Firefox stuttering final report

[mike acker]

after browsing for a while Firefox may start to stutter:
normally it scrolls smoothly in response to the scroll wheel, but when "stuttering" -- scrolling is delayed, and jerky
it is necessary to restart Linux to solve this
problem is manifest even on my totally simple home web page

[PatH57]

Hi Mike,

could you post back the output of:

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inxi -v7

and an example of a url where this happens?

[mike acker]

Hi Mike,

could you post back the output of:

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inxi -v7

and an example of a url where this happens?

here is the inxi output:

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 $ inxi -v7
System:    Host: -----  Kernel: 3.11-2-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.8.1) 
           Desktop: Cinnamon 2.0.14  dm: mdm Distro: LinuxMint 1 debian
Machine:   Mobo: ASUSTeK model: M5A88-M version: Rev X.0x Bios: American Megatrends version: 1101 date: 03/16/2012
CPU:       Quad core AMD Phenom II X4 965 (-MCP-) cache: 2048 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4a svm) bmips: 27198.4 
           Clock Speeds: 1: 800.00 MHz 2: 3400.00 MHz 3: 800.00 MHz 4: 800.00 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RS880 [Radeon HD 4250] bus-ID: 01:05.0 chip-ID: 1002:9715 
           X.Org: 1.14.3 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1920x1200@60.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD RS880 GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 9.2.2 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RS880 HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 4200 Series] 
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 01:05.1 chip-ID: 1002:970f 
           Card-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) 
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:14.2 chip-ID: 1002:4383 
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.11-2-amd64
Network:   Card-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller 
           driver: r8169 ver: 2.3LK-NAPI port: e800 bus-ID: 04:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: 30:85:a9:ae:e8:1d
           Card-2: Realtek RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter driver: rtl8192ce port: d800 bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8176
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: 10:bf:48:fb:aa:5b
           WAN IP: 97.83.23.125 IF: eth0 ip: N/A ip-v6: N/A IF: wlan0 ip: 192.168.1.117 ip-v6: fe80::12bf:48ff:fefb:aa5b 
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 3000.6GB (18.2% used)
           1: id: /dev/sda model: WDC_WD1002FAEX size: 1000.2GB serial: WD-WCATRC454315 
           2: id: /dev/sdb model: ST1000DM003 size: 1000.2GB serial: S1DGBAAK 
           3: id: /dev/sdc model: ST31000524AS size: 1000.2GB serial: 5VPDTAAW 
           Optical: /dev/sr0 model: N/A rev: N/A dev-links: cdrom
           Features: speed: 48x multisession: yes audio: yes dvd: yes rw: cd-r,cd-rw,dvd-r,dvd-ram state: N/A
Partition: ID: / size: 902G used: 509G (60%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 
           label: N/A uuid: 89f3e39d-b8ca-47fd-a792-b29278db7bc3
           ID: swap-1 size: 16.91GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5 
           label: N/A uuid: d898df1a-0262-43b2-b81a-cf3d5359c7bd
RAID:      No RAID data available - /proc/mdstat is missing - is md_mod kernel module loaded?
Unmounted: ID: /dev/sdb1 size: 1000.20G label: Backup_Vol2 uuid: 9a296935-0b4e-4455-b8a4-dea29e462e67 
           ID: /dev/sdc1 size: 983.29G label: N/A uuid: 3c13e3b2-2e79-432f-ac4e-3dd2166a4f5d 
           ID: /dev/sdc5 size: 16.91G label: N/A uuid: 07cade12-3610-4a1f-8125-99fe5b18971a 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 34.0C mobo: 32.0C 
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 1666 sys-1: 783 
Info:      Processes: 160 Uptime: 23 min Memory: 1528.1/15832.0MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.2 
           Client: Shell (bash 4.2.45 running in gnome-terminal-) inxi: 1.9.14 
 ~ $ 

now as far as the URL goes,-- once the stuttering starts it affects every page
--even my home page -- which is bare bones simple

i'll try to identify where the problem seems to start...

[PatH57]

don't see anything strange.

try to run

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sudo apt-get install htop

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htop

[mike acker]

ok i have htop
i'll try it next time this stuttering manifests

[PatH57]

leave htop running in the background at all time and check it when it happens.

