Unbearably slow in Firefox

[kane]

I did my checks first:

1. verify I am running the latest version of Firefox
2. disable extensions one by one to see if that makes any difference

Just to note my specs, so nobody can say it is slow:

• System: Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 3
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U (8 cores/16 threads)
• GPU: AMD Radeon 680M
• RAM: 32 GB LPDDR5 @ 6400 MT/s
• OS: Arch Linux
• Internet connection: 1Gb/s (sync, static IP, no VPN)

So, essentially JIRA is generally really slow with the following major symptoms:

1. opening tickets (even if in new tabs) often take more than 10 seconds before I can actually work with it because the layout tends to jump around until everything is in place (which usually makes me wait an addition 2-3 seconds to make sure I am not pressing a button at the time of a layout change)
2. working on a board (Kanban) is even worse as it gets slower the longer I work with it, even just moving around the board with the mouse over issues causes massive delays in the visual hovering change to apply (this background change of the issue card)
3. when adding/editing comments, writing gets stuck very often so I have to wait until things on the screen are actually visible before continuing to type something

The following addons are visible for issues (not an admin, so I can't see all that are installed):

• Instabug
• GitLab
• GitHub
• Invision
• Zeplin

Here is a profiling run, which indicates that JIRA uses excessive amounts of memory, causing very frequent GCs, which explains why visual changes get stuck for a while:

https://share.firefox.dev/4dYjej7

Also, here are some Firefox tabs/processes (all from the same instance) that are really consuming excessive amounts of memory:

[Luke Arntz]

Same issue here. I'm on the latest MacOS, latest firefox. At times I can type several sentences before the text shows up.

This is a recent issue for me as well. It started in the last few weeks.

Makes using jira the worst part of my day. :(

[Noah Zucker]

Here because same issue. Atlassian please fix this!

[Victor Suponev]

Same issues on my side.

Windows, latest stable Firefox.

• Very irritating lags every several seconds while typing a comment in a Jira ticket
• Huge memory consumption

I am not that concerned about memory, but the typing lags make experience unbearable indeed.

Chromium browsers work well.

[Kush Goyal]

I am facing the same issue. Even typing comments is delayed by 5 seconds. It is really difficult to use Jira on Firefox. I am not going to use Chrome or Safari. I will give Arc browser a try based on recommendation but I truly hate moving to a new browser.

[Adam Levy]

You would not think it beyond the wit of Atlassian's engineers to code for more than one browser but here we are...

[Noah Zucker]

I opened a support ticket with Atlassian. They responded that our slowness experience is a facet of this existing bug report (May 2019)

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-72172

Someone get the "Open 10 years!" jpg sticker ready I guess.

[kane]

Just now did a little experiment:

• disable the following event handlers at the <div id="jira-frontend"> element:
  • mousemove
  • mouseout
  • mouseover
  • pointermove
  • pointerout
  • pointerover

And voila, at least moving around the Kanban board with the mouse and hovering over cards is butter-smooth and I can't see any heavy change in memory anymore (and hovering over cards and between still brings up the appropriate visual change).

Bad thing is that additional such event handlers are added to a lot of other elements (e.g. the containers for issues in the popup modal), but the same approach works there too without losing any functionality AFAICS.

This experiment alone is enough proof that the JavaScript code is at fault for those event handlers.

If someone is proficient enough to create some uBlock Origin rules to do the same automatically, we'd have a first actual workaround, I guess.

[kane]

OK, currently using the following (quite brute-force) rule:

<your-org>.atlassian.net##+js(aeld, /^(?:mousemove|mouseout|mouseover|pointermove|pointerout|pointerover|touchmove)$/)

That seems to do the trick.

Although that disables those events on any element, I didn't spot any major functional impact.

One minor thing I noticed is that when you open an issue with subtasks, then specific subtask handlers (e.g. for the assignee) might come in later (some seconds after the issue has loaded). If you click too fast, it will open the subtask instead of showing the dropdown for the changing the assignee of the subtask.

There might be other similar glitches caused by this rule, though.

[Filip Kraus]

Thanks for sharing!
Unfortunately, this rule disables hover events in Confluence necessary for things like adjusting tables.

[kane]

Yes, I also noticed that clicking on the "Create Release" button in JIRA doesn't do anything anymore due to this. But who could think that a click event is prevented by disabling to track mouse movement? Funny how those web UIs are built...

[Chris Hawthorne]

I was having this issue too and the uBlock Origin rule helped! I had noticed a few other things weren't working correctly after using the rule, though, but with some experimentation, I reduced the rule to this which is still performing nicely in Firefox and seems to maintain the functionality in the UI:

cnob.atlassian.net##+js(aeld, /^(?:mousemove|pointermove|pointerout|pointerover|touchmove)$/)

[James Lott]

Perhaps I'm being thick but uBlock Origin isn't allowing me to commit this rule. Could anyone provide brief instructions on how to test this new rule?

