Digg.com slows down the browser

[fafek2]

Potential Workaround (verified to help for some):
Use

 Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps"

in your xorg.conf device section

=====================
Original summary:

Binary package hint: firefox

This problem always happens on my Ubuntu 6.10. Everytime I open Digg.com, Firefox slows down very much.
Switching tabs or opening any menus takes very long until the browser finishes loading a Digg's page.

I'm really amazed becuase I have a quite good computer (P4 2.4 GHz, ~700 MB of RAM memory, GeForce Ti 4200 card) and such situation doesn't happen on my Windows XP.

Anyway, I see that Firefox on Ubuntu is slower than on other operating systems and it is slower than other browsers. I experience flashing tabs when redrawing, less responsiveness and interface rendering problems but problems with site rendering like this with Digg is much more irritating.

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

I can confirm this. Everytime I go to digg.com, my system hangs for a couple of seconds during page rendering... I tried with -safe-mode & with clean profile and it's the same.

Currently, I am using:
Build identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/2006120814 Firefox/2.0.0.1

However, this used to happen with 1.x as well. What's different with 2.x is that now when digg.com /is/ loaded, firefox will behave very slow to requests and slow down the rest of the system from time to time. Though this might be because of changes to the site's code...

I am using:
model name : Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.80GHz
cpu MHz : 2800.573
cache size : 128 KB

OS: Ubuntu 6.06 (not using its packaging of Firefox)

PS to bug reporter: please change the "OS" section to Linux. thanks

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

tried with latest nightlies of 2.0.2pre and 3 (of course with brand new profiles on both); both have the same problem...

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

(RAM: 1GB)

(pls change OS to Linux)

[Mozilla-treblig (mozilla-treblig)]

Another confirm; Ubuntu Edgy version of Firefox 2.0 on Dual Athlon with 512MB RAM.

It's not jsut the load, but also a redraw is taking a few seconds with the window being entirely unresponsive to interaction during that time.

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> but also a redraw is taking a few seconds with the
> window being entirely unresponsive to interaction during that time.
>

same for me...

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

booted to Windows and there were no problems there. This definitely is a Linux problem.

[Superm1+mozilla (superm1+mozilla)]

I've got 3 computers running Ubuntu Edgy with FF 2.0 as well.
Digg is slow especially when expanding the hidden comments that have been dugg down. On windows, its a very snappy, smooth scroll.

[Pile0nades (pile0nades)]

I see this on Windows XP with most Digg stories that have a decent amount of comments. Such as: http://digg.com/tech_news/Kevin_Rose_dressed_up_as_Spock_Batboy_on_G4

[fafek2 (fafek2)]

Binary package hint: firefox

This problem always happens on my Ubuntu 6.10. Everytime I open Digg.com, Firefox slows down very much.
Switching tabs or opening any menus takes very long until the browser finishes loading a Digg's page.

I'm really amazed becuase I have a quite good computer (P4 2.4 GHz, ~700 MB of RAM memory, GeForce Ti 4200 card) and such situation doesn't happen on my Windows XP.

Anyway, I see that Firefox on Ubuntu is slower than on other operating systems and it is slower than other browsers. I experience flashing tabs when redrawing, less responsiveness and interface rendering problems but problems with site rendering like this with Digg is much more irritating.

[Emilio Pozuelo Monfort (pochu)]

No problem here, though it needs a lot of time in charge the page, but doesn't freezes my computer ;)

I have Feisty up-to-date and Firefox 2.0.0.1 from Ubuntu.

Which version of Ubuntu and of Firefox are you using? And of flash?

[fafek2 (fafek2)]

Well, I have Ubuntu 6.10 with Firefox version 2.0.0.1.

[Freddy Martinez (freddymartinez9)]

This problem is probably with Digg and the content on it.

[fafek2 (fafek2)]

I don't think so.

I don't experience such problem neither on Windows nor Ubuntu 6.06 with Firefox 1.5 installed on my second computer, however loading takes longer. As far as I know, when I had Dapper installed here, sites like Digg were displayed correctly also.

[Freddy Martinez (freddymartinez9)]

Odd, I am wondering if anyone can reproduce this. Also, maybe check out https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Bugs and try some of those.

[Brent Core (brentcore2)]

I would like to add that I've experimented with this a lot and it appears to be the combination of visiting a site that uses transparent PNGs stacked on top of each other with CSS while not have 3D graphics card acceleration. Many Linux users do not have 3D graphics card acceleration due to the fact that closed-source graphics drivers are not installed by default (and the open-source graphics drivers capable of 3D acceleration are either alpha quality or do not support all cards).

