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skale

Member

From: Atlanta, GA

Registered: 2006-08-04

Posts: 146

Firefox freaks out with large images

I know Firefox has its place among the slower browsers, but this is ridiculous.  If I click on an image that has to be scaled, it's bye-bye to a responsive desktop.  Three minutes later it appears, but it freaks out again when I try to close it, or switch windows, or anything.  Yes, I know, it's a large picture, but I don't think it requires that much time.  Konqueror and Kazehakase load it just fine, so I know it's a firefox problem.  Couple other things, does anyone else have this problem?  It's been going on for a while now, I just assumed that it would go away after an update.  I unchecked the "load images automatically", but that removes all the images, which kinda kills the whole browsing experience.  I use a lot of the Firefox features regularly, so I'd rather not switch.  And believe me, I've tried.

Ruckus

Member

Registered: 2007-02-17

Posts: 204

Re: Firefox freaks out with large images

I know Firefox has its place among the slower browsers, but this is ridiculous.  If I click on an image that has to be scaled, it's bye-bye to a responsive desktop.  Three minutes later it appears, but it freaks out again when I try to close it, or switch windows, or anything.  Yes, I know, it's a large picture, but I don't think it requires that much time.  Konqueror and Kazehakase load it just fine, so I know it's a firefox problem.  Couple other things, does anyone else have this problem?  It's been going on for a while now, I just assumed that it would go away after an update.  I unchecked the "load images automatically", but that removes all the images, which kinda kills the whole browsing experience.  I use a lot of the Firefox features regularly, so I'd rather not switch.  And believe me, I've tried.

How big is the image and what are your system specs? Upload the image in question to a web host (http://xnr.be), so we can see if we expeirence any problems with it.

Edit: if its on your desktop from your sig, its because your out of ram as firefox is a ram hog. It uses 40-50mb ram alone on my system with just 1 page open, it increases to about 140mb ram with just 4-5 tabs open. I would say that you need at least 256MB to run firefox and you will still run out of ram for some things. Be sure your not running out of swap space space as well as ram, it is what is used when your ram is used up (However its alot slower).

Last edited by Ruckus (2007-04-28 04:30:31)

skale

Member

From: Atlanta, GA

Registered: 2006-08-04

Posts: 146

Re: Firefox freaks out with large images

http://dr-photoshop.com/zfile/tutorials … lpaper.jpg

The important part is the "scaled (79%)".  If it doesn't scale, there is no problem. 

I'm using the laptop, with 512MB RAM, and 256MB swap, which should be sufficient.  It makes no difference whether swap is on or off, and my computer rarely uses swap anyway.  The memory was 45% full for the whole experience.  Swap is still 100% free when I open the above link. It's the CPU that gets put through its cycles, running at 100% until the image finally loads.  If I then try to magnify it, same problem again.   I can't say, but I don't have a too-crappy processor (see the sig) and the picture opens fine in other browsers.

PeteMo

Member

From: H'Burg, VA

Registered: 2006-01-26

Posts: 191

Website

Re: Firefox freaks out with large images

I have a laptop similar to yours - 1.6 GHz Pentium M / 1.5 GB RAM / ATI Radeon Mobility 9000 64 MB and the image you linked to opens and resizes fine here.

arvster

Member

From: Riga, Latvia

Registered: 2007-01-08

Posts: 37

Website

Re: Firefox freaks out with large images

My computer only has 256Mb RAM, I am running Gnome right now and have a few programs in the background, but I had no problems opening or scaling that image above. I've had problems before opening REALLY large images (tens of Mb's), but this didn't slow down anything. Doesn't look like the problem is lack of RAM. What about any hungry or buggy FF extensions?

skale

Member

From: Atlanta, GA

Registered: 2006-08-04

Posts: 146

Re: Firefox freaks out with large images

I disabled all the extensions and it made no difference.

Ruckus

Member

Registered: 2007-02-17

Posts: 204

Re: Firefox freaks out with large images

Try launching firefox from command line and see if it outputs any odd error messages.

skale

Member

From: Atlanta, GA

Registered: 2006-08-04

Posts: 146

Re: Firefox freaks out with large images

No, no error messages at all.  It seems perfectly clean until the big picture load.   I checked the bug reports with the intention of adding one, but I would add one more to the dozens of similar picture loading complaints already there, and did not see the point.

varl

Member

Registered: 2007-06-07

Posts: 51

Re: Firefox freaks out with large images

I just wanted to add that I have this same exact problem with a HP nx7010, 1.8 GHz Centrino, 512mb RAM and a 9200 radeon card.

Quite ridiculous, and if someone has found a solution I'd like to hear about it.

onearm

Member

From: Anywhere but here

Registered: 2006-07-06

Posts: 359

Website

Re: Firefox freaks out with large images

I have been having this problem since ff 1.0, I upgraded pc three times and the slowing it's always been present. And I have now a amd64 x2 4200+, 2gb of ram and a geforce 8800gts with 640mb of videoram.

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