Extremely poor performace of browsers in almost new env

**Rosein** · 24-Oct-2020, 10:40

Hi Guys!

Six days ago I reinstalled whole OpenSuse to rid off the problem of extremely slow behaviour of browsers. After that browsers were behaving, loading really well i.e. normally. But on third day when I closed VPN everything suddenly slowed down and I can't understand why and I can't figure out how to revert it or just fix it. Could help me with this, please? I am few months fresh user so please for understanding.

Loading pages are slow now in Firefox and also as in Chromium.
I have 70 Mb/s dowloading and 10 Mb/s uploading.

**nrickert** · 24-Oct-2020, 11:31

I don't have an answer.

I am not noticing a similar problem here. I get near full speed with "firefox" on speed tests both at "dslreports.com" and my ISP speed tests (metronet). That 200 Mb/s up and down. I don't think I have tried a speed test on "chromium".

If you speed is better when the VPN is open, and worse when it is closed, this suggests a peering issue between your ISP and other networks. When using a VPN, you will be using different routes to many sites, and maybe the VPN is thus bypassing whatever is causing the problem.

**Rosein** · 24-Oct-2020, 14:26

First of all, thank you for an answer.

Unfortunately the slowing is during on and off VPN currently. So I think it can be related to some non-VPN mechanism.

I have also recall that day and I realized that I installed packman-Essential that day also. Maybe it could be a problem that I have changed vendors of some packages and now they update wrongly so it slows behaviour of browsers? Do you know, how could I find exactly which packages had changed vendors?

I made speedtests at "speedtest.pl" and they give the same result as if it runs everything, ok. I mean, 70 Mb/s download and 10 Mb/s upload are correct parameters like if there was no slowing, but behaviour of browsers while loading even that is like 15 sec waiting any page.

**malcolmlewis** · 24-Oct-2020, 14:35

Originally Posted by Rosein

First of all, thank you for an answer.

Unfortunately the slowing is during on and off VPN currently. So I think it can be related to some non-VPN mechanism.

I have also recall that day and I realized that I installed packman-Essential that day also. Maybe it could be a problem that I have changed vendors of some packages and now they update wrongly so it slows behaviour of browsers? Do you know, how could I find exactly which packages had changed vendors?

I made speedtests at "speedtest.pl" and they give the same result as if it runs everything, ok. I mean, 70 Mb/s download and 10 Mb/s upload are correct parameters like if there was no slowing, but behaviour of browsers while loading even that is like 15 sec waiting any page.

Hi
That maybe a DNS issue, are you using your ISP's DNS or third party... can you check the contents of;

Code:

cat /etc/resolv.conf
cat /etc/nsswitch.conf

**Rosein** · 25-Oct-2020, 03:19

Originally Posted by malcolmlewis

Hi
That maybe a DNS issue, are you using your ISP's DNS or third party... can you check the contents of;

Code:

cat /etc/resolv.conf
cat /etc/nsswitch.conf

Hi Malcolm! I have these two files autogenerated. I copy and paste them both here.

Code:

cat /etc/resolv.conf  
### /etc/resolv.conf is a symlink to /var/run/netconfig/resolv.conf
### autogenerated by netconfig!
#
# Before you change this file manually, consider to define the
# static DNS configuration using the following variables in the
# /etc/sysconfig/network/config file:
#     NETCONFIG_DNS_STATIC_SEARCHLIST
#     NETCONFIG_DNS_STATIC_SERVERS
#     NETCONFIG_DNS_FORWARDER
# or disable DNS configuration updates via netconfig by setting:
#     NETCONFIG_DNS_POLICY=''
#
# See also the netconfig(8) manual page and other documentation.
#
### Call "netconfig update -f" to force adjusting of /etc/resolv.conf.
nameserver 192.168.0.1

Code:

cat /etc/nsswitch.conf
#
# /etc/nsswitch.conf
#
# An example Name Service Switch config file. This file should be
# sorted with the most-used services at the beginning.
#
# The entry '[NOTFOUND=return]' means that the search for an
# entry should stop if the search in the previous entry turned
# up nothing. Note that if the search failed due to some other reason
# (like no NIS server responding) then the search continues with the
# next entry.
#
# Legal entries are:
#
#       compat                  Use compatibility setup
#       nisplus                 Use NIS+ (NIS version 3)
#       nis                     Use NIS (NIS version 2), also called YP
#       dns                     Use DNS (Domain Name Service)
#       files                   Use the local files
#       [NOTFOUND=return]       Stop searching if not found so far
#
# For more information, please read the nsswitch.conf.5 manual page.
#

passwd: compat
group:  compat
shadow: compat

hosts:          files mdns_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns
networks:       files dns

services:       files
protocols:      files
rpc:            files
ethers:         files
netmasks:       files
netgroup:       files nis
publickey:      files

bootparams:     files
automount:      files nis
aliases:        files

Originally Posted by nrickert

Unlikely.

The packages that changed vendors would be ones with codecs needed for some video and other multimedia.

Compared to 10 years ago, web pages today have many more advertisements all of which do DNS lookups. Slow DNS servers can be a problem. Poor NAT performance on a router can be a problem. And CGNAT can slow things down, if your ISP is using that.