The point is, this bug is not specific to only Linux users. However, Linux users are much more likely to experience the problem due to the current graphics drivers situation.

Basically the work of interpreting two or more stacked alpha channels is being pushed onto the processor rather than the graphics card, essentially maxing the proc out and bringing the entire system to a halt. I've experienced a 100% CPU usage just scrolling up and down on http://www.linuxactionshow.com .

Proposed solutions:

A) have an option within about:config to toggle off the display of transparent PNGs (this is only a temporary fix for those who even know what "about:config" is). An extension could be developed as well, but again, this is a poor solution. Not everyone knows what an extension is, nor do they actually know why web pages appear to be slow after installing Linux on their computer.

B) rethink the way Fx renders stacked transparent PNGs

C) detect when a user does not have 3D acceleration. If it is determined that no acceleration is present, then handle transparent PNGs differently

Obviously (C) looks like the best choice. This is a VERY serious bug, and as such should have top priority. Fx cannot leave Linux users in the dust. This includes future One Laptop Per Child users, who will have no 3D acceleration whatsoever.

test pages:
http://www.digg.com/submit (continue the submission process to the point where you need to enter a description of the story. CPU slowdown ensues)
http://www.linuxactionshow.com

[Mozilla-treblig (mozilla-treblig)]

Hi Brent,
  That is interesting - however I'm confused how this applies to my system;
For reference I'm running Ubuntu/Edgy with a Radeon 7200 on a Dual Athlon MP system (Tyan S2460).
  Now the 3D driver does work; however it isn't exactly a new card.

However, the 3D driver on this occasionally dies badly - and I've never had such a crash through Firefox; which makes me think that Firefox (fortunately) isn't even trying to use 3D drivers.

Dave

[Pile0nades (pile0nades)]

http://digg.com/apple/Apple_Announces_iPhone_2 (warning, 1,459 comments!)

Here is a better example of the problem I have. The browser will become
unresponsive for a while and then come back. When it does, I have no problems
scrolling.

On http://www.linuxactionshow.com/ , I get slow scrolling, due to the stacked
transparent pngs. I think the total hanging while loading many-commented digg
stories, and the slow scrolling w/ transparent pngs, are different bugs.

[Superm1+mozilla (superm1+mozilla)]

Now I wouldn't immediately point this at 3D acceleration issues. I encounter this on my Thinkpad r50p with the fglrx proprietary drivers installed and functioning.

[Brent Core (brentcore2)]

Dr. Gilbert:

I am not too familiar with the capabilities/performance of fglrx in terms of how it renders multiple stacked alpha channels, but perhaps my calling it "3D acceleration" is conflating 3D graphics with alpha transparency. Maybe the problem is not with the lack of 3D acceleration per se, but rather most systems without functioning 3D graphics tend to also have issues with rendering alpha channels. Maybe it is the case that the fglrx driver handles 3D fine but chokes on alpha rendering.

For what it's worth, testing with both Windows XP and many distributions of Linux, four different computers, all with nvidia graphics cards, in all cases the problem was reproducible and installing the proprietary "nvidia" driver rather than the open-source "nv" driver fixed the problem immediately.

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

http://digg.com/apple/Apple_Announces_iPhone_2 was a torture, at times it
hanged the computer...

I can confirm the slow scrolling with http://www.linuxactionshow.com/ as well.

as per 3D, I believe I have 3D working on an Ati Mobility Radeon 9000 with the
open source ati drivers. But that whole 3D thing is very confusing to me so I'm
not sure...

[Brent Core (brentcore2)]

...and now I just tested a machine with the open-source "radeon" driver. Fx renders transparent PNGs fine with "radeon", but completely chokes with the open-source "ati" driver. I haven't tested out fglrx, however.

Just to note: the goal of "radeon" is to achieve 3D acceleration while "ati" is 2D only.

[Brent Core (brentcore2)]

<email address hidden>:

Are you using the "radeon" driver? I confirm slow-ish scrolling as well, but it is categorically different from the slowdown I get when using "ati". I believe the slight slowdown you may get from visiting linuxactionshow.com with the "radeon" driver can be attributed to it's limited functionality--it is very early in development.

