Problems with webpages that contain flash

[wraithdu]

I just started noticing problems with some web pages that contain flash. It started maybe v .09, but definitely exists in v .10 as well. It effects Firefox v 2.0.0.6 and IE7 the same. For example, www.megaupload.com will cause CPU usage anywhere from 30-100% depending on the computer. Some other sites that use flash to show movies crash the whole system. In my case there were no error messages, no blue screens or minidumps. The system just became totally unresponsive and required a hard reboot.

Others -
redtube.com - (NSFW!!) will crash the system when clicking a video link (sorry, can't find another at the moment that crashes like this one)

Of course, all sites work fine outside the sandbox.

[SnDPhoenix]

Well i tried this, and i personally cant reproduce this, i tried FF, IE, OP and i dont get heavy memory usage, and i tried watching one of the videos on redtube () and it played fine with no system crashes, so either this is only a problem with your system, or im extremely lucky. I can try other test if you want me too and ill see if i can reproduce atleast something.

[TerryWood]

I can confirm what wraithdu says. If you go to the Megaupload site provided by him, initiall it shows on my setup 10% processor useage.

HOWEVER IF YOU ALLOW THE SITE (Because I use NOSCRIPT) it Rockets to 100%

Hope this is helpful

Terry

[tzuk]

I too was not able to reproduce. Or more precisely, it looks like Flash-packed sites were consuming near-100% CPU whether I was running IE sandboxed or regular.

[wraithdu]

Hmmm, I got high CPU usage here at work, but no crashes. I just updated to .11 though, so I'll have to try again at home and see what happens.

Incidentally, if I allow firefox full access to it's program directory, then CPU usage on megaupload is only about 60% instead of 98%.

[SnDPhoenix]

See, i cant reproduce the crash(es) or the high CPU usage, even on this pc (im at work), so it has to be either the way your ini is setup, or the fact your using a portable sandboxie instead of the install version? If you have any tests you want me to try, ill be more than willing to, just have to wait until i get home first.

[wraithdu]

It might be the INI for high CPU, and it might be my system at home for the crashes (AV, firewall, RegDefend, etc. I'll have to test that.)

But for now, allowing FF full access to its program directory seems to have helped the high CPU usage. What rights do you have for FF in your INI file? Just bookmarks?

[SnDPhoenix]

What rights do you have for FF in your INI file? Just bookmarks?

Yep, thats all, btw though, i think i should point out, FF is not my default browser, Opera is, so maybe thats why i havent encountered these errors, although i did test this out on "The big 3" (FF, IE, & OP) and didnt get this problem with either browser.

[street011]

tried that site, and some others, no high cpu usage, no high memory usage, no slowdowns, no crashes... not reproducable here

[Paul_K]

At the MegaUpload site with Firefox sandboxed: I see cpu usage for Firefox from 33-90%, with 70-90% most of the time.

With unsandboxed Firefox, I see about 10-30% Firefox cpu usage.
Sandboxed Firefox has access to bookmarks, cookies, and AdBlockPlus patterns.

Firefox 2.0.0.6, SB 3.00.10, Win XP Sp2

[SnDPhoenix]

Yep, as ive said, i get the same results as street, no errors, crashes, slowdowns, high cpu or memory usage, etc.., and in FF i have the Adblock extension installed too, and if i turn it off, i still get the same result, guess only us gamers dont get this problem.

[wraithdu]

Paul_K -

Try opening a file path to your Firefox plugins directory, usually 'C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins\'

This seems to have cut CPU usage on Megaupload about in half, 20-50% range. I'll have to wait to get home to see if the crashes still happen though.

[Paul_K]

Try opening a file path to your Firefox plugins directory, usually 'C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins\'

I can't really say that it did a lot: maybe 45-86% Firefox cpu usage with this setting, with Firefox most of the time in the 70-80% range.

I don't get any crashes. My overall cpu usage stays pegged at 100% when I'm sandboxed at that site. Performance is sluggish, to say the least, when I try to do something like move the Task Manager box out of the way. Luckily, I have a bookmarklet that shuts down all applets, and lets me navigate away from the site, or I would be there for a while.

Un-sandboxed, the overall cpu usage at that site ranges from 5-85% briefly, and navigating or moving another window around is much more responsive.

[wraithdu]

I think I've got the crash narrowed down to Comodo Firewall 2.4.18.184. If I exit the firewall or enable all traffic, no crashes. I still can't get any error messages, events in event viewer, or minidumps to gather information. System just goes unresponsive.

EDIT - yep, I'm pretty sure it's Comodo. I just crashed my desktop PC as well. Hurray for me!

Out of curiosity, does anyone have any suggestions for another GOOD. FREE firewall that is as light on system resources? I've yet to hear of another that can quite match Comodo.

[wraithdu]

After a bunch of playing around, and many more crashes, I've determined that Sandboxie is not playing nice with Comodo. There are 2 main pieces to the firewall running - cpf.exe which is the tray icon and control interface, and cmdagent.exe which is the service that watches applications.

1st test - Un-Sandboxed

As expected, everything normal, so nothing to reproduce.

2nd test - Sandboxed

1. Start Sandboxie
2. Place Comodo into 'Allow All' mode (if set to 'Custom' then the system crashes at step 4)
3. Start FF sandboxed
4. Visit redtube (NSFW!!) and click any video
5. After about 5-10 seconds, the Comodo service, cmdagent.exe, ends. This is bad. Sometimes I can restart the service, but most times I cannot until reboot.

As I said before, this does not happen if FF is running un-sandboxed. I have no idea what this means But I can guess that the system crashes because whatever is ending the Comodo service cannot accomplish this if the firewall is active.