cypress: Cypress performance degrades to the point of failure in Chrome 79 on Ubuntu

Current behavior:

I can run my tests fine using Cypress 3.4.1 or 3.8.0 against Chrome 78 on Ubuntu 18.04, but if I update to Chrome 79, Cypress starts hanging in random places in my test (as in, the tests hang 0-20 seconds in, but at a different point each time I try). All the Cypress controls (e.g. Stop button) become unresponsive and I can only close the Chrome window.

Desired behavior:

I want to be able to use Cypress against the latest Chrome version.

Steps to reproduce: (app code and test code)

I’ve reproduced this using the following basic test:

describe('page', () => {
  for (let i=1; i <= 30; i++) {
    it(`test ${i}`, () => {
      cy.visit('https://www.google.com');
    });
  }
});

It’s usually hanging indefinitely after about 12-15 tests when using cypress open. Note that it’s very choppy even when the tests are still running, with multiple seconds between updates to the elapsed time and the rest of the window.

Interestingly, cypress run --browser "chrome" does better. It’s still choppy, but it eventually finishes even if I bump i up to 100.

If I uninstall Chrome 79 and install Chrome 78 from an archive, the tests run to completion and the window remains responsive for the whole run.

Versions

Cypress 3.4.1 - 3.8.0 (at least–I didn’t try anything older) Chrome Version 79.0.3945.88 (Official Build) (64-bit) Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS

This is not seen in Chrome 79 on Mac or Windows