Firefox freezes on pages loads only in non-private windows

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1

Hello openSUSE community!

Since I’ve started using this distribution a few weeks ago, I have been struggling with freezes in Firefox on almost every page load. I’m on Tumbleweed and Firefox 65.0. The issue is most easily reproduced by doing a search on searx.me (e.g. for “foo”) and then clicking 2 to 3 results to open in parallel in new tabs. When I then switch between these new tabs as they load, all open tabs freeze with an all-grey window and a spinner in the center.

A screenshot of the issue can be seen here: https://pasteboard.co/I3GMp7o.png

I can hear my laptop fan spinning up during the freeze and when I check top in a terminal there are two processes “Web Content” and “WebExtensions” maxing out the CPU.

I have the following extensions installed:

  • uBlock Origin
  • Privacy Badger
  • HTTPS Everywhere
  • Decentraleyes
  • Cookie AutoDelete

The issue does, however, persist even when I disable all of them.

I have also tried deleting / moving my ~/.mozilla folder but the very same behaviour occured with the fresh profile resulting from this.

I do not see the problem when I open a new private window so somehow the tracking protection must be related. Switching to strict content blocking and disabling accessibility services did, however, not improve the situation in non-private windows.

I’m at a point now where I am unsure what else to check. I have not seen similar behavior on any other distribution I used so far and my Firefox profile is synced via Firefox accounts.

Does anyone have ideas on what else I could try to remedy the situation?

Thanks a lot in advance.

2

I don’t have your answer. When I have Firefox trouble, I start at irc://moznet/#firefox and/or irc://moznet/#linux or search mozillazine.org and/or mozilla.org. IRC responses are typically quick and helpful. IME, trouble with Firefox is rarely distro-specific.

3

CPU model and speed, memory type and speed, video hardware and driver, age of laptop?

4

I know it sounds weird that this would be openSUSE related but the issue is very noticeable and I have used Fedora and Solus on this notebook before without ever experiencing something similar. :frowning:

Intel Core i5-4200U (1.6GHz)

I have the operation system and /home installed on a Crucial SSD. Larger data like pictures and videos are on an HDD and are symlinked into /home. The .mozilla folder is on the SSD.

One thing I’m noticing here is that apparently I have two GPUs, the onboard one and a dedicated one set up

> sudo lspci -k | grep -EA3 'VGA|3D|Display'
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
    Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 079b
    Kernel driver in use: i915
    Kernel modules: i915
--
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107M [GeForce GT 750M] (rev a1)
    Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 079b
    Kernel driver in use: nouveau
    Kernel modules: nouveau

Not sure if that could maybe be related? TBH, I didn’t even realize that there is a dedicated GPU in this laptop until now. dodge

It’s an Acer V5 from ca. 2013.

5

This type of hybrid Video is known as Optimus and requires bumblebee to function completely. (Yes someone is a Transformer fan LOL)

https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_Bumblebee

6

rotfl!

Thanks a ton for the hint! I followed the guide on that page and setup bumblebee but without the proprietary driver and the problem seems to be fixed now! I’m still not sure why it only affected non-private firefox windows but don’t really care much now. Thanks again!