firefox plugin-container using 99% CPU - overheating and lock-up

[philgrim]

Binary package hint: firefox

Firefox version 3.6.9

Mozilla Firefox for Ubuntu
canonical - 1.0

Firefox plugin-container is using almost all of the CPU, which is running hot at full speed even though I'm not using any programs except Firefox, and even when I'm not doing any work.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: firefox 3.6.9+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.04.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-24.42-generic 2.6.32.15+drm33.5
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-24-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri Sep 10 16:21:21 2010
FirefoxPackages:
 firefox 3.6.9+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.04.1
 firefox-gnome-support 3.6.9+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.04.1
 firefox-branding 3.6.9+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.04.1
 abroswer N/A
 abrowser-branding N/A
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_GB.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: firefox

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

It would be nice if somebody having this problem were to send the bug upstream to the Mozilla developers as well. If you have done so, please tell us the number of the upstream bug (or the link), so we can add a bugwatch that will inform us about its status. Thanks in advance.

[SRoesgen (s-roesgen)]

I would assume that everybody has this bug or is "having this problem". I asked of couple of friends who use Ubuntu and tried to figure out why some of them have the CPU overload problem and some other have no problem at all.

It turned out that those who do not suffer from the problem have the Flashblock add-on installed. I installed the plugin myself et voilà no problem anymore: no cpu load of (up to) 380% (!!!) and no overheating anymore.

I used the sharehoster site "share-online.biz" as a testing ground. The moment I deactivated the Flashblock add-on, restarted the browser and visited the site to download anything, the CPU was rising higher and higher within a few seconds. With the add-on activated there were no problems at all.

I, therefore, assume that you only have to stumble upon a site with the "wrong" flash adverts to let the plugin-container display that CPU-eating behaviour.

[Leonardo Borda (lborda)]

The problem also happens here and I do not have the Flashblock add-on installed.

Firefox 11.0 on Precise.

[Nicholas Shatokhin (robotex)]

robotex@robotex-laptop:~$ lsb_release -d
Description: Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS

[Anthony Harrington (linuxchemist)]

If this is still an issue for anyone who is running the latest and greatest version of Firefox etc and has stumbled upon this needing a quick tip, there is a bit of a messy workaround for this issue:

The plugin-container is designed to contain crashes from plugins like flash and stop them from crashing the browser along with them.

Flash may crash even nowadays (I find it surprising given how long it's been out and how employed it still is! It is still being updated now and then and html5 has yet to be fully implemented across youtube etc (usually because of it impeding advertisements)).
The plugin container can be disabled if you are prepared for the chance that a stray flash application can inadvertently crash and take the browser with it (annoying), by doing this:

Go to the page "about:config" in firefox
Search for a boolean entry named "dom.ipc.plugins.enabled" and double-click it or otherwise change it so that it reads 'false' instead of 'true'.
The next time firefox is started (close it and open it back up or restart it - there's an addon called "restartless restart" which is amazing for this), the plugin container will be long gone.

Set the entry back to true to reenable the container, but if you're prepared for the possibility of grief from crashing or you never bother with flash things anyway, then perhaps this will be useful.

[madbiologist (me-again)]

Is this still occurring on Firefox 37.0.1? If so, which video driver are you using and what video hardware do you have? (if you are not sure about your video hardware, run lspci -vnn|grep VGA )

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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