High CPU Utilization w/Firefox

Operating Sytem: Windows XP or Vista
Start Windows Task Manager
Start Firefox 9.0.1 (Current General Release Version)
in the address bar enter: https://lds.org/rcmaps
Click "Sign In"
complete signing in
The Map displays with left pane showing
Firefox CPU utilization settles to zero after loading completes.
Click the "Toggle Left Pane" Icon to hide the left pane
Firefox CPU utilization jumps to maximum and stays there.

I'm not on Windows so I can't speak to this particular problem directly. On Mac performing these steps with the Activity Monitor open doesn't show beyond normal CPU usage.

I just re-confirmed this issue with firefox running in safe mode on windows, so the problem is not a bad interaction with a firefox add-on. I'm the ward clerk, in the Millcreek 6th Ward (132), Salt Lake Millcreek Stake. Is the continuous high cpu utilization (using the steps in message #1 of this thread) specific to my role and/or my unit? Can others reproduce the problem?

I am not seeing this. I am running Windows XP SP3 and Firefox 9.0.1. I get the high utilization during rendering only. The utilization settles down to between 5% and 0% once everything is loaded. Hiding the left pane only brings the utilization up to 7-15% momentarily (< 2 seconds).

rontilby wrote:Operating Sytem: Windows XP or Vista
Start Windows Task Manager
Start Firefox 9.0.1 (Current General Release Version)
in the address bar enter: https://lds.org/rcmaps
Click "Sign In"
complete signing in
The Map displays with left pane showing
Firefox CPU utilization settles to zero after loading completes.
Click the "Toggle Left Pane" Icon to hide the left pane
Firefox CPU utilization jumps to maximum and stays there.

I'm running WinXP Pro and FF9.0.1 and I'm not seeing this either. After I close the left pane the CPU usage jump briefly then almost immediately returns to a low value. I suggest you try clearing your cache and cookies, then restart the browser.

I can verify this on my system. When I follow the procedure rontilby laid out, my system's CPU goes from near 0% to hovering continuously at about 13%-14%. If I change FF tabs, it drops to ~6%. Change tabs back to the map, it returns to the original high rate.

My system:
Windows 7 Ult. 64-bit
Intel i5 Quad core
16GB RAM
Firefox 9.0.1

Interesting, if I toggle the left pane back into view, the CPU drops to near zero. Toggle it again, it goes back up.

I also verified this with Windows 7 & Firefox 9.0.1 running in a virtual machine as well.

Mikerowaved wrote:I can verify this on my system. When I follow the procedure rontilby laid out, my system's CPU goes from near 0% to hovering continuously at about 13%-14%. If I change FF tabs, it drops to ~6%. Change tabs back to the map, it returns to the original high rate.

I can't verify this. Except for a spike when the map is redrawn, the CPU usage varies from 0% to 2%. It doesn't seem to make any difference whether the left pane is shown or not.

Seriously, I can't get it to *NOT* eat a healthy dose of CPU cycles, when configured as above. (Unless I'm not signed in with my LDS Account, then it works as expected.) On my system, the higher CPU load occurs not only with FireFox 9, but also Internet Exploder, and Opera. Chrome was the only one that worked as expected.

OS/Browser combinations that exhibited a sustained CPU load increase using the above procedure...

Windows 7 x64 / FF9, IE9 (Opera not installed)
Windows Vista x64 / FF9, IE9, Opera 11.6
Windows Vista x86 / FF9, IE9, Opera 11.6
Windows XP Pro x86 / FF9, IE8 (Opera not installed)
Ubuntu 11.10 x32 / FF9, Opera 11.6

Chrome did not show this behavior running under either Windows or Ubuntu.

It's really odd that some are experiencing this, but others are not. Keep in mind, with modern multi-core CPUs, the increase in CPU load will be much more subtle a change than with an older system. Much of the testing above was done with virtual machines using either VMWare or Microsoft Hyper-V, with the CPU limited to a single core.

Actually I had not signed in when I checked the CPU usage before. After signing in I did see the reported issue. I also noted that the boundaries did not display. So I ran firebug to see if there was anything there. What I found was that with the boundaries checked they did not display and firebug reported an error. When selecting the layers control to turn off the boundaries another error occurred. Changing the boundary setting did not affect the high CPU usage.

Mikerowaved wrote:It's really odd that some are experiencing this, but others are not.

After further testing, I was able to duplicate this behavior, but only by adding one additional step not mentioned by rontilby. If I also click the "My Ward & Stake" button, then I do see odd CPU usage -- about 14-17% when I hide the left pane.

Since the steps listed in the original post were so specific, I didn't think of adding an additional step until I read jdlessley's post about boundaries displaying. It makes sense that when you are showing your ward the usage might be higher, since it must take quite a few cycles to analyze and display all the household markers. But of course it doesn't make sense that this is continuous usage, rather than simply a spike upon redisplay. And it is quite odd that hiding the left pane makes any difference.