Resizing text in Firefox takes 25+ seconds to take effect

Bug #282439 reported by akelsall
18
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Mozilla Firefox
Invalid
High
firefox-3.0 (Ubuntu)
Won't Fix
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

In Firefox 3.0.3, when I attempt to resize the text in a window (whether using Ctrl+ or Ctrl+middle mouse wheel), it takes at least 25 seconds for the change to take effect. During this time, I can not do anything else with Firefox (such as move to another tab). This happens EVERY time I attempt to resize text.

$ sudo apt-cache policy linux
linux:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 2.6.24.19.21
  Version table:
     2.6.24.19.21 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates/restricted Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/restricted Packages
     2.6.24.16.18 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/restricted Packages

Revision history for this message
akelsall (andysjunkmale) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Michael Rooney (mrooney) wrote :

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This bug did not have a package associated with it, which is important for ensuring that it gets looked at by the proper developers. You can learn more about finding the right package at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage . I have classified this bug as a bug in firefox-3.0.

For future reference you might be interested to know that a lot of applications (including Firefox) have bug reporting functionality built in to them. This can be accessed via the Report a Problem option in the Help menu for the application with which you are having an issue. You can learn more about this feature at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs.

Revision history for this message
akelsall (andysjunkmale) wrote :

The associated package for this bug is firefox-3.0: /usr/bin/firefox.

Revision history for this message
In , sabby7890 (tsalacinski) wrote :

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; pl-PL; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008101315 Ubuntu/8.10 (intrepid) Firefox/3.0.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; pl-PL; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008101315 Ubuntu/8.10 (intrepid) Firefox/3.0.3

I've noticed that Firefox zoom highly speed depends on number of installed fonts (see bug 410365). I am using Linux, and like on most Linux distributions, Firefox is working very slow.

I've noticed that it worked fine on Gentoo. Most Linux distributions come with a great number of fonts to support every language possible - when I've removed these, Firefox started to work normally. This is confirmed by few people (and by me). The reason why Firefox on Windows works fast is simple - Windows users have little number of fonts installed by default.

Firefox speed should not depend on number of fonts installed, there should be some kind of cache that caches the fonts while Firefox is running.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Just run Firefox on default Linux setup and see that it's working bad
Actual Results:
Firefox works slow.

Expected Results:
Firefox should work fast, like on Windows.

Removing the unneeded fonts helps a lot, this fixes the problem for me and few other people, but it's not a solution. Linux distributors will want to support every language possible, and Firefox users using non-latin languages are forced either to browse only websites in their own language or use slow Firefox (on Core2Duo 2.53ghz resizing Wikipedia by clicking once on zoom button takes 2 seconds! Resizing page to the desired size takes 15-20 seconds - that's not working properly, especially when on Windows it takes 1-2 seconds - it's 10 times slower).

I'm giving that Major because text zoom is Firefox' major feature, this bug exists on every OS and it just annoys and kills the comfort of surfing.

Revision history for this message
In , bakytn (bakytn) wrote :

confirm

Revision history for this message
In , Francesco Cosoleto (francesco-cosoleto) wrote :

I confirm and it's high priority for me too. Please, consider distributions
such as openSUSE 11 can install 4000 fonts in /usr/share/fonts, that makes zoom
function requiring a few of seconds almost always on common web sites, unlike
in typical Windows enviroment.

Revision history for this message
In , bakytn (bakytn) wrote :

*** Bug 434256 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Revision history for this message
In , Skarkkai (skarkkai) wrote :

Confirm.

Revision history for this message
In , Beltzner (beltzner) wrote :

--> Core::GFX:Thebes, carrying over blocking nomination

Revision history for this message
Francesco Cosoleto (francesco-cosoleto) wrote :

Probably this bug is related to Firefox bug #462660 "Firefox zoom speed depends on number of fonts installed" (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=462660).

Changed in firefox-3.0:
status: New → Confirmed
Changed in firefox:
status: Unknown → New
Revision history for this message
akelsall (andysjunkmale) wrote : Re: [Bug 282439] Re: Resizing text in Firefox takes 25+ seconds to take effect

Hello,

            I'm curious why the Swiftweasel browaser doesn't have this
problem, when it's built off source code from Mozilla.

