I have two clean installs of RC2 on this machine, one the default system
with PulseAudio, the other without. In the one with PA, Firefox freezes for
5-10 seconds every half-a-minute. In the non-PA version, there have been no
such freezes. The /home directory is on its own partition and is common to
both systems and so the Firefox windows and tabs are also the same.
On the PA system, CPU used by Firefox on one of the two CPUs jumps to 100%
and sticks there for the 5-10 seconds. On the other system, it shows a
single spike to 100% and immediately drops away before a second spike
appears 5-10 secs later.
Can anyone suggest why this should be happening? I have no audio playing in
any Firefox tab so why should PulseAudio cause this trouble?
The same problem occurred with RC1 but only after several updates.
On 02/26/2011 12:09 PM, Cloddy wrote:
> I have two clean installs of RC2 on this machine, one the default system
> with PulseAudio, the other without. In the one with PA, Firefox freezes for
> 5-10 seconds every half-a-minute. In the non-PA version, there have been no
> such freezes. The /home directory is on its own partition and is common to
> both systems and so the Firefox windows and tabs are also the same.
>
> On the PA system, CPU used by Firefox on one of the two CPUs jumps to 100%
> and sticks there for the 5-10 seconds. On the other system, it shows a
> single spike to 100% and immediately drops away before a second spike
> appears 5-10 secs later.
>
> Can anyone suggest why this should be happening? I have no audio playing in
> any Firefox tab so why should PulseAudio cause this trouble?
>
> The same problem occurred with RC1 but only after several updates.
On Saturday 26 Feb 2011 20:31, Larry Finger scribbled:
> On 02/26/2011 12:09 PM, Cloddy wrote:
>> I have two clean installs of RC2 on this machine, one the default system
>> with PulseAudio, the other without. In the one with PA, Firefox freezes
>> for 5-10 seconds every half-a-minute. In the non-PA version, there have
>> been no such freezes. The /home directory is on its own partition and is
>> common to both systems and so the Firefox windows and tabs are also the
>> same.
>>
>> On the PA system, CPU used by Firefox on one of the two CPUs jumps to
>> 100% and sticks there for the 5-10 seconds. On the other system, it shows
>> a single spike to 100% and immediately drops away before a second spike
>> appears 5-10 secs later.
>>
>> Can anyone suggest why this should be happening? I have no audio playing
>> in any Firefox tab so why should PulseAudio cause this trouble?
>>
>> The same problem occurred with RC1 but only after several updates.
>
> See it “top” can catch the offending process.
The “offending” process is Firefox. I apologise for not making it clear in
para 2 that I’d used System Monitor (similar to “top” but with pretty
graphics) to see what was happening.
On an OLD PC ( > 10 yrs old ~athlon-1100 w/nVidia FX5200 ) I’ve seen slow behaviour with Firefox and pulse audio (and not just firefox but also other applications when I am playing audio from more than one application at a time) but I have NOT seen such behaviour on a newer PC (Core i7 920 w/nVidia GFX260).
Since you mention “on this machine” could you perhaps tell us a bit about the CPU and graphics on that machine ? Are you attempting to play audio from more than one app at a time ?
>
> Cloddy;2295651 Wrote:
>> I have two clean installs of RC2 on this machine, one the default
>> system
>> with PulseAudio, the other without.
>
> Since you mention “on this machine” could you perhaps tell us a bit
> about the CPU and graphics on that machine ? Are you attempting to play
> audio from more than one app at a time ?
>
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+
Graphics: Radeon HD 2400 Pro
I am not attempting to play any audio at all! That’s what I find baffling.
Aside: Tried to save hardware file from YAST and whatever folder I tried to
save to, it said it couldn’t save to “/”. Aaagh! I’ll have to try it on 11.3
and see if it’s an 11.4 feature. If so, I’ll visit bugzilla again.
I have 11.4 on only 1 PC. I noticed this exact problem under -RC1. Due to my (personal) annoyances with Firefox 4, I dropped back to Firefox 3.6.13, and experienced no problems whatsoever. PA has given me small problems in the past.
Perhaps FF4 does more things with audio that FF3, although I experienced the same 5-10 secs freeze without attempting any Firefox-related audio. I shall upgrade to FF4 and give it a go under -RC2 (although FF4 is still somewhat annoying!).