Firefox 3.0.11 hanging when loading page into new tab

catkin · 08-19-2009, 04:45 AM

Hello

Recently Firefox 3.0.11 has been hanging when loading a page into a new tab (after right-clicking a link and choosing "Open in New Tab"). Seen on ubuntu 8.04.2, both real and virtual. Leave it to sort itself out and all is well. When this happens, other Firefox windows work normally.

Anybody else seeing this behaviour?

Best

Charles

fusion1275 · 08-19-2009, 06:14 AM

I dont get that same problem but sometimes I get a lag when I scroll down the page with my mouse either using the scroll wheel or dragging the slider down with the cursor.

But I have noticed that with the most recent update it is slightly better.

Have you tried checking your memory usage when firefox is up and running? Or even re-installing?

Regards

fusion1275 · 08-19-2009, 06:16 AM

Sorry also please try and upgrade as it seems you are very out of date.

New version is: 3.5.2

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html

catkin · 08-19-2009, 06:49 AM

Thanks fusion1275

I've always had the scrolling lag when FF is working hard - I figured not simply not enough resources to do everything quickly.

Prior to the OP problem, opening a new page in a new tab has always left the the other tabs reasonably responsive.

Another symptom that started happening at the same time is that, again when opening a new page in a new tab, the whole tab bar and the current tab contents disappear for a while.

How should I check memory usage -- a general Linux way or something in FF? The computer has 4 GB and is only running as a personal workstation, not doing anything onerous (apart from running WXP in a VirtualBox VM).

Code:

c@CW8:~$ free -t -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          3289       3095        194          0        225       1161
-/+ buffers/cache:       1708       1581
Swap:         1503          0       1503
Total:        4793       3095       1698

I updated FF and went all the way from 3.0.11 to 3.0.13. I guess that's as far as ubuntu have gone now. Do you think it worthwile switching to the Mozilla .deb repositories?

Best

Charles

fusion1275 · 08-19-2009, 06:53 AM

run a

Quote:

top

on your system and check for paging or zombie processes etc etc.

catkin · 08-19-2009, 07:11 AM

Thanks for helping

Code:

top - 17:40:07 up  6:44,  5 users,  load average: 0.05, 0.12, 0.15
Tasks: 137 total,   1 running, 136 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s): 10.8%us,  3.9%sy,  0.0%ni, 85.0%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.3%si,  0.0%st
Mem:   3368904k total,  3170180k used,   198724k free,   234096k buffers
Swap:  1540088k total,        0k used,  1540088k free,  1189524k cached

No zombies, no paging

fusion1275 · 08-19-2009, 07:17 AM

Maybe a re-install of firefox might be in order?

If it continues to do the same I would start looking at testing out newer versions of firefox by downloading them into your /opt and installing them.

Do you get any hangs on anything else on that machine? Any other apps? or just FF?

rgds

catkin · 08-19-2009, 08:23 AM

Nothing else hangs. FF doesn't fully hang -- it just becomes unresponsive until the page on the new tab has loaded. Am now removing firefox 3.0.13 and installing 3.5 from firefox-3.5.2.tar.bz2 downloaded from http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/upgrade.html

fusion1275 · 08-19-2009, 08:42 AM

Keep me updated. I'd like to know if it was a version problem that has been rolled out.

catkin · 08-19-2009, 09:10 AM

Done. Posted this using 3.5.2.

Here are some heavy warnings about installing 3.5.2 on ubuntu from ubuntu community: Installing from the Mozilla website (dangerous) High difficulty, low safety: Sharing a Firefox profile between Ubuntu's Firefox 3.0 and Mozilla's Firefox 3.5 might cause problems that will go unnoticed for weeks or months. Please wait until the Ubuntu Mozilla Team make a stable version of Firefox available for your release. [snip] Installing from Mozilla is only recommended for comparing the behaviour of Ubuntu and Mozilla builds (e.g. while tracking down a bug).

I backed up my profile so should (TM) be able to back out if needs must.

Lost sun-java5-plugin sun-java6-plugin packages when uninstalling firefox (3.0). Will see what breaks.

Lost ForceHTTPS plug-in (not compatible) when FF 3.5 started; I can live with that.

Will take a while for test-by-usage to see if the switch from 3.0 to 3.5 has fixed the original problem. Initial impression is that 3.5 is faster.

fusion1275 · 08-19-2009, 09:30 AM

Fingers crossed for you

catkin · 08-22-2009, 06:44 AM

Still happening on Firefox 3.5.2