Dashboard & Web Interface performance in Firefox

[Morphello 2]

Hi,

 

Slowly, as more features have been added, I've noticed the performance and rendering of the general WebUI has been getting worse and worse in Firefox, to the point where it simply ceases to function most of the time.

 

http://i.imgur.com/Cfg7wWc.png

 

Generally speaking, I wont be able to access my dashboard or Emby from Firefox as it will just time out after about 40 seconds. This often causes Emby to crash.

 

http://pastebin.com/TKgWH2eW Here is a log of the latest crash. Fiddling with this for another 20 minutes got another 10 or so similar crashes. I tend to swap over to chrome at this point, which performs perfectly.

 

I can get it to actually load by restarting the server and accessing the page straight away, however that causes it to only "half load". Lots of elements wont appear, and most elements wont work when clicked.

 

http://i.imgur.com/zYTz9ne.jpg

 

This has been progressively getting worse, but there was a blog post about v3.0.5768's release stating a fix for Firefox, making it more responsive, so I wasn't going to report this issue. That update came and went and nothing got better. This has been on Firefox from version ~35 onwards. I've tried multiple versions of Firefox, different builds, betas, nightly, rebranded browsers (Waterfox, etc. Currently using Cyberfox) and they all produce the same results. Chrome has always worked perfectly.

 

Currently on Emby Version 3.0.5781.2, Windows 8.1 x64 being accessed from the local network via http:// server_ip:8096/web/dashboard.html

 

Additionally, if it's of any relevance, I have difficulties with the server's ability to self restart, or restart and apply updates. Every few updates it works, every now and again i have to manually update it by downloading the installer.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Morphello

[ebr 14904]

Do you have any browser plug-ins or add-ons that are in FireFox but not Chrome?

[Luke 37020]

I don't notice this in my firefox testing. it seems to perform quite well.

[Morphello 2]

So generally speaking, I tweak the living shit out of my Firefox. No setting tends to go unaltered. Lots of random addons, script changes, adblockers, etc.

 

I've had some time to test this with a blank profile of stock standard Firefox 42. Emby's WebUI functions correctly with an unaltered stock Firefox. So yes, it's clearly something on my end.

 

After spending around 40 minutes adding addons, clearing cache, re-testing, I've finally discovered what causes it.

 

Pipelining. It's not an addon, or rendering tweak, or different compile, but it's simply http pipelining within firefox that causes it to fail.

 

Honestly, this is a hack I've had for years and I've had varying success with it. HTTP/1.1 was meant to properly support pipelining on just about everything but a clear lack of implementation and error prone fallback features made it incredibly hit and miss.

 

Just looking over it all now, it looks as if SPDY has already come and gone and HTTP/2 will take over the new protocol with multiplexing, compressed headers and what have you. Goes to show that you need to reconsider everything after a while, just to make sure you've made good, informed choices.

 

So I disabled pipelining across all my devices, and now everything works. Thanks for responding to my thread.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Morphello

[Luke 37020]

Ah very interesting. Thanks for letting us know.

[Sek0n 7]

So generally speaking, I tweak the living shit out of my Firefox. No setting tends to go unaltered. Lots of random addons, script changes, adblockers, etc.

 

I've had some time to test this with a blank profile of stock standard Firefox 42. Emby's WebUI functions correctly with an unaltered stock Firefox. So yes, it's clearly something on my end.

 

After spending around 40 minutes adding addons, clearing cache, re-testing, I've finally discovered what causes it.

 

Pipelining. It's not an addon, or rendering tweak, or different compile, but it's simply http pipelining within firefox that causes it to fail.

 

Honestly, this is a hack I've had for years and I've had varying success with it. HTTP/1.1 was meant to properly support pipelining on just about everything but a clear lack of implementation and error prone fallback features made it incredibly hit and miss.

 

Just looking over it all now, it looks as if SPDY has already come and gone and HTTP/2 will take over the new protocol with multiplexing, compressed headers and what have you. Goes to show that you need to reconsider everything after a while, just to make sure you've made good, informed choices.

 

So I disabled pipelining across all my devices, and now everything works. Thanks for responding to my thread.

 

Wow. Thanks for that. I switched back to FF a couple months ago, and the web client has been completely unusable. (I don't use the webclient on my desktop much, so wasn't in a hurry)

 

That was one of the first tweaks I made when I came back, as it was suggested in some stuff I read, and I remembered it from years ago. I was dreading having to eventually go through and finding out what was causing it. I alter almost everything in FF as well. lol

 

Seems to have completely fixed it. Thanks!

 

Edit: This also seems to have fixed some loading/performance problems with Sonarr.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Sek0n