Switched over from Chrome as they've been threatening to not support uBlock and really liking Firefox but Jira is so frustratingly slow sometimes

[Luke Arntz]

Try adding it to your 'My Filters' instead of 'My Rules'. It's not obvious which is which until you try to use it the first time...

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Static-filter-syntax#scriptlet-injection

[James Lott]

Thanks Luke, so far so good...

[Stan Rawrysz]

Also experiencing this on Macbook Pro M2 on Firefox. Tried disabling all extensions and still slow. Funny enough, loading pages in incognito mode are quick so don't know what's happening there vs no extensions.

Followed the suggestion above about adding a filter to uBlock Origin and that sped things up for me in the same way that incognito mode did. Thanks for the suggestion!

<YOURSITE>.atlassian.net##+js(aeld, /^(?:mousemove|pointermove|pointerout|pointerover|touchmove)$/)

[kane]

OK, new week, new luck.

Starting point:

• latest upgrades (Arch Linux) incl. new Kernel, new Firefox version, ...
• freshly rebooted system
• opened Firefox and started working with a "List" view inside a project

Observations:

1. working with only the top-100 issues in a list is sufficiently fast
   • although UI lags are noticeable from the start
   • UI lags become more noticeable over time
2. after ~1 hour of usage, memory was at ~900 MiB for that specific tab
3. after ~3 hours, memory was at ~2GiB for that specific tab
   • GC activity of the JavaScript engine hides the mouse pointer e.g. when selecting components inside the list view (I guess a precaution by Mozilla to prevent any further interaction on that page)

Just observing how the memory consumption goes up and down due the GC activity while moving around the mouse (not interacting with anything other than a "hover") clearly indicates that a ton of JavaScript is executed and objects are being created and destroyed.

Also now verified with a completely new empty Firefox profile without any addons/extensions that the behavior can be reproduced immediately on any Kanban board.

It's just sluggish/laggy right from the start. As if you're working on an ancient Celeron.

The fun thing here is (otherwise I would complain at Mozilla, the Atlassian sites are the only one that are this slow, and I am using a lot of complex web apps, just to name a few:

• HubSpot
• GitLab
• Kibana
• OpenObserve
• M$365 tools suite (these also tends to get slower, but are still usable, even after a full week without a reboot/browser restart)
• AWS web console
• Amplitude
• Sentry
• ...

So yeah, only Atlassian sites (also Confluence, not only JIRA but not to that dramatic extend - yet) are slow enough to make me complain.

[Martin Peka]

Tried various workarounds, ended up using atlassian applications in FF ESR (128.4.0), where they work normally.

[Tomek]

I can report the same thing. Jira slowed down immensely around August/September 2024. I am running Win11 with regularly updated Firefox (currently 130.0.1). Slow downs during ticket note typing is a daily thing. Apart from that each Jira tab started to consume insane amounts of memory ~1GB each after 8 hours of work with some at 1.8GB(!?!)

Already tried disabling all extensions - no change. This is entirely on Atlassian - no other web applications behave this way.

[Filip Kraus]

I've seen memory usage get up to 4GB for a single Jira page - reload doesn't fix this.
Same as you, tested in incognito mode - no change, still degrades.

Resorted to restarting my browser now and then throughout the day, in addition to using the uBlock rule (although not on Confluence, because I need the functionality there).

Absolute disaster.

[Menno Kremers]

.

[Miroslav Supina]

Same here, Windows Server, FF. Machine has sufficient resources, so not resource issue.
Other browsers are not impacted.

They should adjust their product description:  "Collaborate at high-velocity, respond to business changes and deliver great customer and employee service experiences fast."

Since using this cloud version, Atlassian user experience fell of a cliff. And is sinking into mud.

[Dan Breyen]

Hi @kane welcome to the community.  For troubleshooting purposes, do other users experience this same issue?  What happens if you try different browsers like Chrome or Edge.  That could help to eliminate some possible causes.

Have you tried a different computer to eliminate that as well?  I'm not experiencing the same behavior on my instance.

I found this Jira ticket on Atlassian's Jira Site.  Feel free to vote for and watch it for updates.

If you need to, whomever your system administrator is can open a ticket with Atlassian Support to troubleshoot further.

Hope that helps.

[kane]

Haha, funny suggestion with Edge on a Linux ;-)

The only other browser I do have that uses a different JavaScript engine are Falkon and Konqueror and I can see similar behavior there (although I know they are not supported).

People around me are mainly using Chrome or Safari and those seem to work better.

Nevertheless, since Firefox is an officially supported browser, it needs to work and "work" is not just functional as we all know.

I just took a look at the issue and there obviously is no interest by Atlassian to do anything and people losing hope since the last comment is 3 years ago. So the problem is known but accepted, since there is a "workaround", I guess.