[Brent Core (brentcore2)]

I just tested http://digg.com/apple/Apple_Announces_iPhone_2 on a Linux machine using proprietary "nvidia" driver and confirm slowdown of a different type.

I agree with pile0nades that there seems to be two separate issues here. The digg page with 1400+ comments did not ever make Fx unresponsive on my system--it just sucked up a lot of system resources. This does seem halfway reasonable given that there are a whole lot of tiny avatars to render. I think this kind of problem affects all users of Fx on all platforms. I also think that these cases are somewhat more rare.

But the problem with rendering a simple website that makes use of transparent PNGs is absolutely *not* reasonable. I'm talking about the kind of problem you get when visiting linuxactionshow.com, for example. It's not reasonable because it is a very simple website design, and it is also very common. Incidentally, digg.com also makes use of transparent PNGs in a similar way. [I believe this is unrelated to the problem of visiting a digg page with 1400+ comments]

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

(In reply to comment #16)
> <email address hidden>:
>
> Are you using the "radeon" driver?

I'm using "ati" in xorg.conf... "radeon" results in random crashes...

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

PS. Sorry for the bug spam.. I just found a bug report at Ubuntu tracker as well: https://launchpad.net/firefox/+bug/81858 (I'm using upstream product)

[Mozilla-treblig (mozilla-treblig)]

So, I've got the 'ati' driver in the config, but reading the man page for it, it looks like it loads one of radeon/r128/etc depending on what you have - so I believe it's running Radeon.

Just watching on top, the linuxactionshow.com page scrolling up and down shows most of the CPU is in Xorg; for the iPhone digg page I see it at ~100% on Xorg but then I see it bouncing to 100% on the firefox process for a while and back to Xorg.

What's the right way to profile this - I guess we could attack Xorg/firefox with gprof or oprofile; but is there anything higher level to see what is going on in firefox or what primitives the X server is taking its time on?

[Brent Core (brentcore2)]

Dr. Gilbert:

I would hazard a guess that you are actually using the ati driver. How do 3D applications run? Have you tried running any 3D apps? I know on Debian you have to explicitly change your xorg.conf to use the radeon driver or else it will use the ati driver instead.

On my ati machine, I'm using the radeon driver, which fixes the problem perfectly. When I switch back to the "ati" driver, it gets dog slow.

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

I experience the problem with the upstream Firefox versions. It slows down the computer, not only Firefox... I do not use Ubuntu's firefox so I don't know if it is effected (though there are comments at upstream that it is?) so I didn't report it here.

For now, upstream is saying that this may be due to bad handling of transparent png and transferring workload to cpu.

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

can we bump up the importance, the bug's rather annoying -thanks :)

[Emilio Pozuelo Monfort (pochu)]

towsonu2003: I think the importance is right, as this is a special case, which affects people visiting digg.com, and not to everybody :)

[tinker123 (email-alias1-ubuntu)]

Hi;

I have a similar issue to this bug, BUT I get the problem with the sound being cut off on sites other than digg.com.......it just seems to be the worst with digg.com ( which is also slow with the FF & Ubuntu 6.10 combination and not otherwise ):

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've noticed two problems with the combination of Ubuntu 6.10 and Firefox 2.0.0.1

Both seem to happen or be the most visible on the digg.com web site.

1. When a submit a story on digg.com, a special yellow box comes up. Typing text in that box is extremely slow. Sometimes I can count to 1, slowly, or 2 from the time I type until the time I see text appear.

2. If I am listening to music on totem while reading digg, the music will be temporarily cut off if I click on a link in digg.

I downloaded Opera 9.10 through synaptic. I tested it in the same situations and had neither problem. While I could not use totem on windows xp box at work, I did not have similar problems to #1 or #2 with Fire Fox 2.0.0.1 there.

I have a high speed cable connection at home.

[tinker123 (email-alias1-ubuntu)]

----------------------------
towsonu2003: I think the importance is right, as this is a special case, which affects people visiting digg.com, and not to everybody :)
-----------------------------

I respectfully disagree. It is a high visibility issue and you only get one chance to make a good impression for many of the users out there.

Ubuntu is being tried out by many people among whom digg.com is a very popular site and they are going to be using firefox.

This bug makes Ubuntu and firefox look very bad.

[tinker123 (email-alias1-ubuntu)]

Not to beat a dead horse, but I would like to add a point to my last post.

I think using Firefox, on Ubuntu, to read digg.com, while listening to music is a very, very, very, common thing.

