Palemoon becoming more sluggish as the day progesses? Topic is solved

[Ozzed]

Hi!

For some time now I've had the issue that when I start my computer and Pale Moon in the morning it's fast and responsive as it should be, but throughout the day it gets more and more sluggish and unresponsive, and it will sometimes freeze for up to 20 seconds and then becoming somewhat usable again. No other program behaves like this so I think it's a Pale Moon issue. Simply closing the browser and opening it again does not fix it, but turning the computer off entirely and then back on again will make it behave normally. Am I the only one with this issue?

I'm happy to provide any information that may be of help but I'm not sure what causes it so if there's any info you need just ask and I'll provide it. I'm running the 64-bit version on Windows 10 64-bit.

[satrow]

Not seeing any of those issues on W7:

[Hmm81]

I was getting similar problems before I decided to switch back to ver. 27 at least temporarily.

Maybe it has to do with the garbage collection issues detailed here.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=20843

[PalleP]

Yes, this is probably just another thread about the same bug:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=20573

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=20843

[Ozzed]

I was getting similar problems before I decided to switch back to ver. 27 at least temporarily.

Maybe it has to do with the garbage collection issues detailed here.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=20843

I do use Gmail and also use an extension that periodically checks for new mail. In my experience the redesign of Gmail has always been running sluggishly on Pale Moon, so that might be the cause.

I did not find any mention of settings that can be tweaked to mitigate the issue. Did I just miss it or is there one? I'm willing to tinker around with settings to find something that resolves the issue.

[PalleP]

Use a portable version of PM for Gmail and the problem will most likely be gone.
And disable the Gmail notifier if it also causes trouble.
And you are right, the problem has not been solved (yet).

[Ozzed]

Use a portable version of PM for Gmail and the problem will most likely be gone.
And disable the Gmail notifier if it also causes trouble.
And you are right, the problem has not been solved (yet).

Are there hidden settings related to garbage collection that could "fix" it? I would really prefer not to have to use multiple browsers.

Can I turn garbage collection off? I do mind the cpu-spikes it causes, but I wouidn't mind if Pale Moon used a bit more RAM. I have 16GB so in all honestly I'd be perfectly fine if PM used a lot more RAM than it does.

[Moonchild]

Use a portable version of PM for Gmail and the problem will most likely be gone.
And disable the Gmail notifier if it also causes trouble.
And you are right, the problem has not been solved (yet).

Are there hidden settings related to garbage collection that could "fix" it? I would really prefer not to have to use multiple browsers.

Can I turn garbage collection off? I do mind the cpu-spikes it causes, but I wouidn't mind if Pale Moon used a bit more RAM. I have 16GB so in all honestly I'd be perfectly fine if PM used a lot more RAM than it does.

There is no "fix" for these things, only tradeoffs.

That said, if you don't mind more ram usage, you can tweak the following prefs:
javascript.options.mem.gc_compacting -> false
javascript.options.mem.gc_generational -> false
javascript.options.mem.gc_allocation_threshold_mb -> 1000
javascript.options.mem.gc_max_empty_chunk_count -> 250
javascript.options.mem.gc_min_empty_chunk_count -> 50
javascript.options.mem.high_water_mark -> 512

Optionally (YMMV):
javascript.options.mem.gc_per_zone -> false
javascript.options.mem.gc_refresh_frame_slices_enabled -> false

YMMV and experimentation recommended with some different settings to see what works better for you.

[Ozzed]

Use a portable version of PM for Gmail and the problem will most likely be gone.
And disable the Gmail notifier if it also causes trouble.
And you are right, the problem has not been solved (yet).

Are there hidden settings related to garbage collection that could "fix" it? I would really prefer not to have to use multiple browsers.

Can I turn garbage collection off? I do mind the cpu-spikes it causes, but I wouidn't mind if Pale Moon used a bit more RAM. I have 16GB so in all honestly I'd be perfectly fine if PM used a lot more RAM than it does.

There is no "fix" for these things, only tradeoffs.

That said, if you don't mind more ram usage, you can tweak the following prefs:
javascript.options.mem.gc_compacting -> false
javascript.options.mem.gc_generational -> false
javascript.options.mem.gc_allocation_threshold_mb -> 1000
javascript.options.mem.gc_max_empty_chunk_count -> 250
javascript.options.mem.gc_min_empty_chunk_count -> 50
javascript.options.mem.high_water_mark -> 512

Optionally (YMMV):
javascript.options.mem.gc_per_zone -> false
javascript.options.mem.gc_refresh_frame_slices_enabled -> false

YMMV and experimentation recommended with some different settings to see what works better for you.

Thank you so much! I really appreciate it. I put in all of the settings, except the your mileage may vary-ones for now.

If I understand correctly, the tradeoff you're talking about is that RAM useage will be higher (or is there more to it?) but the benefit will be that I will see less CPU useage.

Again, thank you very much for actually providing a workaround for me. I'm far too used to the "you're holding it wrong" attitude.

[Moonchild]

If I understand correctly, the tradeoff you're talking about is that RAM useage will be higher (or is there more to it?) but the benefit will be that I will see less CPU useage.

