Firefox 3 hogging 90% CPU, can anything be done about this?

[Hugh Caley]

Frank Cox wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:51:58 -0700
> Hugh Caley wrote:
>
>   
>> Sometime after opening Firefox 3 in Fedora 10 it will start grabbing 90% 
>> of the CPU until it is closed again.  I am running FlashBlock but that 
>> only seems to delay the time somewhat until the cpu goes to 90%.
>>
>> Is there nothing else that can be done about this?  If Adobe won't fix 
>> the problem, don't we have to do something?
>>     
>
> What does Adobe have to do with Firefox?
>
> If your problem is with websites that use Flash, then it's a Flash issue, not a
> Firefox issue.  Do you have still the problem when you don't use those
> websites?  What if you remove the Flash plugin from your Firefox installation?
> Does the problem go away?
>
> If your problem is with Flash and not with Firefox, then are you using the
> 32-bit or 64-bit version of Flash?  Does it happen only with the Flash stuff on
> one particular website, or with several?  Do you still see the problem on
> commonly-used Flash sites like youtube?
>
>   
All right, I had assumed that this was a well known issue by now; I've 
certainly seen lots of posts about it.

Problem:  After running Firefox for a time (a few minutes to 30 minutes) 
it will start taking 80%+ of CPU (as shown in top) and will keep taking 
it until I restart the browser.  This machine is running Fedora 10 
32-bit. Firefox firefox-3.0.8-1 flash-plugin-10.0.22.87

This is usually associated with heavy CPU from npviewer.bin, hence the 
association with flash and flashplayer.

There are several open tickets on this and similar problems on Adobe's 
website:

https://bugs.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Search for "linux cpu" etc.

I do definitely get the problem on sites such as youtube; however, I 
also get the problem on sites that don't have any obvious flash content, 
and frankly, I'm not sure which ones at this point.  Flashblock doesn't 
seem to catch all of them.  Still trying to find out.

I think it would be a good thing if Fedora and Mozilla/Firefox talked 
with Adobe about fixing this.

Hugh

-- 
Hugh Caley, Linux Administrator
Aldon Computer Group
6001 Shellmound St. Suite 600
Emeryville, CA 94608

(510) 285-8542 | hughc at aldon.com