100 % CPU usage makes Firefox unusable :-(

notlem · Post by **notlem** » October 7th, 2007, 12:52 pm

Schapel, i'll see if i can find the exact next version which I believe is the start of FF2.xx version and see if it recrops up.

Post by **trolly** » October 7th, 2007, 1:19 pm

All 2.x releases:
http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla ... /releases/

schapel · Post by **schapel** » October 8th, 2007, 9:06 am

notlem wrote:Schapel, i'll see if i can find the exact next version which I believe is the start of FF2.xx version and see if it recrops up.

Thanks! If others report the same problem starting with the same version, we'll know to investigate further and narrow the window down to the exact day the problem started.

Lost User 296205 · Post by **Lost User 296205** » October 9th, 2007, 11:33 am

I wanna say thanks to Davehal for the following post back on page one.

Davehal wrote:Ok folks,
just try after installing : FlashBlock
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/index.html
I had the same pb with CPU near 80 or 100 %
Using FB : not any pb of CPU, a charm.
Maybe it's something else, but you can try..

I seem to get this problem whenever I install a later version of Firefox, since I started using version 2. I don't remeber ever having a problem with version 1. Last time (after installing version 2.0.0.5 I think) I noticed it always happened when viewing one site.

I've now installed version 2.0.0.7 and found the 100% CPU usage problem again. On reading this forum I remember that it was always on the same site. This time it is whenever I try and view <a href="http://developer.com/java/ejb/article.php/3526721">http://developer.com/java/ejb/article.php/3526721</a>.

I installed the lasted version of flashblock from <a href="http://flashblock.mozdev.org/index.html">http://flashblock.mozdev.org/index.html</a> as suggested and now the problem is solved. Now it only happens if I allow one or more of the flash adverts on the page to play.

This was experienced on a computer run Windows XP (SP2) so I switch to my Linux (Ubuntu 6.06 using Firefox version 2.?) drive and found the same problem. The difference is on Linux it only uses 90%-ish of the CPU so you don't notice because everything still working ok. On Window it's almost consistent at 100% so everything just seem to die.

However! I tried the links from the following post and it only uses 60% of the CPU.

wlanni wrote:I have exactly the same symptoms on a mac os x 10.3.7, 10.3.6, 10.3.5, firefox 1.0, 1GB RAM. ONLY HAPPENS when I have a page with flash running. For example,

http://www.staytunedtheband.com

has a flash announcement banner. While listening or reading the forum, performance slowly degrades until I have to force quit. Also with

http://www.markofthebeast.net

same thing -- flash nav/joke banner, and with that page open in a tab or a background window, after some time my performance goes to crap.

I'll open up the resource tools on the mac and see if I can pinpoint anything.

What a strange problem!

teoli2003 · Post by **teoli2003** » October 9th, 2007, 11:58 am

What version of the flash plugin are you using? If you install the latest, does the problem goes away?

VanillaMozilla · Post by **VanillaMozilla** » October 9th, 2007, 12:39 pm

Active85 wrote:I installed the lasted version of flashblock from http://flashblock.mozdev.org/index.html as suggested and now the problem is solved. Now it only happens if I allow one or more of the flash adverts on the page to play.

So what is consuming the CPU time? Is it Flash code or Firefox code? Try it with Opera. Opera uses the same Flash plugin as Firefox. Make sure the same ad is playing. Maybe you need to use both browsers simultaneously.

schapel · Post by **schapel** » October 9th, 2007, 1:16 pm

Active85 wrote:What a strange problem!

It's not really any problem at all. Animated Flash ads contain a program that runs. Running a program takes CPU. It's kind of like the problem that driving your car uses gas. That's actually the way it's designed to work. It sucks when the price of gas is $4 per gallon or when you run out of gas, but it's not really a problem in the sense that there's any solution other than not driving. Blocking the Flash makes it so the program doesn't run and doesn't consume your CPU. Similarly, if you walk your car doesn't use gas.

Lost User 296205 · Post by **Lost User 296205** » October 9th, 2007, 5:24 pm

teoli2003 wrote:What version of the flash plugin are you using? If you install the latest, does the problem goes away?

I've just installed the latest plugin and the problem is still there.

