Firefox web browser causing unusually high cpu and ram loads [Solved]

[pianokeyjoe]

Code: Select all

System:    Kernel: 5.10.0-8mx-rt-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 8.3.0 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-5.10.0-8mx-rt-amd64 
           root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash 
           Desktop: Xfce 4.14.2 tk: Gtk 3.24.5 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm 4.14.0 vt: 7 
           dm: LightDM 1.26.0 Distro: MX-19.4_x64 patito feo October 21  2019 
           base: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP Pavilion g6 Notebook PC 
           v: 0594100000204610000620100 serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 1693 v: KBC Version 14.16 serial: <filter> 
           BIOS: Hewlett-Packard v: F.37 date: 01/16/2013 
CPU:       Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i3 M 380 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Nehalem 
           family: 6 model-id: 25 (37) stepping: 5 microcode: 7 cache: L2: 3 MiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 20214 
           Speed: 1311 MHz min/max: 933/2533 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1311 2: 1180 3: 1220 
           4: 1218 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled 
           Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
           Type: mds 
           status: Vulnerable: Clear CPU buffers attempted, no microcode; SMT vulnerable 
           Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
           Type: spec_store_bypass 
           mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, 
           STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
           Type: srbds status: Not affected 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Core Processor Integrated Graphics vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
           driver: i915 v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:0046 class-ID: 0300 
           Device-2: Microdia type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 2-1.6:4 chip-ID: 0c45:6321 
           class-ID: 0e02 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.10 compositor: xfwm4 v: 4.14.0 driver: loaded: intel 
           display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1 
           Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1366x768 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 361x203mm (14.2x8.0") 
           s-diag: 414mm (16.3") 
           Monitor-1: LVDS1 res: 1366x768 hz: 60 dpi: 101 size: 344x193mm (13.5x7.6") 
           diag: 394mm (15.5") 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics (ILK) v: 2.1 Mesa 20.3.5 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 5 Series/3400 Series High Definition Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
           driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:3b56 class-ID: 0403 
           Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.10.0-8mx-rt-amd64 running: yes 
           Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.12 running: no 
           Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 12.2 running: yes 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
           driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 3000 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8136 class-ID: 0200 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter 
           vendor: Hewlett-Packard U98Z062.12 802.11bgn driver: ath9k v: kernel port: 3000 
           bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 168c:002b class-ID: 0280 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 395.39 GiB (84.9%) 
           SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
           ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Seagate model: ST500LM034-2GH17A size: 465.76 GiB 
           block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 3.0 Gb/s type: HDD rpm: 7200 
           serial: <filter> rev: LXM3 scheme: MBR 
Partition: ID-1: / raw-size: 29.3 GiB size: 28.71 GiB (98.00%) used: 13.92 GiB (48.5%) fs: ext4 
           dev: /dev/sda3 maj-min: 8:3 
           ID-2: /boot raw-size: 512 MiB size: 487.9 MiB (95.30%) used: 136.6 MiB (28.0%) 
           fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1 
           ID-3: /home raw-size: 428.15 GiB size: 420.43 GiB (98.20%) used: 381.33 GiB (90.7%) 
           fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda4 maj-min: 8:4 
Swap:      Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default) 
           ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 7.81 GiB used: 776 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 
           dev: /dev/sda2 maj-min: 8:2 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 74.0 C mobo: 0.0 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     Packages: note: see --pkg apt: 3054 lib: 1430 flatpak: 0 
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64] https://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
           1: deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ buster main non-free
           2: deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/testrepo/ buster test
           3: deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ buster ahs
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list 
Info:      Processes: 229 Uptime: 5h 28m wakeups: 2 Memory: 7.58 GiB used: 1.31 GiB (17.2%) 
           Init: SysVinit v: 2.93 runlevel: 5 default: 5 tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 8.3.0 
           alt: 8 Shell: quick-system-in default: Bash v: 5.0.3 running-in: quick-system-in 
           inxi: 3.3.06 

Hello my fellow MXers! I am having a rough time of using my computer for internet browsing and youtube video watching as of the last 3 or 4 days since I did the MX updates for Firefox. I am having a decidedly hard time getting videos to play smoothly at 480p and instead get very low resolutions with lots of buffering at 144p! Seems when I minimize the FF window and check my conky, the CPU is close to 100% and the ram close to 50% and it is a Intel i3 system with 8GB of ram, WTH?? Has anyone else been suffering FF slowdowns? I have not seen any new topics in this forum so I am starting this thread. SO far the excessive amount of load on the ram and cpu happens only when I go to youtube and try and play any video. I use the laptop mostly to watch videos, with everything else being only secandary use and nothing else so far seems to cause this issue. At first I though maybe my system is dying and need to go spend money I do not have on another laptop but then I was able to download AVL-MXE 23.1 and other large files via FF with no slow downs or issues soooo.. yeah not my lappy or FF in general.. any clues? I basically can not watch youtube anymore unless I go on Windows or switch to another browser/platform and is frustrating me to no end.. Any sound advice would be greatly appreciated as I refuse to go Windows and I love my ole MX19.4 fully customized to the things I love and use daily.

