Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Why does firefox continue to take more and more of memory?

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 7 views
  • Last reply by jbacinti

jbacinti
jbacinti
more options

I'm using Firefox 56.0.2 since on my machine version 57 is extremely slow. However that's not my problem as I've had this forwquite some time. When I start Firefox it uses 200 - 300 MB of memory and withing minutes that number grows to between 1,300 and 1,500 MB. And, it uses between 25% and 30% of the CPU cycles. I need to know why and if there is a fix.

Thanks,

jabacinti

I'm using Firefox 56.0.2 since on my machine version 57 is extremely slow. However that's not my problem as I've had this forwquite some time. When I start Firefox it uses 200 - 300 MB of memory and withing minutes that number grows to between 1,300 and 1,500 MB. And, it uses between 25% and 30% of the CPU cycles. I need to know why and if there is a fix. Thanks, jabacinti
Attached screenshots

All Replies (2)

Shadow110
Shadow110
more options

Update to version 57. 56.0.2 is now unsupported.

This has to be all reversed in 57

Check to : See if Multi-Processor Support is turned on. Multi-processor support feature may be disabled depending on your setup (it was for me) - you can check this by launching Firefox, then enter in "about:support" in the address bar; near the bottom, you should see a heading that says: "Multiprocess Windows", then look at the value next to it. If it says "0/1", then that means it's disabled. 0/2 and higher = on unless says it is off.

Then check the Task Manager and see how many instances of Firefox is running and what the memory numbers are like.

If need to can turn off multiprocessor : You can try to modify multi-process settings to see if this has effect. You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I accept the risk!" to continue.

set dom.ipc.processCount to 1 if it is currently set to a higher value (4) disable multi-process windows in Firefox

You can disable multi-process windows in Firefox by setting these prefs to false on the about:config page.

browser.tabs.remote.autostart = false browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 = false

http://kb.mozillazine.org/about:config Also can reverse everything this tells you to enable it. http://www.ghacks.net/2016/07/22/multi-process-firefox/

Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.

jbacinti
jbacinti Question owner
more options

Multi-process is set to off. Only one instance of Firefox appears in Task Manager This was this way. browser.tabs.remote.autostart = false Changed this to false. browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 = false

CPU usage is down considerably but memory usage continues to grow. After restarting Firefox, memory usage was about 500 MB. After about 10 minutes, memory usage has grown to just short of 1,000 MB.