Auto-save feature bogs down web browser dramatically

[Ben Niehoff]

When I first start typing in the Reply box, everything is fine. Then, a few minutes later, I see a little message that says "Draft saved" or something like that. As soon as that happens, typing b e c o m e s. W a y. T o o. S l o w. Like literally seconds elapse between keypress and the letter appearing on the screen.

This happens in IE 11 Modern on Win8.1, and also on Firefox 20-something on Ubuntu 14.10. So I think it's a problem with how this feature is coded.

Is there at least any way to disable this? Otherwise, typing long posts to explain mathematical finery will be too excruciating to bother with any longer.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

How many characters long are we talking? How long has it been happening?

 

[Ben Niehoff]

Posts like this one. Has been happening for at least the last week or two (because that's when I started writing some replies to these threads):

https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...larification-on-rovellis.797561/#post-5020943

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

hmm that doesn't look too long. I know initial loading is a little show due to all the MathJax but I wouldn't think that affects the draft saving.

 

[mfb]

Otherwise, typing long posts to explain mathematical finery will be too excruciating to bother with any longer.

I don't know where the initial problem comes from (works fine for me), but as a workaround, you could type the post somewhere else and copy it to the forums for preview/posting only.

 

[Drakkith]

No problems here. I'm using Chrome Version 40.0.2214.115 m and either Windows 8.1 or 7. (8.1 on my laptop, 7 on my desktop)

 

[russ_watters]

Chrome on Windows 7 on several reasonably fast computers...and a phone...has been fine for me.

 

[phinds]

I use both FireFox and IE (both on a laptop) and have not seen any such problem.

 

[Fredrik]

I have huge problems with the page that Ben linked to, and with all the threads I'm active in really. It took 1 minute 36 seconds to load the LaTeX on that one. I closed the page and went back here to click the link again. This time I tried typing some stuff in the editor box at the bottom while I waited for the final version of the LaTeX to show up. It was painfully slow. I could type at least half a sentence like this one without a single symbol appearing on the screen. This time it took me about 2 minutes and 40 seconds to load the LaTeX. After that, the typing situation improved, but not to the point where things appear as I type them. The text that appears on the screen is still a few words behind what I'm typing.

I had no problems typing this reply, even with that other thread open in another tab. The situation on that tab hasn't improved any more during the time it took me to type this reply.

I doubt that it has anything to do with auto-save. I verified that what I'm typing here is being auto-saved, by opening this thread in another tab a couple of times before I was finished.

 

[Ben Niehoff]

Yeah, I think I agree that it has something to do with the Latex script rather than with autosave.

 

[milesyoung]

I started noticing a couple of days ago, that pages from PF with LaTeX on them completely bog down my browser when accessed. Apparently I'm not the only one.

I run Chrome version 41.0.2272.76 on Windows 7.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I have huge problems with the page that Ben linked to, and with all the threads I'm active in really. It took 1 minute 36 seconds to load the LaTeX on that one.

Hmmm some threads that have lots of latex to process are slower, but the one Ben linked to loaded in about 5 seconds for me.