[Benjamin Otto]

I can just second this observation but it started very recently for me. Like 1-2 weeks ago or so (maybe FF update or some changes in JIRA).

Im using latest FF on macOS.

[Tamara Phillips]

Same here. Started very recently (2 weeks ago maybe) - using Firefox on Windows. It's unusable. It's totally fine on Chrome and Edge. Now I have to switch back and forth from Firefox to Chrome to do my job. 

[Benjamin Otto]

Seems to be fine again since ~1-2 hours.

[Stephen Smit]

I am experiencing the same thing on MacOS Firefox. Clicking on drop downs or dialogue boxes has up to a few seconds delay. When typing it also becomes very delayed and the text eventually all shows up.

Confluence and Jira have the same symptoms. I noticed there are a lot of network calls it seems to be waiting on during usage time. Having said that, it recovers for a few hours if I close the tab and re open a new one.

The only thing I notice is CPU usage spikes to 100% during this time as well.

I have not tested on Chrome or Safari. Even if it was fine on there, Atlassian says they support firefox, so the expectation is it works on there.

https://support.atlassian.com/atlassian-account/docs/supported-browsers-for-atlassian-cloud-products/

[Arjan Topolovec]

Same problem here too, Firefox on MacOS 14.6.1

Freezes for a couple of seconds while typing in jira or confluence

[Egan McComb]

Same problem here on Firefox 130.0 on Windows 10 with 64GB RAM on Xeon CPU.

Some JIRA boards are showing 3GiB memory usage for the one tab.

Every operation is laggy (multiple seconds), including typing text.

[Menno Kremers]

 Macbook Pro 14.6.1 and Firefox 130.0. Still experiencing this issue with different atlassian websites from different companies. No issues at all with any other website out there. Only atlassian websites are very slow.

[James Lott]

Hi Menno, there's a suggestion in the above comments that I'm using and has worked well for me so far.

Install 'Ublock Origin' extension - If you don't already have it, why not?

In Ublock settings, add to 'My filters rules':

<YourOrg>.atlassian.net##+js(aeld, /^(?:mousemove|pointermove|pointerout|pointerover|touchmove)$/)

 Updating '<YourOrg>' to your Atlassian URL.

[Noah Zucker]

Thank you for your tip on using UBlock Origin. Simply pasting your rule into "My Rules" does not save (with YourOrg replaced with the Atlassian URL, of course.

When I click save, it discards the rule. Is anything else needed to make the rule valid? It seems there should not be a space between the "aeld," and the regex, for starters.

[Chris Hawthorne]

@Noah ZuckerTry pasting into "My Filters" instead of "My Rules"

[James Lott]

@Noah Zuckerapologies, should have read 'My filters' not 'My rules'

[Noah Zucker]

thank you!

[Miroslav Supina]

Currently having a ticket open regarding this. Support suggested following:

In a new tab open "about:config"
Click on accept and continue
Search for "fission.autostart" and set it to "false".
Then for "dom.ipc.processCount" and set it to "4" and/or "2"
Restart Firefox

Fission is a security feature, so I am not excited about disabling it, but I am testing this atm.

[Filip Kraus]

Appreciate you sharing, will be testing that.

To be clear, should `dom.ipc.processCount` be reduced? My default is 8, and it seems that higher number should result in the browser being more responsive for the cost of memory usage, which is fine if that was the case for Jira.

Right now it gets slower the more memory it uses, so I understand the potential relation, but it seems more akin to a memory leak.

[Lam, Adrian]

I've followed @Miroslav Supina's suggestion to change "fission.autostart" to false, and kept "dom.ipc.processCount" unchanged at 8. Tested for a few days, Jira runs much more smoothly now. Thanks.

[Noah Zucker]

Did "fission.autstart" to false .... Firefox on MacOS still basically unsuable for Jira this morning.

Very sad that Atlassian says they want all browsers to be supported (per their support message to me)

"While using Chrome as a temporary solution is viable, it is essential to ensure a consistent experience across all web browsers."

It's very clear that this isn't true, and that Atlassian simply doesn't care.

I'll have to keep using Jira because I don't have a choice. Hoping against hope that someone inside Atlassian actually cares about all their users and not just the majority using chrome.

[vmirmira]

Hi.  So fission.autostart sort of worked for me but it's still slow.  Do we have a ETA on when this will be fixed?

[Miroslav Supina]

Never. They have recently closed another ticket which was related saying they cannot replicate: [JRACLOUD-72172] Loading Project pages in Firefox is slower compared to Chrome - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products. 

So we just have to keep opening tickets (even private ones) and referring to these ones to annoy them enough, so they start doing their job. 

[Noah Zucker]

Do we have a ETA on when this will be fixed?

This is Atlassian we're talking about. Check back in 5 - 10 years.

I wish I was joking. Google "CLOUD-6999"

[vmirmira]

Oh wow.  That's crazy.