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

as discussed at the upstream report, the problem isn't just with digg. but it shows itself very nicely with digg.

another example they give (I believe) is http://www.linuxactionshow.com/

but if in this bug we'll specifically talk about digg.com and nothing else, than I agree that it's low status

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

before we can actually start to process we need to find out which component or javascript function causes these slowdowns.

If you want to speed things up, please provide us that info. Without that info I cannot even confirm the upstream bug (which is currently still unconfirmed)as this might as well be due to a bug on behalf of the site authors.

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

> If you want to speed things up, please provide us that info.

I would do that, but I have no idea how to isolate html/javascript code per bug etc... MozillaTeam/Bugs wikipages don't have guides for it either...

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

strip down the site block by block until you find the html block which causes this.

Anyway, I doubt that this only is the case on ubuntu. Maybe the site admin wants to investigate first? Have you tried to contact him about his site being really slow on firefox?

[tinker123 (email-alias1-ubuntu)]

Hi Alex;

I don't know if you saw my comment or not.

I tried digg.com out with the same version of FF out on my windows xp box at work. I did not get any slowness, nor did I get any interruption in other programs while browsing digg.com.

There is something in the FF & Ubuntu combination.

[tinker123 (email-alias1-ubuntu)]

Hi Alex;

I don't know if you saw my comment or not.

I tried digg.com out with the same version of FF out on my windows xp box at work. I did not get any slowness, nor did I get any interruption in other programs while browsing digg.com.

I also downloaded Opera for linux onto my Ubuntu box. No speed issues with digg.com, no interruption it Totem playback while pages loaded.

There is something in the FF & Ubuntu combination. Maybe FF for linux is a bit different or was compiled different for Ubuntu.

[fafek2 (fafek2)]

When I was using Nvidia Geforce Ti 4200 card with default drivers on Ubuntu, I was encountering this problem.

Now, when I've changed my card to Ati X800 GTO, Digg is loaded slower than on Windows, but it doesn't disturb the whole Ubuntu system and menus as well as changing the tabs works normally.

[dave (daviddort)]

I have the same problem with slow tab switches with digg.com, I am using Firefox 2.0 on opensuse 10.2. My laptop isn't current so I'm not expecting much, but there is a noticeable lag associated with digg.com that is not there with firefox on windows. Also playing video within digg does not work well, but from the source (such as youtube) video works fine. This does not happen when I use Konqueror, so I would guess it is not a Linux problem.

[SubWolf (subwolf)]

Just installed the latest ATI fglrx driver, direct rendering is on, all is well, but google spreadsheets still crawls compared to performance on Windows. It's not totally debilitating, but noticeable. On a side note, http://www.linuxactionshow.com/ suffers only a smidgen of lag.

While traversing a google spreadsheet:

  PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
 4388 root 15 0 84264 56m 7388 S 52.6 2.8 0:49.68 Xorg
 5506 subwolf 16 0 176m 77m 23m R 46.1 3.8 0:38.06 swiftfox-bin

Hardware: Athlon XP 3000+, 2Gb DDR400, Radeon 9600 Clone (9650)
Software: Kubuntu Edgy 6.10 Edgy, SwiftFox V2.0.0.1-AthlonXP

[Colin-mcewan (colin-mcewan)]

There may well be issues with 3d acceleration, but the issue I'm experiencing with Google Spreadhseets and Ubuntu, which is at least in symptoms identical to the issues experienced by others above, is categorically and provably not a 3d acceleration issue.

Under Ubuntu, with unknown 3D acceleration support, Google Spreadsheets crawls horribly. However, if I start up VMWare Server and boot Windows 2000, Firefox and Google Spreadsheets inside that VMWare (which has no 3D acceleration support, at least in my version) is fast as you like. Far, far faster than using Firefox/Google Spreadsheets natively in X.

This may well be a separate issue from that with digg.com, of course. It also may be the case that, if others are not experiencing such a slowdown with 3D acceleration enabled, it may be that the 3D acceleration is mitigating the effect of a bug; for example, if something is causing excessive overdraw, the 3D acceleration may render the bug unnoticable, and this is masking the underlying problem.

I'm behind the times... I had no idea hardware compositing even existed under Linux or Windows...

Regards,
--
C.

