860477 - about:healthreport loads slowly

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox Health Report Graveyard :: Client: Desktop, defect, P4)

Description

[Laura Thomson :laura]

It has been observed that sometimes when you open about:healthreport it presents as a blank white pane, and then the healthreport appears after a delay of a few seconds.

Anecdotal evidence suggests it occurs the first time the report is loaded in a freshly downloaded build. I personally have observed this on OS X in Nightly.

I'd like to:
- get reliable STR (QA <3)
- work out if the slowness is server or client
- take steps to remediate

Ideally we should render some parts of the page as quickly as possible, even if the data/graph takes longer to come in.

Comment 1

[u279076]

I think it might help, as Asa suggests, to have some sort of "loading" indicator instead of a blank white page. That said, I'll do some testing to measure load times.

Comment 2

[u279076]

FWIW, in a Windows 7 VM on Aurora 22.0a2 about:healthreport loads in ~3 seconds on first run and almost immediately on subsequent loads. I would assume this difference would be more pronounced on lower performing systems and larger profiles.

Comment 3

[Matt Brandt [:mbrandt]]

Steps to reproduce: A.
a. to get a blank report/empty about:healthreport page
1. disable your internet connection
2. using FF Beta visit about:healthreport and refresh the page

Actual:
about:healthreport displays as an empty page 

Steps to reproduce: B.
1. throttle your internet connection
2. using FF Beta visit about:healthreport and refresh the page

Actual:
about:healthreport initially displays as an empty white page, after a few seconds the report loads as expected.

Comment 4

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

The delay to load about:healthreport will come from a variety of sources:

1) Network latency to load the iframe
2) FHR initialization delay
3) Data collection and document generation delay

#2 should only come into play if this is within 1 minute of launching a completely fresh profile or within 10s of app startup on an existing profile (FHR is initialized 10s after app startup).

#1 and #3 will always occur.

Telemetry figures reveal that a delay of a few seconds when requesting the payload is not uncommon. The client team can work to reduce this delay by optimizing FHR's storage and caching mechanism. Until then, the iframe could  render a "waiting for data" message or something between when it asks for the payload and when the payload is returned.

Comment 5

[u279076]

(In reply to Gregory Szorc [:gps] from comment #4)
> The client team can work to reduce this delay by
> optimizing FHR's storage and caching mechanism. Until then, the iframe could
> render a "waiting for data" message or something between when it asks for
> the payload and when the payload is returned.

I think both of these are great ideas. In terms of scope, if we could get the "loading" iframe implemented in time for Firefox 21's release, I'd be okay with the performance improvements coming in later releases.

Comment 6

[Schalk Neethling [:espressive]]

The only solution I can think is to add a loader that is shown by default and is removed on document ready. I will open a PR for this and we can test if this solves the problem.

Comment 7

[Schalk Neethling [:espressive]]

Pull request sent: https://github.com/mozilla/fhr-jelly/pull/67

Is this does not work then the loader needs to be added to the parent document.

Comment 8

[u279076]

Very unscientific performance numbers can be found at the link below. Testing was done across several systems ranging from a netbook up to a quad-core i7. On the fastest system, first run took 2.3s to load while it took 8.0s to load on the slowest system. Subsequent loads under various conditions were anywhere from 2x to 3x faster. In any case a "loading" page is likely wanted.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/QA/Desktop_Firefox/Firefox_Health_Report#bug_860477_about:healthreport_loads_slowly

Comment 9

[u279076]

(In reply to Anthony Hughes, Mozilla QA (:ashughes) from comment #8)
> https://wiki.mozilla.org/QA/Desktop_Firefox/
> Firefox_Health_Report#bug_860477_about:healthreport_loads_slowly

One other thing I observed is that it can take some time for data to fill in on slower systems and connections. It's not indicated in my link above but I observed the following behaviour on first run with my netbook on Win 8:

First Run:
> 0:01: Blank page
> 0:08: FHR page loaded with static content only
> 0:10: FHR page loaded with my data

Subsequent Loads:
> 0:01: Blank page
> 0:03: FHR page loaded with static content
> 0:05: FHR page loaded with my data

Times are approximate but it seems whether during first run or not we might benefit from a "loading your data" indication on about:healthreport. Otherwise it just looks like a skeleton of a page until your data is loaded.

Comment 10

[Schalk Neethling [:espressive]]

Thanks Anthony for all of the provided info. I am definitely going to optimize the code a lot still but with the pull request mentioned in comment 7 now merged, we will have a loader as soon as the latest code is pushed to production.

Comment 11

[u279076]

Thanks Schalk. Can you let me know once it's pushed to production so I can spotcheck it?

Comment 12

[u279076]

Laura let me know on IRC that this should be okay to test now. I just tried and I still get a blank white page for a few seconds on first run. Can someone please confirm this has been pushed?

Comment 13

[u279076]

Reopening this bug. Neither Matt Brandt or I are able to get the "loading" page to appear. We are still seeing a blank page until about:healthreport loads.

Comment 14

[Laura Thomson :laura]

After discussion with espressive and mconnor, we agreed to put the spinner in the chrome, since it's apparently needed earlier in the process.  Reassigning to mconnor for implementation.

Comment 15

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him]]

We're going to need something similar to this on Android, where the slow load is even more pronounced.

Comment 16

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

I'm the wrong person to implement this at this point.

Comment 17

[Thomas Huelbert]

Needs prioritization

Comment 18

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

I'm marking this bug as INVALID,
because about:healthreport was removed in bug #1352497.