Firefox 3 high CPU usage when loading pages

[bluejay]

I am having the same problem with excessive CPU usage. I tried changing the "browser.cache.memory.enable" setting as suggested and it made no difference at all. I tried removing all Addons and that didn't help either.

This problem only appeared with the installation of FF3. Before that all was fine with Win2K and 1G RAM.

Hope someone can find a solution because when pages load the CPU usage is so bad - around 70% - that the cursor is jumpy and can't be moved properly.

[pakke]

I have the same problem in FireFox 3, Windows XP. I tried a number of suggested solutions found here and there, but none did the trick for me yet. Also, I noticed while watching a youtube video how playing a video will make cpu usage stay stable at about 60%, while scrolling away from the videoplayer (but still viewing the same page) causes cpu usage to drop from about 60% to somewhere closer to 20%.

[Kirk M]

Hi bluejay,

Sounds like you may have a corrupted profile which happens once in awhile especially if you upgraded over Firefox 2. If nothing else has worked as you say then backup your bookmarks using the backup feature in "Organize Bookmarks" (I suggest doing a "backup" which is a .json file (the database file) as well as "exporting" the older static .html file just in case) then completely uninstall Firefox.

At this point I would recommend deleting your existing profile manually just to make sure. You should find it in one or both of these paths on your computer (or a similar type path, not familiar with Win200 but I think it's the same):

"C:\Documents and Settings\[account name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxx.default"
and...
"C:\Documents and Settings\[account name\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxx.default"

One of these may be deleted during the uninstall but I'm not sure which one it is.

Now install a fresh copy of Firefox 3.0 and "restore" your DB file or "import" your .html bookmarks file. If you're concerned that there might be a problem with the database also then just import your bookmarks.

This means you'll have to reinstall your extensions of course but installing a fresh copy of Firefox 3 as described above usually takes care of the type of problem you're seeing. It doesn't happen that often but nothing's perfect and all that.

Hope this helps.

[Kirk M]

pakke,

You might try the same uninstall/reinstall procedure I described in my last comment and see if that helps some.

About Flash video...

I've found the video problem as you described is typical when viewing some but not all Flash based video in Firefox. Especially in the case of Firefox 3.0 since the dev's squashed the Flash related bugs with this release, the fault lies with the Adobe's Flash plugin for Firefox and Opera (uses the same one) which is of much poorer quality than the version for Internet Explorer, a problem Adobe has all but outright admitted to. The basic premise behind this in the past was the fact that why spend the $$ to streamline the plugin for browsers that only had a tiny percentage of the market place? Unfortunately, even though Firefox currently garners almost 20% of the US browser market (much higher in Europe), big companies like Adobe will always lag behind.

I'm hoping we'll see some significant improvement with version 10 of the Flash plugin when it's released.

[bluejay]

Some good news at last! I just installed the beta of Adobe Flash Player 10 and although CPU usage continues to be high, it does not seem to effect performance. Flash videos run without interruption and cursor movements are now smooth, not jerky.

We'll see if this continues. Stay tuned...

[bluejay]

Kirk, I just want to add that I had previously tried all of the suggestions I could find in various forums including removing addons, changing the browser.cache.memory.enable settings, clean install after completely cleaning out the files and the registry, etc., but nothing seemed to work until I installed the beta of Adobe FP 10.

[Kirk M]

Hey bluejay,

I wasn't too sure if that included a clean install or not so...

FP 10 beta solved the problem, huh? Now that's the first time I've heard that but no matter how much you look into something there's always something that's missed. I don't have any problems with FP 9.0 r124 with the exception of certain Flash based videos maxing out the CPU. maybe I'll give FP 10 beta another shot, see if that clears those few videos up some.

Thanks for the reply!

[toohip]

Turn off the Security options for attack site and forgery. That should speed things up.

[spudtu]

I'm afraid my own setup is resistant to all the above suggestions, except that I haven't actually deleted my old profile.

I was running FF 2.0.0.15, backed up my profile, installed FF 3, no add-ons, fresh new profile, uninstalled all Adobe Flash/ActiveX applications, downloaded Flash 10, and with one simple iGoogle tab opening, Firefox still excursed to 80% CPU. It billows to at least 20-30% with almost any browsing activity. Oh, yeah, I never did have attack site and forgery boxes checked, so that's not it, either.

I guess if no one has any other ideas, I'll uninstall FF 2, delete my older profile, but I have a feeling something else is afoot here.

I do appreciate all the suggestions!

[Jay59]

I found that AVG added significant performance decrease with its add-on. Its a safe-search plugin, but still seemed to affect load times for all pages.

[wroot]

Jay59, you can disable that add-on in Firefox.

[bluejay]

I thought I might add just one more thing here. I ran into some trouble and had to restore my setup from a disk image. When I did that, of course my FF3 was slow again. I removed my old Adobe Flash Player and installed beta 10, expecting that it would do the trick. It didn't. I then realized that all of my old profiles were still in place, so I proceeded to uninstall FF3, removed all references to it from the registry as well as removing all Mozilla and Firefox files. THEN I reinstalled AFP 10 and it worked fine again.

When I had just cleaned out the old stuff, it didn't help. So for me, it was a COMBINATION of the two solutions that helped: removing all old stuff + using the AFP 10.

As far as AVG is concerned, it does use quite a bit of resources. A little while ago there was lots of talk about them stopping their free service at the end of May so I looked around and found that Avast! came pretty well recommended. I installed it and I must say that I am very pleased with it. What I like best is that the update process takes place unobtrusively in the background so it doesn't interrupt your work and I don't find that it slows down my computer at all, even when it's in the middle of the update routine. It gives an audio message when the update is completed and I am always quite surprised to hear it because I had not even realized it was taking place. (A little of topic, I guess, but I hope it will be useful.)

[wroot]

bluejay, AVG 8 Free does updates unobtrusively now (unlike 7.5). Though i'm still using 7.5 until it's supported, because 8 version brings a lot of slowness for me.

[bluejay]

wroot: way off topic now but I uninstalled AVG 8 after just a little while. It sucked big time and all the reviews were so bad.

[Kirk M]

bluejay, ('scuse the off topic stuff here, pays to take a breather now and then)

I went from AVG to Avast myself, much better all around. I added the Commodo Firewall Pro (free also) and both are very light on the resources.

Anyway, I did the same thing you did, minus having to reload the computer, in trying to solve the problem with a maxed out CPU when loading a tab in the foreground (multi-tab situation) without having to change "browser.cache.memory.enable" to False (even though there's no detrimental effects doing so). Didn't work, although it cleared up a few other problems as it did for you. It seems this is happening to a rather small group of folks who upgraded to 3.0 over an older version of Firefox. This may indicate that a slightly corrupted file from the older version being converted into one of the SQLite DB's might be causing problems. This is just a guess of course.

Could be too many extensions also...who knows?

FP 10 beta 2 came out recently but would immediately crash Firefox 3.0 when attempting to view any Flash based video at all. Checking in at Adobe I found a thread where a dev stated that a bug was accidentally inserted right before beta 2 went to build. I assume he meant that a last minute patch was applied causing bug elsewhere. I'd post a link to the thread but it seems to have gone missing.