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| Which window is sucking up CPU cycles? | |
| \ dterrors (15 Sep 2007) | |
| . \ Ron (16 Sep 2007) | |
| . . \ dterrors (16 Sep 2007) | |
| . . . \ Alex K. (17 Sep 2007) | |
| . . . . \ dterrors (17 Sep 2007) | |
| . . . . . \ Alex K. (18 Sep 2007) | |
| . . . . . . \ dterrors (18 Sep 2007) | |
| . . . . . . . \ Alex K. (19 Sep 2007) | |
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| Subject: | Re: Which window is sucking up CPU cycles? |
| Group: | Mozilla-support-firefox |
| From: | Alex K. |
| Date: | 19 Sep 2007 |
dterrors wrote:
>> Well, I can see where that might be a problem. ;-)
>>
>>> I usually have about 20 ffox windows open to different sites, and then
>>> I hear my cpu fan spin up, and it's always ONE site that's sucking up
>>> the cpu. Wish I could more easily figure out which, rather than
>>> killing them and reopening them one by one.
>> OK, I came up with an idea. Its a little bit of work, but it should
>> accomplish what you want.
>>
>> This method requires a new *window* for each site/project, and we will
>> create a separate process for each window. I haven't figured out any
>> way, or if its even possible, to determine CPU usage of a specific
>> *tab*, within a window containing multiple tabs.
>>
>> I make no promises as to system performance with 20 or more separate FF
>> processes running at the same time. Even if *I* had tested it with that
>> many processes, *your* performance will depend on your system configuration.
>>
>> Since you are a Flex developer, I'm making the assumption that these are
>> sites/projects you are working on.
>>
>> For each project you want to test, create a new profile for it, using
>> the Profile Manager. Close out any open FF windows, then go to Start ->
>> Run, enter:
>>
>> firefox -p
>>
>> This will bring up the Profile Manager window.
>>
>> Click the Create Profile button and follow the prompts to create a new
>> profile. I suggest using meaningful names, based on the site/project,
>> but thats your choice, use whatever works for you. Repeat for each
>> project. When you have finished creating all of the profiles, click the
>> Exit button.
>>
>> You have several choices in how you handle starting each instance of FF.
>>
>> The first way is to use Start -> Run, enter:
>>
>> firefox -no-remote -p "profile name"
>>
>> Do note that when specifying the profile, by using the -p parameter, the
>> profile name is case sensitive.
>>
>> The -no-remote option allows us to create a separate, isolated instance
>> of the firefox.exe process, rather than just attaching new windows to a
>> single process, as is normally done.
>>
>> This command line method will, of course, get tedious if you are dealing
>> with the number of projects you are, as well as needing to remember the
>> profile names.
>>
>> Another option would be to create a new folder on the desktop, or in the
>> start menu.
>>
>> Copy the normal shortcut used to start FF, and paste as many copies as
>> you need for your projects, into the new folder.
>>
>> For each shortcut, right click on it, select Properties. On the Shortcut
>> tab, edit the Target entry to add: -no-remote -p "profile name". On the
>> General tab, edit the field next to the icon to add the profile name, or
>> project, whatever you want to distinguish that instance.
>>
>> So, to illustrate, I have a clean profile I use for testing, named
>> Clean. For testing these procedures, here is how my shortcut looks:
>>
>> On the Shortcut tab:
>>
>> Target: "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -no-remote -p "Clean"
>>
>> And on the General tab:
>>
>> [FF Icon] Firefox Clean
>>
>> To assist/remind you of the profile names you have created, close out
>> any open FF windows, then start the Profile Manager, as above.
>>
>> As one last option, you could simply create one copy of the normal
>> shortcut and edit the Target: line to add -no-remote -p, without
>> specifying a profile. This will call the Profile Manager each time,
>> allowing you to select a profile.
>>
>> The choice, as always, is yours.
>>
>> Next, get Process Explorer. Its a much more informative than Task
>> Manager that comes with Windows.http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/ProcessExplor...
>>
>> Start Process Explorer. Go to View -> Select Columns -> Process Image,
>> and select Window Title. Click OK to exit that window. Later, you can
>> come back and enable/disable particular columns as you wish.
>>
>> Now, using whichever method you chose above, open your sites/projects,
>> each with its own profile. If you mistakenly attempt to open a profile
>> that is already running, you will see an error message:
>>
>> Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new
>> window, you must first close the existing Firefox process or restart
>> your system.
>>
>> In this case, because we are using the -no-remote option, you do *not*
>> need to close any existing processes. Simply click the OK button to
>> dismiss the error, and try again, using a different profile. You will
>> receive that error if you try to open the same profile twice. It won't
>> let you do that.
>>
>> If you want to track which profiles are already open, you could try the
>> Titlebar Tweaks extension, and modify the Browser Name in each profile,
>> so that the titlebar reflects the profile name. You can get the
>> extension here:https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/57
>>
>> Since you will be dealing with a number of profiles, I would suggest
>> installing it globally. See this page:http://kb.mozillazine.org/Installing_extensions#Global_installation
>>
>> Now when you encounter the high CPU state, switch to Process Explorer.
>>
>> You should see a separate instance of firefox.exe for each project you
>> have opened, along with the CPU usage for each instance, as well as the
>> window title, to help you identify which site/project is causing the
>> problem.
>>
>> If you want to view the window that is causing the problem, you can
>> right click on the process, and select Window -> Bring to Front. If you
>> just want to try closing it, select Window -> Close.
>>
>> If you need to kill it, right click on the process and select Kill Process.
>>
>> For further reference on command line arguments, see here:http://kb.mozillazine.org/Command_line_arguments
>>
>> Hope this helps.
>>
>> Alex K.
>
>
> Wow great stuff here. My problem actually isn't debugging flex
> projects- I just mean browsing normal site. But the ability to open
> multiple firefox processes is very cool, that's a step closer to
> solving the problem.
Ah, OK. Just be aware that by using different profiles, which is
necessary for this method, things like history, saved passwords,
preferences, etc., are not common across the profiles, they are unique
to each profile.
It is possible to share bookmarks, but with multiple instances running
at the same time, I would think the possibility of one instance
clobbering changes made by another is high.
> If I ever get the time, I'll look into writing an extension for this.
> I bet it would need to be more than just one of those javascript
> dealies, it would need to get into ffox's guts and observe thread
> activity or something. Hopefully it could be done with an extension
> and not a patch...
>
> Thanks for your long awesome post.
You're welcome.
--
Alex K.
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