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

> with Google Spreadhseets and Ubuntu

if you open a new report on that, please let us know :)

[Colin-mcewan (colin-mcewan)]

> if you open a new report on that, please let us know :)

No need, as it seems there already is one:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=346382

...which refers to this:

http://www.suseforums.net/index.php?s=8497382120bc18e7f628ad55b18babcf&showtopic=29910

wherein the commenter already tried the precise diagnostic procedure I did.

That's what I get for skimping on my research, apologies for the duplication.
--
C.

[Edward Chan (esh2chan)]

I have this same issue. I am using firefox 2.0.0.1 on EdgyEft. Digg slows my machine way down, and video within digg barely works at all.

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

http://digg.com/tech_deals/The_Moron_Who_Sued_Archive_org_Intends_to_Sue_Us_Next hangs the computer, let alone the browser... probably due to too many comments?

[SubWolf (subwolf)]

http://digg.com/tech_deals/The_Moron_Who_Sued_Archive_org_Intends_to_Sue_Us_Next does not kill my browser, does make it think hard though. See comment #22 for system specs.

[tomdryer (tomdryer-com)]

I am having the same issue with Ubuntu 7.04. It used to work fine with Edgy, and started when I did a clean install of Feisty. Both Firefox and Epiphany have the exact same problems. Opening digg.com or linuxactionshow.com causes Firefox to slow down. Scrolling and opening menus becomes slow, and if I move a window over Firefox it redraws very slowly. But when I switch to another tab the speed is normal. Switching back to the slow tab causes a delay and Firefox slows down again.

I have a ATI Radeon X300. Could this be related to the fact my old install used fglrx and now I have the open source ati driver?

[Apersaud (apersaud)]

got the same problem on a mac (os X 10.3)
using:

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/2007030919 Firefox/2.0.0.3

system slows down for a few seconds, but then everything works well again.

[Med Berdai (arabicfoss)]

Hi, I am using Ubuntu 7.04 with Firefox from Mozilla site, and my graphic card is ATI 9250.
I am having the same issue on digg.com, I found a workarround that may help some people. here is what I did.

I have installed Adblock Plus extension for Firefox then, I visited digg.com and right click on comment picture and block it using Adblock Plus (It's a PNG picture which may be in blue or gray according depending on the rating the person has recieved).

or simply after installing Adblock Plus, add this two filters to the list of Adblock Plus:
http://www.digg.com/img/comment-1.png
http://www.digg.com/img/comment-2.png

I hope that was helpful

[Med Berdai (arabicfoss)]

I am having the same issue with Ubuntu 7.04. I have ATI 9250 which uses the open source driver.
I don't think it has anything to do with the open source driver because I have tried both the open source ati driver and the open source radeon driver with no difference.

I am using Firefox from mozilla site, and there is no difference between both versions.

[Med Berdai (arabicfoss)]

Hi,
well I have found a workarround for digg.com, which may not be very practical to some people here but I found it helps reducing CPU usage while rendering digg.com web pages.

I have installed Adblock Plus extension for Firefox then, I visited digg.com and right click on comment picture and block it using Adblock Plus (It's a PNG picture which may be in blue or gray according depending on the rating the person has recieved).

or simply after installing Adblock Plus, add this two filters to the list of Adblock Plus:
http://www.digg.com/img/comment-1.png
http://www.digg.com/img/comment-2.png

I hope that was helpful

[tinker123 (email-alias1-ubuntu)]

Thanks for the tip!

I am amazed with the huge number of Ubuntu fans among Digg users.......and the huge number of Digg users among Ubuntu fans that this bug has gone on as long as it has.

[Mart (martin-eshock)]

I am also experiencing this bug with FireFox 2.0.0.3 on Kubuntu Feisty Fawn Final.

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

I had to block all the images and the speed became significantly better. I tried png, gif, and jpg each one by one but without blocking all, it didn't work. of course, this doesn't solve the problem... The filters I used with adblock plus were:

http://digg.com/img/*.png
http://digg.com/img/*.gif
http://digg.com/img/*.jpg

is anyone caring for this bug?

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

I had to block all the images and the speed became significantly better. of course, this doesn't solve the problem... The filters I used with adblock plus were:

http://digg.com/img/*.png
http://digg.com/img/*.gif
http://digg.com/img/*.jpg

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

there is no info request...

[HG (mike-we11er)]

I had this same issue perhaps a week or two ago. The home page would load the top banner and then just freeze trying to load something. In the end I realized it was being caused by one of the ads or something so I installed Adblock Plus. Problem gone.