Hi Nrickert! You can be right, but yesterday after my post I installed x264 and ffmpeg from packman and I added whole packman repository and also allowed for the new vendor for some packages:

Than I updated packages and it was still slowing during exploring so I left it and went to sleep. But today when I turned on PC, all browsers are back to normal smooth performance. I know it isn't neccessary be that vendor changing, because I updated everything what I could update, but it works now. But I am afraid it will be back after few days. Could you give me some tips to prepare to monitor these changes better to have better insight?

Thank you both!

**nrickert** · 25-Oct-2020, 05:41

From your latest description, it sound as if it could be a network congestion problem. And there might not be much you can do about that, other than complain to your ISP.

**karlmistelberger** · 25-Oct-2020, 07:48

Originally Posted by Rosein

Hi Malcolm! I have these two files autogenerated. I copy and paste them both here.

...

Code:


cat /etc/nsswitch.conf
#
# /etc/nsswitch.conf
#
# An example Name Service Switch config file. This file should be
# sorted with the most-used services at the beginning.
#
# The entry '[NOTFOUND=return]' means that the search for an
# entry should stop if the search in the previous entry turned
# up nothing. Note that if the search failed due to some other reason
# (like no NIS server responding) then the search continues with the
# next entry.
#
# Legal entries are:
#
#       compat                  Use compatibility setup
#       nisplus                 Use NIS+ (NIS version 3)
#       nis                     Use NIS (NIS version 2), also called YP
#       dns                     Use DNS (Domain Name Service)
#       files                   Use the local files
#       [NOTFOUND=return]       Stop searching if not found so far
#
# For more information, please read the nsswitch.conf.5 manual page.
#

passwd: compat
group:  compat
shadow: compat

hosts:          files mdns_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns
networks:       files dns

services:       files
protocols:      files
rpc:            files
ethers:         files
netmasks:       files
netgroup:       files nis
publickey:      files

bootparams:     files
automount:      files nis
aliases:        files

There was heavy tinkering with your version of /etc/nsswitch.conf

My pristine version:

Code:

erlangen:~ # rpm -qf /etc/nsswitch.conf
glibc-2.32-1.1.x86_64
erlangen:~ # 
erlangen:~ # rpm -V glibc
erlangen:~ # cat /etc/nsswitch.conf            
#
# /etc/nsswitch.conf
#

.....

# passwd:    db files
# shadow:    db files
# group:     db files

passwd:         compat
group:          compat
shadow:         compat
# Allow initgroups to default to the setting for group.
# initgroups:   compat

hosts:          files dns
networks:       files dns

aliases:        files usrfiles
ethers:         files usrfiles
gshadow:        files usrfiles
netgroup:       files nis
protocols:      files usrfiles
publickey:      files
rpc:            files usrfiles
services:       files usrfiles

automount:      files nis
bootparams:     files
netmasks:       files
erlangen:~ #

I never touched this file on my machine and never experienced 'extremely poor performance of browsers'. You may want to try the unmodified version of package glibc.

**brunomcl** · 26-Oct-2020, 15:18

Just in the off-chance this may help, if the OP is on an ipv4 network, disabling ipv6 speed up things, AFAIK.

I always disable it in Yast (I'm using wired ethernet, so network manager is not really necessary).

**tsu2** · 26-Oct-2020, 20:54

Troubleshooting a slow system can be difficult...
You might try looking at your own machine first, eg
How many tabs or browser windows do you have open at once? close as many as you can, particularly if you have 4GB of RAM or less.
When troubleshooting, don't stop at just browser tabs and windows, close other applications.
Look at your hard drive activity light, is it continuously lit or blinking rapidly and continuously?

When you've simplified your machine as much as possible, then you might look at just your local network.
Are there other machines active on the netowrk?

Then, you might look at your network connection to your ISP, and then to the Internet backbone and then down the other side of the Inbternet Backbone to whatever website you're asking. Use traceroute to ping each router to your target destination.

The above assumes that you have a problem that's affecting your machine as a whole.
If you suspect the problem is actually the website you're connecting to, you can analyze how you download the parts of that website by invoking the web browser's developer tools, usually with the CTL-SHIFT-J key combo,. You'll have access to various tools but I recommend you click on the "Network" tab. As long as you have this open, you can visit web pages and you will be able to see how long it takes to download each individual piece of the page.

Good Luck,
TSU

**karlmistelberger** · 27-Oct-2020, 02:21

Originally Posted by brunomcl

Just in the off-chance this may help, if the OP is on an ipv4 network, disabling ipv6 speed up things, AFAIK.

I always disable it in Yast (I'm using wired ethernet, so network manager is not really necessary).

KISS works best: I disabled network in YAST and enabled systemd-networkd.service. Configuration is minimal:

Code:

3400G:~ # cat /etc/systemd/network/ethernet.network 
[Match]
Name=eno1

[Network]
Address=192.168.178.4/24
Gateway=192.168.178.1
3400G:~ #

Code:

3400G:~ # cat /etc/resolv.conf
search fritz.box
nameserver 192.168.178.1
3400G:~ #

Startup is fast:

Code:

3400G:~ # systemd-analyze critical-chain network.target
The time when unit became active or started is printed after the "@" character.
The time the unit took to start is printed after the "+" character.

network.target @431ms
└─systemd-networkd.service @369ms +62ms
  └─systemd-udevd.service @279ms +88ms
    └─systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service @256ms +10ms
      └─kmod-static-nodes.service @243ms +6ms
        └─systemd-journald.socket
          └─-.mount
            └─system.slice
              └─-.slice
3400G:~ #

No need to turn off ipv6.