[SOLVED] Real slow text entry in firefox

Message

JofCore · Post by **JofCore** » Fri May 27, 2005 9:59 pm

Hello,

I have a recently installed Gentoo box that seems WAAAAY too slow to me when typing in text boxes in firefox (like this one. for example, I've typed "example" by now, but the screen is lagging way behind on "one.")

There seems to be a huge delay when typing in any entry box in a firefox window... not sure what the cause is. When I type in a gnome-terminal, there's no delay...

My system specs:
Athlon 900
320MB memory (both mem and swap are at about half right now according to gkrellm)
buttloads of drive space (200+GB)
nvidia GeForce 4MX (using nvidia X driver, with 32MB AGP aperature -- was getting lockups w/64MB aperature)

any ideas?

thx!

rutski89 · Post by **rutski89** » Fri May 27, 2005 11:28 pm

Check out your TOP output while typing. It would be good to know if it is firefox causing the problem, or some other process sucking up system resources.

JofCore · Post by **JofCore** » Tue May 31, 2005 8:43 pm

Good idea, didn't think of that. Well, it sure looks like firefox is the culprit, as I am typing this, my "firefox-bin" is using 87-90% cpu...
When I stop typing, firefox falls down the list, but when I type again, it goes straight back up to the top...

hmmmm

woinnie · Post by **woinnie** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 8:11 pm

Hi,
the same problem is occuring on my box... are you using gnome as WM, also ? (i haven't installed any other WM to test if this annoying problem remains)

Schwinni · Post by **Schwinni** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 8:16 pm

Do you use "mozilla-firefox" or "mozilla-firefox-bin"?

Greetz,
Schwinni

JofCore · Post by **JofCore** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 9:58 pm

the same problem is occuring on my box... are you using gnome as WM, also ?

Yep, using gnome as my WM as well. (emerge'd gnome-light to be specific)

Do you use "mozilla-firefox" or "mozilla-firefox-bin"?

I'm using mozilla-firefox (non-precompiled):

Code: Select all

*  www-client/mozilla-firefox
      Latest version available: 1.0.4
      Latest version installed: 1.0.4

*  www-client/mozilla-firefox-bin
      Latest version available: 1.0.4
      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]

JofCore · Post by **JofCore** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:10 pm

anyone?

rutski89 · Post by **rutski89** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 7:41 pm

Try firefox-bin and a new version of firefox

crumby · Post by **crumby** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 11:37 pm

I'm using Opera right now because of this very problem.
It wasn't firefox that was being slow, it's only when I try to type something in a text field that made it so slow.
I'm very puzzled as to why this occurs as the problem only seems prevelent in firefox and to no other program that I use.

Not to jump to conclusions, but does anyone have the sneeking suspicion that this problem is caused because firefox uses the XPI platform?

rutski89 · Post by **rutski89** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 11:42 pm

Again, try different versions of firefox. If they work then we can claerly see that there is some issue that involves a conflict between that specific version and your hardware / gentoo setup.

rbiswarup · Post by **rbiswarup** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 1:05 am

I have also noticed that the firefox-bin is much more responsive and fast in general (ie not restricted to text entry alone) than the firefox i compiled using the Jackass! toolkit .I had uninstalled firefox and started using opera thinking that opera is a much better coded program than firefox. Later when i installed firefox-bin i found out that it behaves similarly to opera.

I didn't set any package specific USE flags while compiling firefox, just "emerge firefox".The platform is p3.

rutski89 · Post by **rutski89** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 2:46 am

rbiswarup wrote:I have also noticed that the firefox-bin is much more responsive and fast in general (ie not restricted to text entry alone) than the firefox i compiled using the Jackass! toolkit .I had uninstalled firefox and started using opera thinking that opera is a much better coded program than firefox. Later when i installed firefox-bin i found out that it behaves similarly to opera. I didn't set any package specific USE flags while compiling firefox, just "emerge firefox".The platform is p3.

What do your CFLAGS look like?

rbiswarup · Post by **rbiswarup** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 3:19 am

CFLAGS are the default that comes with the Jackass! toolkit. Most probably it's not a problem with cflags because other programs, including the x-server, i compiled using the same toolkit run quite fast.

rbiswarup · Post by **rbiswarup** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 9:25 am

OK, these are my CFLAGS:

CFLAGS="-march=pentium3 -mtune=pentium3"
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -pipe"
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -O3"
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -fweb"
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -frename-registers"
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -fforce-addr"
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -momit-leaf-frame-pointer"
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -fomit-frame-pointer"
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -ftracer"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -fvisibility-inlines-hidden"

roju · Post by **roju** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 2:27 pm

I had the same problem, which disappeared when I disabled Tabbrowser Extensions.

JofCore · Post by **JofCore** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 4:59 pm

Well, things seem a little faster now that I have switched to firefox-bin. There's still some delay, like if I hold down backspace to erase a lot of text, but when I'm tying it seems to keep up w/me fairly well now.... (now to just get my 2nd monitor working again... it seems to have stopped after I emerged the latest gnome

)

If it gets to be too big a delay, I may try disabling the tabbrowser extensions as someone else suggested. I'd rather not, as that is one of my "essential" firefox extensions... So for now, it seems the problem has been somewhat resolved by switching to firefox-bin. However, this isn't really a good test, since other stuff has changed/stopped working on my system as well (like the 2nd monitor... who knows, maybe that was slowing things down too...?)

woinnie · Post by **woinnie** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 9:34 pm

This problem seemed linked to Tabbrowser Extension as well... disabling this nice extension has made firefox as it was before, thanks roju !

Jofcore, check this extension wich might replace some of the features from the previous...

JofCore · Post by **JofCore** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 9:57 pm

Hmm, yes, it seems that my slowness is still sort-of there. It seems to be worse when I have my 2nd monitor enabled (which I have gotten working again now...

It sucks that the problem is linked to the tabbrowser extensions... that's one of my favorites

I will have to check out that other link that woinnie posted sometime I guess..

riven · Post by **riven** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 10:12 pm

Find the extension "Tab Mix" I always used tab browser extensions. But they do mess up firefox. So someone recommended tab mix to me. It has all the features I used in the tab browser extensions, but it is very stable and very fast.

JofCore · Post by **JofCore** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 9:05 pm

Cool, I have uninstalled Tabbrowser Extensions, and installed TabMix as riven suggested.

Things seem much faster now, as it is easily keeping up exactly with where I am typing in this box. Firefox seems a bit faster in general, in fact. I did notice some comments from people saying that the TabMix extension was slowing their browser down when they had 25-30 tabs open, but I never have that many open, so that shouldn't be an issue for me... (really, who needs to look @ 30 web pages simultaneously?

)

Thx for the recommendation, riven!

For anyone else interested, I got TabMix from here: https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/m ... ing&id=625