browsers 100% cpu and a black helicopter

cs25x · 2005-01-29 08:11:44

For about a month I have had a severe problem with firefox and other browsers burning CPU. These are the ones that are OK:
opera 7.5.4
dillo 0.8.4
These run the CPU up to 100% and it stays there:
firefox 1.0
mozilla 1.7.5
galleon 1.3.19
epiphany 1.4.7
This happens with a fresh install of any of these browsers, with any user, even root.

Today I decided to install wombat base on a spare partition, and dropped in the latest firefox from my local arch mirror. All worked as it should. Then I switched back over to my old install, which is also Wombat via pacman. The CPU problems have simply gone away. So my question is DUH?? There was no way I could fix this before, I reinstalled java and other things but it made no difference. Worse, even though the CPU was burning hot, nothing showed up on top as using CPU.. All I got was total cpu, ( i.e. sys + user ) = 100 %. Nothing showed up on ps ax either, just the browser binary.
I suspected I had been r00t3d, but nothing shows on the rootkit tools.
I did not install grub today, I just edited my old menu.lst.
One strange thing did happen after I returned to my old system. I was running a script to download some files with wget, playing some music with xmms, and doing a locate *|grep -i richard, to find all the Little Richard music I have. It started to get unresponsive, with 384M of ram, that is unexpected. It was heavily into swap, so I did a swapoff -a; swapon -a, and the problem went away. xmms died. So there was the source of that problem. I restarted xmms, and away we go. Now I have all of those browsers open, alive and kicking, wget has not stopped, and we have just 20% CPU peak and 0% or so min.

So what was it? and Why did it go away? And when will it come back?
OH, yes the problem was there immediately before I installed Wombat.

mattux · 2005-01-29 11:53:45

please try to start firefox and go to "about:config"
and there is a option
network.dns.disableIPv6
and set it to true...

mattux

cs25x · 2005-01-29 19:02:25

Thanks. That might fix the fox, but right now I am using epiphany, and there is no ipv6 setting in the config that I can see. I guessed libgtk2 or mozilla-core being destroyed by a website. But how could an install on another partition fix this? Maybe it is a coincidence. Anyway I will change the ipv6 settings and see what happens. Yep. got the lot. Today I will get some reading glasses.
Another diff is that xfce4.2 was s.l.o.w now it is quicker, but still not the way it should be. e.g. opening 4 xfterm4s on one page brings up the menu and you have to move your mouse off the icon & back & wait for it to ungrey. It is better than that on the new install.

tranxene · 2005-02-26 17:53:30

it makes no difference for me when ipv6 disabled. mozilla 1.7.5 still charges my cpu at 100% during tabbed browsing or using java.
by the way, i never observed this kind of problems with mozilla 1.7.3

Gullible Jones · 2005-02-26 18:31:25

Interesting... The problematic ones are all Gecko-based. Now if we had GTK-Webcore in Unstable, you could test that and see if it caused problems...

I haven't a clue how to solve this thing though. Mozilla can be a RAM hog, and I've seen Firefox display memory leakage under certain conditions... But I've never seen either program use much CPU time.

skoal · 2005-02-27 17:29:32

cs25x wrote:

[...]Today I will get some reading glasses.[...]

Black helicopters? Reading glasses? Man, you're my kind of poster. That's some funny shiznitt. I really don't have an anwer to your problem, except for one...instead of the reading glasses, do like me and duct tape a pair of binoculars to your head. It makes for easier monitor viewing, plus I was able to peer out my window and make out Donald Trump's face in the helicopter. I don't know what he's up to, but the tin foil lining my walls should keep me safe for the moment.

T-Dawg · 2005-02-27 19:53:33

skoal wrote:

Black helicopters? Reading glasses? Man, you're my kind of poster. That's some funny shiznitt. I really don't have an anwer to your problem, except for one...instead of the reading glasses, do like me and duct tape a pair of binoculars to your head. It makes for easier monitor viewing, plus I was able to peer out my window and make out Donald Trump's face in the helicopter. I don't know what he's up to, but the tin foil lining my walls should keep me safe for the moment.

lol...best post all day!

cactus · 2005-02-27 21:06:41

Penguin wrote:

lol...best post all day!

He is a prince among men I tell you.

tranxene · 2005-03-14 01:26:11

are we alone with this kind of problems?

i think there's really something fishy with java.

i tried 3 different versions of mozilla and the recent version of firefox with the last 3 versions of j2re before i made a new installation from cd (arch-0.7) and the first thing i tested was running a java applet. always the same bug - even after a system update!

tranx     3922  0.0  0.5   4812  1380 pts/0    S+   02:03   0:00 /bin/sh /opt/mozilla/lib/mozilla-1.7.5/run-mozilla.sh /opt/mozilla/lib/mozilla-1.7.5/mozilla-bin
tranx     3927  4.4 12.3  97440 31416 pts/0    Sl+  02:03   0:12 /opt/mozilla/lib/mozilla-1.7.5/mozilla-bin
tranx     3934 35.1  9.4 273804 24088 pts/0    Sl+  02:04   1:28 java_vm

the applet begins to initiate but refuses to charge, apart from my cpu :?

tranxene · 2005-03-17 16:37:21

ok, i eventually found a solution: go and open your browser (in this case mozilla)

edit - preferences - advanced - AND DISABLE JAVA!

skoal · 2005-03-17 17:25:41

java/Firefox is for losers anyway. Lynx is for 'studs'...

tranxene · 2005-03-17 20:33:38

of course! i suppose that's the reason you use avatars

scarecrow · 2005-03-21 19:37:11

Apparently 1.5.0 update 2 fixes this issue, but it's not on the Arch repos yet...
There are quite a few things half-broken in update 1, eg can you run javaws normally under Linux?

Gullible Jones · 2005-03-21 23:30:39

He didn't say X is for losers... gLinks is quite capable of displaying graphics.

scarecrow · 2005-03-25 18:58:33

FYI 1.5.0 update 2 does not work either (with Firefox 1.0.2)...
I tried it on an Ubuntu Hoary laptop, and the stupid java animation screen keeps spinning forever (not hanging and 100% CPU though, which is an "improvement"...).
Konqueror works OK (IMO a bit slow handling java applets, but it does work).

Arch Linux

#1 2005-01-29 08:11:44

browsers 100% cpu and a black helicopter

#2 2005-01-29 11:53:45

Re: browsers 100% cpu and a black helicopter

#3 2005-01-29 19:02:25

Re: browsers 100% cpu and a black helicopter

#4 2005-02-26 17:53:30

Re: browsers 100% cpu and a black helicopter

#5 2005-02-26 18:31:25

Re: browsers 100% cpu and a black helicopter

#6 2005-02-27 17:29:32

Re: browsers 100% cpu and a black helicopter

#7 2005-02-27 19:53:33

Re: browsers 100% cpu and a black helicopter

#8 2005-02-27 21:06:41

Re: browsers 100% cpu and a black helicopter

#9 2005-03-14 01:26:11

Re: browsers 100% cpu and a black helicopter

#10 2005-03-17 16:37:21

Re: browsers 100% cpu and a black helicopter

#11 2005-03-17 17:25:41

Re: browsers 100% cpu and a black helicopter

#12 2005-03-17 20:33:38

Re: browsers 100% cpu and a black helicopter

#13 2005-03-21 19:37:11

Re: browsers 100% cpu and a black helicopter

#14 2005-03-21 23:30:39

Re: browsers 100% cpu and a black helicopter

#15 2005-03-25 18:58:33

Re: browsers 100% cpu and a black helicopter

Board footer