[mike acker]

URL Trace

1 from "Tech Meme"

and then

2 article on WaPo

after these reads -- the whole system was "stuttering" -- delayed response to clicks, keys ...

the active task (htop) -- seems to be cinamon replace

[PatH57]

Hi Mike,

did check the links but nothing strange about them.
What do you mean with

the active task (htop) -- seems to be cinamon replace

[mike acker]

Hi Mike,

did check the links but nothing strange about them.
What do you mean with

the active task (htop) -- seems to be cinamon replace

I'll continue to kinda keep an eye on this--
"cinamon replace" is one of the tasks that shows on the active list--
this system is running normally this evening, w/ cinamon replace -- 1 instance only -- using about .7% of CPU resource

.....I seem to remember seeing multiple instances of cinamon-replace active when I ran htop with the issue manifest
i'll look for that next time this problem is manifest

i'll attempt a screen shot

[PatH57]

Mike,

also try chromium (software manager) and see if it does the same. I had some issues with firefox but only having like 10 open sessions (a bit of stuttering while scrawling)

[mike acker]

vlcsnap-00001.png

screenshot

the htop monitor is constantly updating so i did a screencast recording of it and then selected this screenshot from the result
the system continues stuttering even after Firefox is closed

note: 2 cinamon-replace are executing

here is the last URL I was reading

[PatH57]

all looks fine so I suspect firefox and flashplayer (bit old on firefox)
use chromium for a moment and see if it is more stable then firefox.

[stz*j]

all looks fine so I suspect firefox and flashplayer (bit old on firefox)
use chromium for a moment and see if it is more stable then firefox.

Hi there,

If I may add to this, I don't think the problem is restricted to just firefox, or any desktop manager in particular. Also see http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 6&t=173904 for an example of a possibly linked bug. Might be totally unrelated but I did notice some sound stutters while playing sound in my Mate desktop session.

I haven't run any tests using htop or whatever, but I do know that my desktop has been acting quite strange recently, perhaps after some dist-upgrades a while ago. I can say that this 'stuttering' also happens to me across both Mate and Enlightenment desktop, and navigating through Synaptic Package Manager a while ago, the scrolling also stutters and hangs randomly. Even my keyboard hanged when typing out this reply!

So yeah, just saying, you might want to try looking elsewhere, or maybe Chromium works well, can you confirm?

[mike acker]

all looks fine so I suspect firefox and flashplayer (bit old on firefox)
use chromium for a moment and see if it is more stable then firefox.

Hi there,

If I may add to this, I don't think the problem is restricted to just firefox, or any desktop manager in particular. Also see http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 6&t=173904 for an example of a possibly linked bug. Might be totally unrelated but I did notice some sound stutters while playing sound in my Mate desktop session.

I haven't run any tests using htop or whatever, but I do know that my desktop has been acting quite strange recently, perhaps after some dist-upgrades a while ago. I can say that this 'stuttering' also happens to me across both Mate and Enlightenment desktop, and navigating through Synaptic Package Manager a while ago, the scrolling also stutters and hangs randomly. Even my keyboard hanged when typing out this reply!

So yeah, just saying, you might want to try looking elsewhere, or maybe Chromium works well, can you confirm?

this post is on the right trail: once the "stuttering" starts -- everything is affected -- and it doesn't go away until I do a system restart.

[PatH57]

once the "stuttering" starts

and does it start while using firefox? just want to make sure, I notice a big impact when using firefox (and underneath flashplayer) whereas with chromium I can open more then 10 sessions and it still runs smooth.

[stz*j]

this post is on the right trail: once the "stuttering" starts -- everything is affected -- and it doesn't go away until I do a system restart.

and does it start while using firefox? just want to make sure, I notice a big impact when using firefox (and underneath flashplayer) whereas with chromium I can open more then 10 sessions and it still runs smooth.

Not sure if it helps, but try executing

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pkill firefox

or

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killall firefox

or just killing the process in top/htop to see if the stuttering stops.

I'd love to say it's a kernel problem but my kernel [3.14-1-686-pae i686 (32 bit gcc: 4.8.3)] can hardly be compared with mike's kernel [3.11-2-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.8.1)]. Since I'm experiencing this on both my Enlightenment desktop and Mate desktop, perhaps it's something related to the X window system?

[noelbeth55]

my ff does the same but with chrome it is smooth as.

[stz*j]

Ok, let's see if our firefox and flash versions are the same then.

Post output of

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apt-cache policy flashplayer-mozilla firefox

Mine is

flashplayer-mozilla:
Installed: 3:11.2.202.394-dmo2
Candidate: 3:11.2.202.394-dmo2
Version table:
*** 3:11.2.202.394-dmo2 0
500 http://www.deb-multimedia.org/ testing/non-free i386 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

firefox:
Installed: 30.0~linuxmint1
Candidate: 30.0~linuxmint1
Version table:
*** 30.0~linuxmint1 0
500 http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/import i386 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Oh actually, I use the aurora version of firefox (currently v33) but I don't think that matters

[noelbeth55]

flashplayer-mozilla:
Installed: (none)
Candidate: (none)
Version table:
firefox:
Installed: 31.0+build1-0ubuntu0.14.04.1
Candidate: 31.0+build1-0ubuntu0.14.04.1
Version table:
*** 31.0+build1-0ubuntu0.14.04.1 0
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-updates/main amd64 Packages
500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-security/main amd64 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
28.0+build2-0ubuntu2 0
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages
methinks i need flashplayer

[PatH57]

Guys,

please let Mike come back with his findings
Noticed over the last 2 days my firefox playing nuts on pages with flashplayer but chromium is fine, who knows?