Firefox sluggishness

polarrr · 2006-04-04 01:45:17

Hey guys. So my problem is as it says in the title. Firefox is really being sluggish. By sluggish, it just isn't responsive at all. For example, while a page is open on tabA, tab switching to tabB does not occur instantly. Rather, it happens like "click-momentary pause-change." Pause is anywhere between half a second to a second. So with a quick succession of clicking, I can click anywhere between 3 to 5 tabs, and before Firefox can render any newly selected pages.

This is not only the problem with tabs. The same behavior occurs when alt+tab'ing to another window. For example, alt+tab or clicking in Xterm from Firefox results in slow transition while Opera or any other apps instantly switch to other windows without delay. So it appears to be Firefox specific problem/behavior.

To cover the basics, here is the setup and details.

1. This is a laptop. Dell Inspiron 8200 P4-M 2.2Ghz 768Mb RAM, nVidia GeForce4 440 Go with 64Mb video RAM, 100Gb 5400RPM HD.
2. Arch installation, very basic, up-to-date, including Xorg7, nvidia driver.
3. Using Fluxbox without transparency or any other effect. Pure and simple Fluxbox.
4. Firefox from repo.
5. Exhibit the same behavior in vanilla new profile as well (i.e., after rm -rf ~/.mozilla, no extentions, no special setting)
6. It happens regardless of number of tabs opened or contents within tabs.
7. I 'believe' this is a Xorg7 specific behavior. I don't 'remember' seeing this happening in Xorg6.8. It could be Firefox 1.5.0.1, though. I will test with Xorg 6.8 later to see if I can reproduce that.
8. Opera works without above mentioned problems.
9. Top shows no abnormal mem/cpu usage.
10. Downloading firefox-1.5.0.1.tar.gz from mozilla.com, untar it and running locally (i.e., ~/firefox/firefox) does not cause this problem.

So the question is, does anyone have this kind of problem? Or any pointer as to where the problem is? Yes, I can use locally run firefox or use opera, but ideally it would be nice if I could fix the problem so that plugins and others from repo would just work rather than manually copying and/or symlinking and such. So if any of you have an idea, please let me know.

Thanks

ks1 · 2006-04-05 20:34:51

I also have this problem. Firefox in general just runs slow clicking between windows or tabs. Also if I have created a lot of new windows/tabs to a certain point firefox will hard lock my computer having to press the reset button.
Downloading firefox from the firefox website does not have this problem.

My system is up to date. It doesn't matter which window manager or DE.

Specs:

p4 2.8ghz
1.5gb ram
geforce 5600 256mb
120gb hd
xorg 7.0

smoon · 2006-04-05 21:35:44

Same problem here. I just switched to Epiphany because of this a few days ago. Except for one thing that I couldn't figure out Epiphany seems to be perfect for my needs.

Gullible Jones · 2006-04-05 22:21:13

Try Galeon, it's like Epiphany but better...

ks1 · 2006-04-07 17:14:29

So the dirty answer to this question is "just switch browsers"? I was wondering if there are any other ideas as to why this is the case?

cactus · 2006-04-07 19:48:14

try this... open about:config.
find.. browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers and set the value to 0.
Firefox doesn't free up tab page caching when you close a tab.. kinda funky.
http://developers.slashdot.org/article. … 14/2154224

it might be worth while to check the differences between default firefox, and arch firefox. I *thought* the only difference was compilation options, but I haven't used arch firefox in a while.

I also disable pre-fetching.
network.prefetch-next set to "false"

disabling favicons can also speed things up. One less image to fetch.
Search for the preference browser.chrome.favicons.
Modify the value to false.
Search for the preference browser.chrome.load_toolbar_icons.
Modify the value to 0.
(0 = never, 1 = when in cache, 2 = always)

browser.chrome.site_icons
set to false

flash is also a real killer.
disabling ipv6 in firefox helps too..
network.dns.disableIPv6 true

you might try enabling pipelining.
network.http.pipelining

I am sure others have their favorite firefox tweaks..still not sure if this is your issue, but every little bit helps.

Gullible Jones · 2006-04-07 20:37:28

Set nglayout.initialpaint.delay to 0. You'll probably have to create it, it seems to only be present by default on Windows. :?

cactus wrote:

Firefox doesn't free up tab page caching when you close a tab.. kinda funky.

You have got to be kidding... :shock: Is that fixed Firefox 2 CVS?

polarrr · 2006-04-07 22:29:09

I'll just package the binary from mozilla.com and symlink for plugins. Rebuild a few plugins around that so least I'll have essentials covered. I have no problem using other browsers, but some of those extensions I use are almost necessity. So at least I'll have my FF addiction covered for the time being.

@Cactus: Yeh, I know about those and they are always off

raskolnikov · 2006-04-07 22:55:48

You can try to tweak browser.cache.memory.capacity (integer, size of memory cache in KB). I set it to 81920 (80MB), and it seems to work fine for now

Arch Linux

#1 2006-04-04 01:45:17

Firefox sluggishness

#2 2006-04-05 20:34:51

Re: Firefox sluggishness

#3 2006-04-05 21:35:44

Re: Firefox sluggishness

#4 2006-04-05 22:21:13

Re: Firefox sluggishness

#5 2006-04-07 17:14:29

Re: Firefox sluggishness

#6 2006-04-07 19:48:14

Re: Firefox sluggishness

#7 2006-04-07 20:37:28

Re: Firefox sluggishness

#8 2006-04-07 22:29:09

Re: Firefox sluggishness

#9 2006-04-07 22:55:48

Re: Firefox sluggishness

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