giffgaff Community Forum CPU Load

edwin_harris

Could I bring an oddity to the developers attention please.

I love the new forum software but I've noticed a peculiarity. I'm running Firefox 75.0 on Ubuntu 19.10.

When I start the machine (warm or cold boot) and load Firefox (which comes up with the giffgaff forum in one of its tabs all is normal but after I enter that tab for the first time in a session there's a continuous 20-40% CPU load for as long as that tab is open (whether or not it has focus, I can be working in a completely different program and it's still there).

In the system monitor the load is attributed to a process called Web Content, fair enough as there is one for each open tab but the giffgaff Forum is the only one that has an ongoing load and it's high enough to take the CPU temperature into the 70s and excite the fan!

nigelbrooks

edwin_harris

I am running 75.0 (64 bit) under Windows 10 (build 18363) and CPU utilisation on an i7 does not rise over 9%

Sounds like you have an Ubuntu issue.

alex_w

edwin_harris Hi there,

Interested to see if we can pin down what's happening here. I've not got a Ubuntu machine to test on myself, but I do have an old desktop running a Core2 6300 with Win 10 installed (for which I had to up the RAM from the original 2GB to 8GB...).

I'll install Firefox to have a look at how that behaves later, but for now I've had a play around in Chrome and I'm not seeing the same as you. I get CPU load spikes whenever I load new content in the community, but it rapidly subsides again once the content is loaded - exactly the same behaviour as I see on other sites.

So I think we'll need to look further into what might be the cause for you. Are you, for example, running any browser extensions (my Chrome is stock)? Are there any particular pages on the community that are causing it, or is it like that regardless of where you are in the site? Is your version of Firefox fully updated?

guy_ow

Cheers for raising this @edwin_harris, I've popped your thread into the Feedback - Unexpected Behaviour tag so hopefully one or two of the platform time should come across this thread but I will also let them know directly.

edwin_harris

guy_ow

Many thanks 😃

edwin_harris

nigelbrooks

No, an old laptop - Core2 T7200 :-)

edwin_harris

alex_w

No extensions but two plug ins, OpenH264 Visio Codec and Widevine content decryption module.

The high CPU is whenever the giffgaff tab is selected in Firefox whether or not Firefox has focus, when this is the case I generally leave giffgaff on the general discussion main page but no changes show to this page from the point at which I leave it to when I return.

OK, let’s try leaving it in a specific topic and see if that changes the situation .....

edwin_harris

No, not just on the front page but it appears to be whenever I’m in giffgaff.

alex_w

edwin_harris Can you try Chrome as well (if you haven't already)? I'll try Firefox myself later today.

edwin_harris

alex_w

I’ll see if I can load a copy of Chrome to try, if not would Chromium do?

alex_w

edwin_harris Any other browser will probably help - just seeing if we can isolate this to something specific.

edwin_harris

alex_w

I've managed to load Chrome, it does not reside in the repositories but a manual load from the Google site worked.

OK, the behaviour is different but the effect is much the same but to a lesser extent. Whereas Firefox has a separate process for each tab and the process for the giffgaff tab is fluctuation from 20 to 40% CPU Chrome does not split it down but the CPU load is running at a steady 20% instead of the normal 3 to 5%.

mrjeeves

I can reproduce a similar issue with Chrome 81 on Windows. On my i5 9600K the giffgaff community tab reaches up to 40% CPU usage while on a discussion, sitting idle at about 15%.

The community also causes over 1000 idle wakeups per second, compared to other tabs at under 100.

I don't notice this unlike someone on a slower system might, but Netflix uses just 5-15% CPU while playing a show at 1080p in Chrome (excl. the content decryption) compared to the community's 23% usage while typing this message out.

Also edwin_harris Chrome does have separate processes for each tab. You should be able to open the Chrome Task Manager via SHIFT + ESC.

edwin_harris

mrjeeves

If you’ve managed to reproduce the problem I’ll delete Chrome from my system - I’ve spent too much of my life trying to stop Google from sneaking it in as a piggyback to software I want to be happy giving it a home now.