Course, there could be 100 different issues in this bug report - digg.com threads are slow as ass, especially when there are many comments. Hope this helps.

[Pile0nades (pile0nades)]

http://digg.com/tech_news/Digg_This:_09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0

Here's a better story to test with. Over 1500 comments and almost 40,000 diggs.

I'm thinking this is probably an HTML parser bug. With huge digg pages it's simply overloaded and locks up the UI until it's done.

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

(In reply to comment #31)
[snip]
> I'm thinking this is probably an HTML parser bug. With huge digg pages it's
> simply overloaded and locks up the UI until it's done.
>

Then there are two separate bugs in here - otherwise why would blocking all the images from the site work (as in comments #29 & #30?

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

need to get this on track upstream or reject.

[Matt Jamison (matt-mattjamison)]

Just for my curiosity, try this xorg.conf setting in your device section, assuming you are using linux:

 Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps"
              Disables accelerated draws into pixmaps stored in offscreen video memory.

I searched and searched and searched some more to find a fix for this issue, and on my Dell D600 with a Radeon R250 [Mobility FireGL 9000] this option completely resolves this issue. No promises, just thought I'd share. I wasted WAY too much time dinking with this.

[Troy Reynolds (troy-troyreynolds)]

I'd just like to report that I have tried the above Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps" and this did not resolve the issue for me.

I still experience very slow scrolling and with digg.com and various other sites.

http://windyroad.org/software/wordpress/vistered-little-theme/

The above site scrolls very slowly on Ubuntu 7.04 + Firefox however is very smooth on WinXP + Firefox.

I'm using an Nvidia 6600GT in a twinview (Dual Monitor) setup together with the nvidia-glx-new package and 3d acceleration is working fine.

[HG (mike-we11er)]

It's worth pointing out that Digg recently changed their commenting system for improved performance.

[Barretta (barrett979-gmail)]

I experience same problem with various sites. Ubuntu 7.04 and Ati Radeon x300.

[Troy Reynolds (troy-troyreynolds)]

I have now replicated this problem (Slow scrolling & Slow responsiveness) on various systems with varying video cards. The http://windyroad.org/software/wordpress/vistered-little-theme/ seems to be a very good test of this and the issue is quite obvious when viewing that site.

I have also tried Opera and the issue is also apparent there.

In this case this bug does not appear to be Firefox related and I think some more work needs to be done to determine where this bug report needs to be assigned to. Is this an xorg or gnome problem? I think this needs to be determined and a new bug report filled.

Is there anyone using Kubuntu (KDE) that can test the above site for slow scrolling with Firefox & Konquerer?

[Freddy Martinez (freddymartinez9)]

Troy I am unable to reproduce that on a KDE system of Kubuntu Gutsy or an an Ubuntu Feisty install. It'd say its a Digg problem.

[Barretta (barrett979-gmail)]

In my case, running driconf and activating "disable low-impact fallback"has solved the problem. Scrolling is ok now.

[Dizoriented (dizoriented)]

*** Bug 388259 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Raseel (raseel)]

I'm getting the same problem. I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.4 on Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. However, Firefox does not have any issues from Windows. But quite interestingly, since I have recently moved to a new office, with a similar machine and OS, Firefox does not seem to have the problem.

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Can you try with the latest firefox in feisty it is now 2.0.0.6

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Im assuming its still present since upstream hasnt done anything yet with it. I was never able to reproduce this

[Med Berdai (arabicfoss)]

Hi, I've tried Troy Reynolds method and it's really made things a lot better, now AJAX animations play correctly, no frame skip or slowliness.

My graphic card is an AGP x8 ATI Radeon 9250 with 256Mo RAM. I am using Ubuntu 7.04 with the (X11) Free Radeon Driver.

here is how my graphic card device section looks like in xorg.conf

/etc/X11/xorg.conf
Section "Device"
        Identifier "ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 PRO]"
        Driver "radeon"
        BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
        Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps"
        Option "AGPMode" "8"
        Option "AGPFastWrite" "true"
        Option "EnablePageFlip" "true"
        Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
        Option "EnableDepthMoves" "true"
EndSection

@Troy Reynolds: Thank you very much. That was helpful.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

does this happen with builds provided from ftp.mozilla.org as well?

