Firefox 5 seems to have memory leaks with adblock plus plugin
Hi All, While working with beta versions of ff 4 I had a lot of problems with memory consumption. Having 4-6 tabs ff could easily take 700 mb of memory. The problem disappeared in one of the latest betas. In the changelog it was written "Fixed massive memory leaks with adblock plus" plugin. The memory consumption become very decent. It was also decent with betas of ff 5 untill one of the last ones. Then again it become terrible, the same 700 mb or more (then I have to restart it, it slows down my pc). And so it is now with ff5 release. After disabling adblock plus plugin the memory consumption is ok again. So looks like the old bug is back. Probably, worth to check. Thanks
All Replies (8)
Addons are not developed by Mozilla.
Please ask this question here: https://adblockplus.org/forum/
Gewysig op deur Svetlana
But in the version 4 the team did care about fixing ff memory leak which happened when adblock + is installed.
If the issue does not happen without the addon installed, please contact its developer.
"Fixed massive memory leaks with adblock plus" is not what Mozilla did, it is what the AdblockPlus developers did, and you will have to ask them to fix any issues that you have with this addon.
Thank you.
It did not happen with FF3.6, it does not happen with the latest FF4, and it does not appear to happen with lastest FF7. Therefore I'm reluctant to blame adblock plus, I think it's a fault in FF5. To quote that forum, https://adblockplus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7006#p43579
by Wladimir Palant » Fri Mar 11, 2011 12:46 pm Unfortunately, the issue is most certainly in Firefox and I can do little about it other than creating a clean bug report. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=631494 has been fixed so it might be the same problem as https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=639186 or maybe it's a new one. It looks like garbage collection in Firefox 4 is still making trouble...
Perhaps the problem might be that firefox 5 does not do garbage collection very often when add ons are active. I read somewhere than GC is delayed in that case. So memory use can easily build up to a very high level, bringing the system to its knees. When I looked at memory use in taskmgr, it was up to nearly 1GB, but then it gradually came down again over perhaps 5 minutes.
It seems that the GC is too lazy, it should kick in sooner, before I run out of RAM.
I'm an extremely experienced windows administrator and computer engineer. Firefox 5 has a memory leak that will crash your Windows XP-SP3 machine in a matter of hours, even when the computer is not being actively used. I have 2 gig of memory in my laptop & the computer is always up to date with windows updates. I have been using Firefox for years, & today it will go into the trash bin & the latest version of Internet Explorer will replace it.
Borg8of9 if you are still around. The Top Contributors fluctuates of course but I would very much doubt if any of them have a memory problem, and they have all sorts of operating systems running.
As I write time and time again, if you have a problem ask your own question with specifics and full system details - and the volunteers here, users like yourself, will try to help.
I am not an admin or engineer, but do I assemble my own PC's from parts I acquire at clearance sales or is just plain cheap (I'm an ex-Navy Reserve ATN / ASW operator, who spent 25 years fixing cars, semi retired now and on a budget with my "hobbies"). I'm running a basic Asus mobo with onboard video, 2.2 GHz AMD-64 bottom of the line processor, 2GB RAM, on WinXP SP3 and don't seem to have the problems with memory "leaks" that many users are talking about. Rarely do I see Firefox 5 even come close to using 1GB, and that is with 38 extensions installed, including the dev version of Adblock Plus - using the EasyList(USA) filterset.
Of course over the 9 years I have used Firefox, I have developed a "sense" that when I install a new extension that I haven't used before or specific extensions are updated that "something ain't right", and I am prepared to revert to a "backed up Profile" to verify my "feelings". If I really want a problem causing extension, I install it in other than my "everyday" Profile and just launch that "other" Profile so I can used the extension and then close that Profile so it doesn't cause escalating problems.
There are a number of "hungry" add-ons floating around, and others that cause problems when installed with certain other "marginal" add-ons. IMO, you get rid of the known problematic extensions, troubleshoot the rest, and then stop using the ones that you find are causing your problems. Or try to get used to running a "vanilla" Firefox with nothing or little as far as add-ons. Kinda catch-64 situation, add-ons are why we use Firefox to begin with, but those add-0ns when done poorly or with the wrong combination can cause us a lot of grief.