Firefox interface is horribly laggy in a variety of situations, with delayed scrolling and typing

[skalka]

Typing is extremely slow in typing in multiline fields. This happens with the text field on twitter, google+, blogger. Usually there's a big delay between typing and charachters to appear and cpu works a lot. Everything works fine with other browsers like chrome or opera. Disabling Javascript doesn't solve the issue even because withut js it's impossibile to load text fields that make a large use of it. My pc is equipped with a nvidia 8400gs m video chip. Let me know if more informations are needed.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: firefox 12.0+build1-0ubuntu0.12.04.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-24.37-generic-pae 3.2.14
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-24-generic-pae i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
AddonCompatCheckDisabled: False
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.24.
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu7
Architecture: i386
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: CONEXANT Analog [CONEXANT Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: skalka 1958 F.... pulseaudio
BuildID: 20120423122624
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf4500000 irq 48'
   Mixer name : 'Conexant CX20549 (Venice)'
   Components : 'HDA:14f15045,103c30cd,00100100'
   Controls : 18
   Simple ctrls : 9
Channel: release
Date: Sun Apr 29 12:02:14 2012
ForcedLayersAccel: False
IfupdownConfig:
 auto lo
 iface lo inet loopback
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release i386 (20120423)
IpRoute:
 default via 192.168.1.1 dev wlan0 proto static
 169.254.0.0/16 dev wlan0 scope link metric 1000
 192.168.1.0/24 dev wlan0 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.1.100 metric 2
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
Profiles: Profile0 (Default) - LastVersion=12.0/20120423122624 (Running)
RunningIncompatibleAddons: False
SourcePackage: firefox
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
WifiSyslog:
 Apr 29 09:11:28 Renato wpa_supplicant[910]: WPA: Group rekeying completed with 00:18:39:ab:f3:0e [GTK=CCMP]
 Apr 29 09:21:01 Renato kernel: [ 2004.363531] cfg80211: Found new beacon on frequency: 2467 MHz (Ch 12) on phy0
 Apr 29 10:11:28 Renato wpa_supplicant[910]: WPA: Group rekeying completed with 00:18:39:ab:f3:0e [GTK=CCMP]
 Apr 29 10:32:47 Renato kernel: [ 6310.072316] process `skype' is using obsolete setsockopt SO_BSDCOMPAT
 Apr 29 11:11:28 Renato wpa_supplicant[910]: WPA: Group rekeying completed with 00:18:39:ab:f3:0e [GTK=CCMP]
dmi.bios.date: 12/01/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: Phoenix
dmi.bios.version: F.2E
dmi.board.name: 30CE
dmi.board.vendor: Wistron
dmi.board.version: 80.52
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.chassis.version: N/A
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnPhoenix:bvrF.2E:bd12/01/2008:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPPaviliondv2500NotebookPc:pvrF.2E:rvnWistron:rn30CE:rvr80.52:cvnHewlett-Packard:ct10:cvrN/A:
dmi.product.name: HP Pavilion dv2500 Notebook Pc
dmi.product.version: F.2E
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard

[Gert van Dijk (gertvdijk)]

Had the same issue here. Solved it by disabling all addons except the Ubuntu default addons. Might figure out later which add on was the cause.

[iGadget (igadget)]

In my situation (which is the situation Gert is referring to) the add-on causing the slowness was "Translate This! 1.8". Disabling it restored the normal speed experience. Do you have this add-on installed?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

One important cause of this bug is an issue in the default GTK theme:
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=563887>

Installing a different theme improves performance a lot. One good default is:
<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/os-x-yosemite/>

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

Enabling add-ons like Adblock Plus or WOT, which require certain processing, also makes Firefox to slow down noticeably in a Intel i5, and sluggish in a Intel Core 2 Quad.

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

This problem is triggered in a variety of situations, but the root cause is that the interface needs to be separated from the engine, and take advantage of multi-threading.

[GizmoChicken (gizmochicken)]

As has been pointed out above, these problems are triggered in a variety of situations. But for me, the most common culprits have been unwanted scripts running in the background. I've found that running "NoScript Security Suite" helps immensely. "NoScript Security Suite" can be found here:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/

After activating NoScript, you'll need to allow certain scripts to run for some sites to function properly.

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to review all reported bugs in a timely manner. This bug was reported some time ago and there have been many changes in Ubuntu and Firefox since that time.

Does anyone still see a problem related to the one that was reported using currently supported versions of Firefox and Ubuntu? Please let us know if you do otherwise this report can be left to expire in approximately 60 days time.

Thank you for helping make Ubuntu better.

Paul White
[Ubuntu Bug Squad]

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

Report did not expire due to bug watch
Upstream report closed "RESOLVED WORKSFORME" on 2018-04-10
No reply to comment #9 so closing