser sniffing as you can see by this feature that is only available for Firefox.:
http://blogs.adobe.com/asset/2012/06/inside-flash-player-protected-mode-for-firefox.html

I CC'ed one of our plugin developers. He will either agree to the wontfix or will reopen this report.

Comment 6

[zzzzzzzzzz.bugzilla]

(In reply to Matthias Versen (Matti) from comment #5)
> Firefox10ESR gets only security fixes.
> ...
> I CC'ed one of our plugin developers. He will either agree to the wontfix or
> will reopen this report.

There are security considerations relating to this bug, though they may not have been evident from my report.

Although, the 100% sustained CPU usage occurs constantly across the versions of Adobe Flash Player that I have used and tested, the behavior for the different player versions while at 100% sustained CPU usage has not been consistent across the versions.

Administrators/Users may reject updated versions of Adobe Flash Player because of significantly reduced utility from using the updated versions.  The systems with such versions of the Adobe Flash Player are then vulnerable to the security issues fixed in the updated releases of Adobe Flash Player.

For me (and wherefore the organizations and users I represent), the greatest issue with the updated versions of Adobe Flash 10.3 is frame skipping during video playback.  I have noticed that Adobe Flash Player Adobe Flash Player 10,3,183,11 seems to typically playback without or without much frame loss when the 100% sustained CPU core usage issue manifests; however, Adobe Flash Player 10,3,183,43 heavily skips frames when the 100% sustained CPU core usage manifest.  I have chosen to use Adobe Flash Player 10,3,183,11 or Adobe Flash Player 10,3,183,18 to mitigate and better manage the frame loss/skipping issue when the 100% sustained CPU core usage issue manifests.  Not really ideal, but the best that can be done with Firefox unless the bug is fixed.

Comment 7

[zzzzzzzzzz.bugzilla]

(In reply to Matthias Versen (Matti) from comment #5)
> I guess that the 100% CPU is caused by a
> flash player change because it happens in several different Firefox versions
> and I don't remember an old bug about this.
> The flash player is doing browser sniffing as you can see by this feature
> that is only available for Firefox.:
> http://blogs.adobe.com/asset/2012/06/inside-flash-player-protected-mode-for-
> firefox.html

I have not yet fully read the article (something to do for tomorrow), but I do not think the article applies to the 10.3 series of Adobe Flash Player (which was the only series I tested); there also are versions of the Adobe Flash Player software for which the 100% sustained CPU core usage issue manifests and which were released prior to the release of the Flash Player software with the Adobe Flash Player 11.3 features.

Comment 8

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

The article is just an example that the same plugin can behave different depending on the OS and Browser.