[FullScale4Me]

Try turning off hardware Acceleration in Firefox. It seems to be a common thing with FF.

[CharlesV]

Turning off hardware acceleration usually increases cpu, but I think that is well worth a try.

Couple of things here...

1) Your cpu temp is high, might be time to clean some fans and possibly repaste the CPU

2) If I am reading that QSI right, it looks like your home partition is just over 90% full? Hard drives start slowing down approx 75%, then again at 80% and seriously slow down at 90% ... this could very well be contributing to this.

3) how old is that seagate? ( over 5yrs .. swap it out!)

And what kind of extensions are you running in FF? I know I run adblocker Plus and DuckDuckGo Extensions, nutn else and FF and youtube play very nice here.

[pianokeyjoe]

@CharlesV I have been using this same system for years(since 2019. It is a HP and has known high temp in Linux issues. I do have a Fujitsu 13" flip touch lappy with the same mainboard/ram/cou/chipset hardware I can drop my HDD into but it is 13" screen so way too small for my liking and it does not suffer that high temp issue. I have not had issues with only youtube causing the slow down until recently. There have been several FF updates in which suddenly my experience was slower with yt. I have adblock plus and thats it for my extension. I had this similar issue with ebay.com with adblock enabled so I disabled it for ebay but if I disable it in yt, then my video viewing would be riddled with ads and I could not watch a movie or documentary straight through so if that is the issue, ohoh! Now I decided to switch graphical environements from XFCE to Window Maker and suddenly everything is back to normal. Ram and CPU usage is now at least normal and my yt videos are now responding and working correctly. I am able to pause them without them starting back up again by them selves and I am able to open multiple tabs again while yt video plays in the background. So maybe XFCE is having a fit with FF and yt? Yes my HDD is from 2020 when we were all grounded. I bought it new. It is almost full yes as I have tons of mp4 videos and iso files, etc that I do not have a back up drive for yet but funny thing.. Last night I filled the drive up to 348mb free space left in the home directory and suddenly the ff with yt slow down fixed itself all the way to today upto 5 minutes before I posted this thread here in frustration when I had to completely close yt tab and give up. After I posted the thread, some 5 minutes or so later I decided to log out and log in again but with Windowmaker, and so far all is working again without the slow downs. So aside from the hardware and hdd filled up details I very well know about, what else could be slowing yt with FF down so much in XFCE but not in Window maker?

[CharlesV]

It sounds like you have something running on your XFCE that is / can slow everything down. I have seen FF be strange on certain videos, and on certain websites, but if it is working sometimes and not others... then something else is at play here. ( connection / internet, running apps / processes, ??)

[MXRobo]

@pianokeyjoe Possibly related, and maybe - it's back!
viewtopic.php?t=78128
And this post: viewtopic.php?p=754026#p754026
But I think this links to a dynamic page, i.e. it changes.
Good Luck!

[pianokeyjoe]

Ay ay ay! Oy vay! Ans opa! That may be it! Cause no other website is causing me this much pain. I can't go without adblock so wow, this sucks but thankyou guys for pointing me in a direction. Again, why windowmaker has less impact in my ff/yt issues? I do not know but after a while of opening videos I am having the same issues of yt auto downgrading the quality of the videos and then them going back to 480p as I set them with slowness to start or open the videos. Now I know yt is heavy and I have had yt site always starting slow, and caching thumbnails slow but the cpu and ram consumption being astronomically high after the latest upgrade of FF in XFCE is very concerning. It is hitting my hardware and not just a slow website..

[TTwrs]

https://www.pcgamer.com/its-not-just-yo ... -blockers/

[pianokeyjoe]

Thankyou @TTwrs . Thats it! Cause the issue is happening even in Windowmaker just not as badly because the gui is lighter on resources overall but ff and yt are slowing things down. Now facebook.com website as always been doing this slowdown to the point it crashes my browser since 2018 or even sooner! And it has always been in Firefox. So while I only open fb site every now and again and just use pidgin to chat with my facebook friends as a work around, I do not know a PC/Linux work around to see my youtube videos without having to visit the actual website. On the phone I can not block ads so that sucks balls but it is just a phone so I hardly ever use my phone for yt.. too slow and too battery hungry. The PC plugged in with the browser is my go to and the adblocker is a must or it will make things not good especially when I want to download the videos as the ad algo can interrupt or corrupt the yt file downloader ability to get the media file. There has to be a better way to do youtube with adblocking enabled.. but what?

[FullScale4Me]

SMtube looks to be a way of browsing YouTube. In MX Package Installer.