Thanks,

Andy

On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 4:42 PM, Shanta Schelfhout
<email address hidden>wrote:

> ** Also affects: firefox via
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=462660
> Importance: Unknown
> Status: Unknown
>
> --
> Resizing text in Firefox takes 25+ seconds to take effect
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/282439
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in The Mozilla Firefox Browser: Unknown
> Status in "firefox-3.0" source package in Ubuntu: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> In Firefox 3.0.3, when I attempt to resize the text in a window (whether
> using Ctrl+ or Ctrl+middle mouse wheel), it takes at least 25 seconds for
> the change to take effect. During this time, I can not do anything else with
> Firefox (such as move to another tab). This happens EVERY time I attempt to
> resize text.
>
> $ sudo apt-cache policy linux
> linux:
> Installed: (none)
> Candidate: 2.6.24.19.21
> Version table:
> 2.6.24.19.21 0
> 500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates/restricted Packages
> 500 http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/restricted Packages
> 2.6.24.16.18 0
> 500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/restricted Packages
>

Revision history for this message
In , Alexander Frolushkin (hokum) wrote :

I can confirm this on 64 bit Ubuntu 8.10, both repository and official builds.

Revision history for this message
Michal Skrzypek (michals) wrote :

I've installed Swiftweasel into Intrepid using the Hoary deb file from sourceforge, and I have compared Firefox 3.0.5 with Swiftweasel 3.0.3 side-by-side. I haven't noticed any difference wrt zooming.

I can also confirm, that uninstalling font packages helps with the zooming performance. There are still a lot of fonts, though. Not knowing what these are for, I'd rather wait for this bug to resolve.

Revision history for this message
In , Francesco Cosoleto (francesco-cosoleto) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek) wrote :

I am marking this triaged, importance to medium, based on the upstream bug having been filed and worked.

Changed in firefox-3.0:
importance: Undecided → Medium
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Revision history for this message
In , Francesco Cosoleto (francesco-cosoleto) wrote :

Fixed in Firefox 3.5 release for me. Anyone can confirm and then close this bug?

Revision history for this message
In , sabby7890 (tsalacinski) wrote :

Yes, right now it works perfectly!

Revision history for this message
In , sabby7890 (tsalacinski) wrote :

Sorry, forgot to close the bug.

Changed in firefox:
status: New → Fix Released
Changed in firefox:
status: Fix Released → Invalid
Revision history for this message
Micah Gersten (micahg) wrote :

Upstream marked this as works for me on Firefox 3.5, so I'm closing this as Won't Fix for Firefox 3.0. Please let us know if this still occurs on Firefox 3.5
Please report any other bugs you may find.

Changed in firefox-3.0 (Ubuntu):
status: Triaged → Won't Fix
Revision history for this message
akelsall (andysjunkmale) wrote : Re: [Bug 282439] Re: Resizing text in Firefox takes 25+ seconds to take effect

That is correct. It is working as it should in FF 3.5

Thanks,

Andy

On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 9:59 PM, Micah Gersten <
<email address hidden>> wrote:

> Upstream marked this as works for me on Firefox 3.5, so I'm closing this as
> Won't Fix for Firefox 3.0. Please let us know if this still occurs on
> Firefox 3.5
> Please report any other bugs you may find.
>
> ** Changed in: firefox-3.0 (Ubuntu)
> Status: Triaged => Won't Fix
>
> --
> Resizing text in Firefox takes 25+ seconds to take effect
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/282439
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in The Mozilla Firefox Browser: Invalid
> Status in “firefox-3.0” package in Ubuntu: Won't Fix
>
> Bug description:
> In Firefox 3.0.3, when I attempt to resize the text in a window (whether
> using Ctrl+ or Ctrl+middle mouse wheel), it takes at least 25 seconds for
> the change to take effect. During this time, I can not do anything else with
> Firefox (such as move to another tab). This happens EVERY time I attempt to
> resize text.
>
> $ sudo apt-cache policy linux
> linux:
> Installed: (none)
> Candidate: 2.6.24.19.21
> Version table:
> 2.6.24.19.21 0
> 500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates/restricted Packages
> 500 http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/restricted Packages
> 2.6.24.16.18 0
> 500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/restricted Packages
>

Revision history for this message
Michael Rooney (mrooney) wrote :

Yes, it seems to be fine in 3.5. Perhaps Fix Released is a better
status, but it may not matter much either way.

Changed in firefox:
importance: Unknown → High
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