VanillaMozilla wrote:So what is consuming the CPU time? Is it Flash code or Firefox code? Try it with Opera. Opera uses the same Flash plugin as Firefox. Make sure the same ad is playing. Maybe you need to use both browsers simultaneously.

Task Manager only lists Firefox so I can't really say if it's Flash or Firefox.

I tried Opera with the latest flash plugin and it's fine but that's because it shows the flash ads as gif images instead. Flash does work on other sites so I don't know why that is. I even cleared the cache and reloaded the page after checking all the settings but it still showed gif images not Flash.

Anyway, thanks for your suggestions. It's not really too much of a problem now anyway. I found that flashblock kills the problem and then there is always using Opera (as suggested), IE (which also uses a lot of CPU but 1-2% free so it stays responsive) or Firefox on Linux.

VanillaMozilla · Post by **VanillaMozilla** » October 9th, 2007, 7:32 pm

Active85 wrote:Task Manager only lists Firefox so I can't really say if it's Flash or Firefox.

Yes, precisely. And when Flash code doesn't run, you don't have the problem. Flash runs, and Firefox gets the bill. Animated ads: just say no.

schapel · Post by **schapel** » October 10th, 2007, 6:26 am

Active85 wrote:I've just installed the latest plugin and the problem is still there.

Exactly, because it's not a problem. It's expected behavior. You don't like it, so you should block the Flash to prevent it from using your CPU to animate ads. You can also contact the websites with those annoying ads and tell them where they can stick them. Or just not visit those sites in the first place.

Lost User 296899 · Post by **Lost User 296899** » October 16th, 2007, 3:46 am

I don't believe that it's the ads. I have been having trouble with this and for me it was flash videos like you tube and metacafe, but I switched the compatibility mode and now it's working much much better. So, you right click the firefox program icon, go to properties, and then click the
compatibility tab. The click the check box and chose which windows version
suits your computer. I also did the other thing about:config and lowered the
browser.cache.disk.memory from 500,000 to 5000 because I have less
ram anyway. I did that first, and it didn't really do anything at all. So, for
the time being I think it was the compatibility mode thing.
I visited my web site and metacafe and break so far, and they all played the
videos well without the cpu going up to 100

schapel · Post by **schapel** » October 16th, 2007, 4:54 am

davethedope wrote:I don't believe that it's the ads. I have been having trouble with this and for me it was flash videos like you tube and metacafe, but I switched the compatibility mode and now it's working much much better.

Yes, the compatibility mode is listed as a potential problem in the http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_CPU_usage article. That can be the problem if Firefox is using much more RAM than other browsers to display the same page. However, no matter what you do, some CPU will be spent animating ads. And there are some pages that use 100% CPU in any browser to animate. In short, there is no one problem. Just because compatibility was your problem, doesn't mean that something else wasn't somebody else's problem.

VanillaMozilla · Post by **VanillaMozilla** » October 16th, 2007, 6:36 am

davethedope wrote:I also did the other thing about:config and lowered the browser.cache.disk.memory from 500,000 to 5000 because I have less ram anyway.

1. Perhaps you mean browser.cache.disk.capacity.

2. There's no connection between the disk cache and RAM -- unless you happen to be using a RAM disk, which you should probably not be. A disk cache is normally on your hard drive, and RAM is your computer's volatile, main memory ("RAM" stands for "random-access memory").

3. 500,000 is rather large, and 5000 is quite small. The default is 50000. I really recommend default settings in most cases. This is especially pertinent for users who may not quite understand what they are changing.

NigelCollins · Post by **NigelCollins** » October 19th, 2007, 11:35 am

I installed FF on my XP SP2 PC about 4 months ago (v2.0.0.6) and it worked absolutely fine. About a week ago (and I can't pin this down to any other changes on my PC) it started hanging when I tried to scroll down a page. Sometimes the hanging can be as long as 30 seconds.

I get an hourglass up for the duration. Sometimes this happens when page is still loading - other times after page has completed loading. Another symptom (which doesn't occur every time) is that the tab in the taskbar for FF disapears?

schapel · Post by **schapel** » October 19th, 2007, 11:40 am

The first thing you'll want to do is to read these articles thoroughly and follow the advice suggested therein:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_CPU_usage
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_hangs

100 % CPU usage makes Firefox unusable :-(

Firefox now hangs