[Med Berdai (arabicfoss)]

Yes, It affects Firefox from ubuntu repositories and Firefox from Mozilla builds too. Even Opera is slightly affected too

[cwgannon (cwgannon)]

I too am experiencing slowdown on digg.com, and it too is caused by javascript (disabling scripts for digg.com with the NoScript extension is the only way to make the site usable).

I have an ATI Radeon X300, like tomdryer and barretta. I'm running XGL with Compiz Fusion over it. I'm willing to test something out or provide some information on my system if needed.

Thanks.

[Ergosys (ergosys)]

The XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps option also worked for me, and also fixed a similar problem with a bit of experimental javascript as seen on this page:

http://www.raizlabs.com/blog/?p=210

Perhaps this can help narrow down the problem.

Note: ubuntu 7.04, firefox 2.0.0.6, video is nv17 (geforce4 440 go) according to "Device Manager" using nv driver (nvidia's doesn't work for me).

[cwgannon (cwgannon)]

Confirmed working here, as well, on an ATI Radeon X300 with XGL & Compiz Fusion. Much thanks to Troy Reynolds and everybody else working to resolve this problem.

[Matt Jamison (matt-mattjamison)]

Ok, I must really be missing something. Two people have posted thanks to Troy Reynolds, one even citing the " Troy Reynolds method" as a fix. I'm not seeing any fixes provided by that user in this thread, so seriously, what am I missing out on?

[Ergosys (ergosys)]

I should note that XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps helped me only partly. The "vistered-little-theme" site and some others I've looked at are still quite slow.

[Ergosys (ergosys)]

Here is a self-contained and simplified example of the problem. When the attached sample html uses stylesheet style_slow.css, the scrolling is sluggish, when it uses style_fast.css, the scrolling is fast. The only difference is that in the fast case, the following statements are commented out in several elements:
  width=100%
  height=100%

The original site had some non-unity scales, but 100% also causes the problem.

See previous post for my system specifications.

[drape (blueaceblue)]

Having this problem now with digg.com.
I'm using the Fiesty w/o compiz fusion and have java6 binaries and plug-ins installed. Other than java and amorok its a fresh install of Ubuntu.

The digg website doesnt slow down but STALLS firefox. It seems that switching the tabs at the taskbar solves the problem until i need to click on something again.

Being a conspiracy theorist, i figure someone at digg figured out a way to do a DOS attack on all firefox users.

[darren.headrick (darren-13827)]

Confirm problem, ubunty FF, firefox 2.0.0.6. Running beryl, geforce go 7300 with restricted nvidia driver. The haanooffscreenpixmaps method does not work for me.

[darren.headrick (darren-13827)]

Fix that worked for me, I added adblock, and then added the filters: *doubleclick* and *adtech*.

[Verifex (verifex-deactivatedaccount)]

After adding the doubleclick and adtech filter to adblock, Firefox stopped freezing completely. Thanks Darren!

[Jonah Lounsbury (jogeek)]

it seems to be sites that use a lot of ajax/javascript that cause the CPU to hit the roof. if you have the same problem as me, going here http://www.raizlabs.com/blog/?p=210 and dragging the red box will bring your machine to its knees.

[Wouter Stomp (wouterstomp-deactivatedaccount)]

Firefox 3 beta 4, which is in hardy, now performs much much better on javascript-heavy pages such as digg.com. Can you try if this resolves the issue?

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 11:42:42AM -0000, Wouter Stomp wrote:
> Firefox 3 beta 4, which is in hardy, now performs much much better on
> javascript-heavy pages such as digg.com. Can you try if this resolves
> the issue?
>

this is most likely fixed in firefox 3. firefox 2 won't see any fixes
of this kind anymore.

 status wontfix

 - Alexander

[Freddy Martinez (freddymartinez9)]

I'm not having this issue on Digg. I'm on 3.0+ on Intrepid. Marking closed for now per Alexander's comments.

[Freddy Martinez (freddymartinez9)]

Sorry for the confusion. Alexander had the right status.

[Tyler Downer (tyler-downer)]

This bug was reported on Firefox 2.x or older, which is no longer supported and will not be receiving any more updates. I strongly suggest that you update to Firefox 3.6.3 or later, update your plugins (flash, adobe, etc.), and retest in a new profile. If you still see the issue with the updated Firefox, please post here. Otherwise, please close as RESOLVED > WORKSFORME
http://www.mozilla.com
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+mode

[Tyler Downer (tyler-downer)]

No reply, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.x or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). If you continue to see this issue with the newest firefox and a new profile, then please comment on this bug.