chromium-browser uses excessive resources in Xubuntu 16.04

[Richard Elkins]

My machine has 8GB RAM. Upon launching a single tab of one Chrome window, it normally takes 17-19 seconds to display the window and become usable. Compare this to Firefox version 44.0 which launches and becomes usable in 2-3 seconds.

Please note that I frequently use both of these browsers and I am not biased either way.

Digging a little deeper, I see that Chrome starts 7 processes just for this single tab Chrome browser window.

`ps -e -m --cols 256 -o 'size,args' | grep chrom`
461420 chromium-browser --ppapi-flash-path=/usr/lib/pepperflashplugin-nonfree/libpepflashplayer.so --ppapi-flash-version=18.0.0.233 --enable-pinch
 6380 chromium-browser --type=zygote --ppapi-flash-path=/usr/lib/pepperflashplugin-nonfree/libpepflashplayer.so --ppapi-flash-version=18.0.0.233
39164 chromium-browser --type=zygote --ppapi-flash-path=/usr/lib/pepperflashplugin-nonfree/libpepflashplayer.so --ppapi-flash-version=18.0.0.233
551940 /usr/lib/chromium-browser/chromium-browser --type=renderer --enable-pinch --lang=en-US --force-fieldtrials=AutofillClassifier/Enabled/Auto
64100 chromium-browser --type=gpu-process --channel=10330.2.320071530 --supports-dual-gpus=false --gpu-driver-bug-workarounds=2,3,18,25,33,47,51,63 --disable-accelerated-video-decode --gpu-vendor-id=0x1002 --gpu-device-id=0x9612 --gpu-driver-vendor=Mesa --
419048 /usr/lib/chromium-browser/chromium-browser --type=renderer --enable-pinch --lang=en-US --force-fieldtrials=AutofillClassifier/Enabled/Auto
435984 /usr/lib/chromium-browser/chromium-browser --type=renderer --enable-pinch --lang=en-US --force-fieldtrials=AutofillClassifier/Enabled/*Aut

Adding up the Chrome total memory size in kilobytes, I get a total of 1,978,036 kilobytes or~2GB. That seems excessive to me. I do not recall if this was also the case when I was running Xubuntu 14.04 on this machine but Chrome never was this slow before.

My Chrome extensions: AdBlock 2.48 and Send from Gmail (by Google) 1.16, both enabled.

I have quite a few extensions and plugins in Firefox (E.g. Flash, Java, OpenH264, AdblockPlus). Yet,
`ps -e -m --cols 256 -o 'size,args' | grep irefox`
769012 /usr/lib/firefox/firefox

That is, the single tab Firefox window required one Firefox process at a s ize of 769MB (piggy add-ons?). Still, Firefox is fast enough.

The `top` report header while both browsers are sitting idle:
Tasks: 209 total, 1 running, 208 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
%Cpu(s): 1.7 us, 1.0 sy, 0.0 ni, 97.2 id, 0.2 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st
KiB Mem : 7915748 total, 4403188 free, 1364560 used, 2148000 buff/cache
KiB Swap: 8122364 total, 8122364 free, 0 used. 6450608 avail Mem

So, I do not think Chrome should have been waiting on resources during launch.

My machine specs:
Xubuntu Xenial (16.04)
   - HP Pavilion dv3-1075us Laptop
   - Product page: http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01632154
   - It came with Windows Vista + HP bloatware
   - CPU: AMD Turion X2 RM-72 Dual-Core Mobile Processor @ 2.10 GHz
   - RAM: 8GB (max: 8GB)
   - Video: ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics
   - Current storage: SSD 64GB (shipped with HDD 320GB @ 5400 rpm)
   - Weight: 4.6 lbs (2.09 kg)

QA Team Gist link: https://gist.github.com/9c6dbcd7cc1c24175aee

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: chromium-browser 47.0.2526.106-0ubuntu1.1221
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.3.0-7.18-generic 4.3.3
Uname: Linux 4.3.0-7-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
ApportVersion: 2.19.4-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: XFCE
DRM.card0.HDMI.A.1:
 edid-base64:
 dpms: On
 modes:
 enabled: disabled
 status: disconnected
DRM.card0.LVDS.1:
 edid-base64: AP///////wAw5GgBAAAAABkSAQOAHRJ4CgAFAAAAAAAAUFQAAAABAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBEhsAgFAgEDAYIEQAS88QAAAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA/gAAAABMR0RJU1BMQVkKAAAA/gBMUDEzM1dYMi1UTEUxAE8=
 dpms: On
 modes: 1280x800 1280x720 1152x768 1024x768 800x600 848x480 720x480 640x480
 enabled: enabled
 status: connected
DRM.card0.VGA.1:
 edid-base64:
 dpms: On
 modes:
 enabled: disabled
 status: disconnected
Date: Sun Jan 31 17:21:22 2016
Desktop-Session:
 'xubuntu'
 '/etc/xdg/xdg-xubuntu:/usr/share/upstart/xdg:/etc/xdg:/etc/xdg'
 '/usr/share/xubuntu:/usr/share/xfce4:/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/:/usr/share'
DetectedPlugins:

Env:
 'None'
 'None'
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-09-18 (135 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 15.10 "Wily Werewolf" - Alpha amd64 (20150825)
Load-Avg-1min: 0.55
Load-Processes-Running-Percent: 0.2%
MachineType: Hewlett-Packard HP Pavilion dv3 Notebook PC
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.3.0-7-generic root=UUID=f0453f42-1d84-4c59-af30-ba4484fb3e8c ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: chromium-browser
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to xenial on 2016-01-13 (18 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 08/25/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.bios.version: F.15
dmi.board.asset.tag: Base Board Asset Tag
dmi.board.name: 1506
dmi.board.vendor: Compal
dmi.board.version: 14.31
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Compal
dmi.chassis.version: N/A
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnHewlett-Packard:bvrF.15:bd08/25/2009:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPPaviliondv3NotebookPC:pvr1:rvnCompal:rn1506:rvr14.31:cvnCompal:ct10:cvrN/A:
dmi.product.name: HP Pavilion dv3 Notebook PC
dmi.product.version: 1
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
gconf-keys: /desktop/gnome/applications/browser/exec = b'firefox\n'/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/https/command = b'firefox %s\n'/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/https/enabled = b'true\n'/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/command = b'firefox %s\n'/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/enabled = b'true\n'/desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager = b''/apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager = b''/desktop/gnome/interface/icon_theme = b'gnome\n'/desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_theme = b'Clearlooks\n'
modified.conffile..etc.default.chromium.browser: [deleted]
mtime.conffile..etc.chromium.browser.default: 2015-09-19T13:24:52.401305

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to look at all reported bugs in a timely manner. You reported this bug some time ago and there have been many changes in Ubuntu since that time. Your problem may have been fixed with some of the updates.

It would help us a lot if you could test on a currently supported Ubuntu version. When you test it and it is still an issue, kindly upload the updated logs by running only once in a terminal:

apport-collect 1540179

and add any additional information that you think relevant. Alternatively, please confirm that this is no longer a problem and that we can close the report. If we do not hear from you the bug report will close itself in approximately two months time.

Thank you again for helping make Ubuntu better.

Paul White
[Ubuntu Bug Squad]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for chromium-browser (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]