There's more to it than that. This will postpone garbage collection until more has piled up. so it will do more in one go (and incremental GC means that that should be spread out to interfere less). The bottom line is that the same amount of garbage will still need to be collected, so this will still require approximately the same overall CPU time, but it may be able to do so more efficiently.

There are no guarantees here. a lot depends also on what needs to be GCed, how fragmented it all is, if things are leaked in an uncollectable state or not, etc.

[PalleP]

things are leaked in an uncollectable state

Is this the case with the Gmail ghost window?

[Ozzed]

If I understand correctly, the tradeoff you're talking about is that RAM useage will be higher (or is there more to it?) but the benefit will be that I will see less CPU useage.

There's more to it than that. This will postpone garbage collection until more has piled up. so it will do more in one go (and incremental GC means that that should be spread out to interfere less). The bottom line is that the same amount of garbage will still need to be collected, so this will still require approximately the same overall CPU time, but it may be able to do so more efficiently.

There are no guarantees here. a lot depends also on what needs to be GCed, how fragmented it all is, if things are leaked in an uncollectable state or not, etc.

I have now had Pale Moon running since early this morning and I'm not seeing any stalls, and memory usage is about the same. I think I'd have to have it running for a few more days to know for sure but so far it seems very promising

[Ragnite_Powered]

Okay, I'll try applying that fix then; at this point, I thought that browsers slowing down during the day were a law of life that you couldn't avoid

[PalleP]

Instead of all these workarounds, you could use a simple and 100% effective methode, that is what I did and it works...

Replace Gmail with Posteo

[Moonchild]

Ozzed, if you have the time to do so and this set of changes fixes it, can you see if you can narrow down which of the setting changes is the biggest contributor to solving these issues for you? That way I can research if there is any improvement possible by default for everyone. Start with gc.compacting and gc.generational.

[Lucio Chiappetti]

In the past (both before I moved to PM 28 and recently with PM 28), I noticed that the browser (under Linux) seemed to go somehow slower after some time (I tend to keep some 20-25 tabs in two windows open, and a browser session active for several days). Also the CPU load and sometimes memory load in perfmeter or top seemed to remain higher even when idle. Well, all this ceased recently when (as suggested by somebody in another thread) I disabled the IDCAC (I Dont Care About Cookies) addon and replaced it with the IDCAC filter in Adblock Latitude.

[Ozzed]

Ozzed, if you have the time to do so and this set of changes fixes it, can you see if you can narrow down which of the setting changes is the biggest contributor to solving these issues for you? That way I can research if there is any improvement possible by default for everyone. Start with gc.compacting and gc.generational.

I can do that, I'll be happy to assist I do want to give it some more time with all settings first to see if my initial results are repeatable or not. In order to do that I'll need a few more "all day" sessions with the browser which I haven't been able to do because I've been away.

Today marks my second full day with the browser and I'm still not seeing slowdowns, cpu utilization is still less, and memory useage is about the same. And I've had gmail opened several times throughout the day.

I'll report back with findings when I start to use only the gc.compacting and gc.generational settings.

[Ozzed]

I have now had the chance to test for a few full days (with all the tweaks enabled except the ymmv ones) and it appears that the situation is somewhat improved but not fully.

My experience is that during the beginning of the day, the browser is mostly fully responsive, though with some minor stalls and "microstutter" in the scrolling, but as the day progresses, the situation worsens with scrolling being smooth but the browsers coming to a complete stop every 3 seconds (scrolling completely stalls, then resumes to being smooth again for 3 seconds, then stalls for a second, then smooth for 3 seconds, rinse and repeat). The same happens right now when I'm typing. Typing is smooth for 3 seconds, then any input is lost for about a second, rinse and repeat. I've had Chrome and Basilisk open for the same amount of time, whih the same tabs open, and neither of them have the same issues. I've tried looking in resource monitor to try to spot periodic disk activity but I haven't found anything obvious. I have completely disabled Disk Cache in Pale Moon to rule that out. The most write-activity in Pale Moon seems to be from cookies.sqlite, which to my understanding handles cookies, and I don't really understand why it writes and reads so often when it's just handling cookies, but I don't think that that would cause the browser to completely come to a halt for a second, so I'm at a loss as to how to continue to troubleshoot this.

[satrow]

Set TaskMan's Performance tab to show kernel usage and look for spikes above ~4% in the new red line, esp. if they coincide with your timings. Check your data/disks for any errors, stuttering may be caused by increased background activity.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

My experience is that during the beginning of the day, the browser is mostly fully responsive, though with some minor stalls and "microstutter" in the scrolling, but as the day progresses, the situation worsens with scrolling being smooth but the browsers coming to a complete stop every 3 seconds (scrolling completely stalls, then resumes to being smooth again for 3 seconds, then stalls for a second, then smooth for 3 seconds, rinse and repeat).

I had something similar with PM 64bit, I switched to the 32bit version and it went away completely. The 64bit operation appeared to swamp my puny hardware, same with FF 64bit. I have run PM 32bit version permanently and since then the problem has never returned. You could at least try it...