setInterval not working properly on Chrome

Question

I have a custom made slideshow object to perform the usual stuff the name indicates on a website. It all works well except when I switch tabs in Chrome and come back to the website tab. When that happens, the slideshow goes nuts and starts fading the images disregarding the setInterval interval given. Can't find anyhing related to this, so I'd like to at least know if it's a problem with the code or a software issue.

Here's the code (being used with jQuery) :

$(function() {

    // slideshow
    var slideshow = {
        id : false,
        current : 0,
        count : 0,
        interval : false,
        init : function(data) {
            if (!data)
                return false;

            $.each(data, $.proxy(
                function(index, value) {
                    this[index] = data[index];
                }, this)
            );

            this.count = this.images.length;

            for (x=1;x<=this.count;x++)
                $('#slider ul.nav').append('<li></li>');

            $('#slider ul.nav li').live('click', function()
            {
                slideshow.click(this);
            });

            $('#slider ul.nav li:eq(0)').addClass('on');
            $('#slider ul.nav').css('width', (15*this.count)+'px');

            return true;
        },
        start : function () {
            slideshow.id = setInterval(function() { slideshow.action(); }, slideshow.options.interval);
        },
        stop : function() {
            clearInterval(slideshow.id);
        },
        action : function() {
            slideshow.current < (slideshow.count-1) ? slideshow.current++ : slideshow.current = 0;

            $('#slider img').fadeOut('normal', function() {
                $('#slider img').attr('src', slideshow.images[slideshow.current].url);
                $('#slider ul.nav li').removeClass('on');
                $('#slider ul.nav li:eq('+slideshow.current+')').addClass('on');
                $('#slider div.title').html(slideshow.images[slideshow.current].title);
                $('#slider div.description').html(slideshow.images[slideshow.current].description);
                $('#slider a.more').attr('href', slideshow.images[slideshow.current].target);
            }).fadeIn('normal');

            return true;
        },
        click : function(o) {
            slideshow.stop();

            var index = $('#slider ul.nav li').index(o);
            slideshow.current = index;

            $('#slider img').fadeOut('normal', function() {
                $('#slider img').attr('src', slideshow.images[index].url);
                $('#slider ul.nav li').removeClass('on');
                $(o).addClass('on');
                $('#slider div.title').html(slideshow.images[index].title);
                $('#slider div.description').html(slideshow.images[index].description);
                $('#slider a.more').attr('href', slideshow.images[index].target);
            }).fadeIn('normal');

            slideshow.start();
            return true;
        },
    };

    slideshow.init(slider);
    slideshow.start();

});

Answer 1

Chrome (and apparently the latest versions of Firefox too) reduce the speed of setInterval when the tab is in the background to improve foreground performance. This probably matters the most when there are fast running timer-driven animations in background pages. When the page comes back to the foreground, it "tries" to catch up and runs a bunch of setInterval calls much faster than they would normally run.

The work-arounds are:

1. Lengthen the time of the setInterval so Chrome won't mess with it (you'd have to look up what that time is).
2. Stop your interval timer when the page goes in the background (no need to run slides when it's not visible anyway) - then start it up again when the page comes to the foreground.
3. Use repeated setTimeout instead of setInterval with some type of repeated setTimeout like this:

Code:

function nextSlide() {
    // show next slide now
    // set timer for the slide after this one
    setTimeout(function() {
        nextSlide();       // repeat
    }, xxx)
}

Similar post here.