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Firefox eating memory during regular browsing all the time

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For the past several weeks I'm becoming increasingly aware of severe memory issues when using FF (currently FF30 32bit). No matter what I do, FF seems to keep allocating more memory to the point where it starts having severe issues and slowdowns, eventually crashing when the used memory reaches about 2.4GB, according to Windows Task manager (I'm running Win7 64 on 8GB of RAM). Currently, the whole process got so bad that it only takes several hours for FF to crash. I don't even have to use FF for this to happen - if I simply leave it running for two hours, when I come back, it's process is already using a few hundred MB of memory more.

I've tried disabling all of the add-ons. I've tried disabling all of the plugins, including Flash (which is always udated to latest version). I've tried the safe mode. I've even tried a clean profile. Nothing really changes much - some of my add-ons might have some influence on how fast FF eats the RAM and they certainly have visible impact on how much memory is used from the start, but even without any add-ons, the memory footprint of FF still gets bigger and bigger over time just by regular browsing.

I've also tried both installing FF28 with clean profile into clean directory - again, the same behaviour was observed, although it used less memory by default and its memory footprint was getting bigger slower than with FF30. I've also tried current nightlies (FF33a1), both 32bit and 64bit, again with a clean profile, installed into a separate new folder. Again, didn't really solve anything.

I also have a second separate Windows 8 install on my PC, so I've tried FF30 in this install as well, however, it behaves exactly the same. FF does this even under my Linux installation, so I really doubt it has something to do with my Win install.

Note that I've also tried running current Pale Moon, and while its allocated memory grows much slower than with FF, it still grows over time unexplicably, and as Pale Moon is based on FF code, I'd say this suggests there's some kind of issue there.

Also note that I usually have quite a few tabs open (around 50 is my average - and no, I don't want to use less tabs, before someone suggests that, I think any browser on current hardware should be able to handle 50 tabs without much issues, and pretty much any other browser is), but the same behaviour was observed even with under 10 tabs. I also always disable the delayed tab loading, meaning that all of my tabs load at browser startup, not just after I click on them, so my starting memory footprint with all of my tabs and add-ons is around 1.4GB (1.1 in Pale Moon), which probably means I'm seeing this issue manifest faster than many other would. I'm fine with the memory it eats at startup and with the slower startup. I would even be fine with my browser taking up 2 gigs of RAM (I've got 8GB of RAM for a reason), as long as it doesn't keep on allocating more and more memory without it ever going back down, even when I close several tabs.

Finally, it might be interesting to note that the memory measurements at about:memory grow much slower than the allocated memory reported by Task manager - meaning that quite often, FF memory measurement says it's using 1395MB RAM, while in Windows Taks manager, the Firefox32 process is reported as already taking up e.g. 1.8-2.0GB of RAM, and around 1500MB RAM in FF can equal to 2.2-2.4GB in Task Manager (meaning it's pretty close to FF crashing). And the "Free memory" buttons in about:memory seem to have no effect on the allocated memory, reported in Task manager (even though they do have some minor effect on used memory reported by FF itself there).

I don't really expect much help, I think I've already tried pretty much everything there was to try and for the time being it seems to me using Pale Moon is my only option right now, as in it the memory issues are at least somehow manageable and not as annoying as in classic FF, but I still thought I might post this here, if perhaps only for someone to take notice.

For the past several weeks I'm becoming increasingly aware of severe memory issues when using FF (currently FF30 32bit). No matter what I do, FF seems to keep allocating more memory to the point where it starts having severe issues and slowdowns, eventually crashing when the used memory reaches about 2.4GB, according to Windows Task manager (I'm running Win7 64 on 8GB of RAM). Currently, the whole process got so bad that it only takes several hours for FF to crash. I don't even have to use FF for this to happen - if I simply leave it running for two hours, when I come back, it's process is already using a few hundred MB of memory more. I've tried disabling all of the add-ons. I've tried disabling all of the plugins, including Flash (which is always udated to latest version). I've tried the safe mode. I've even tried a clean profile. Nothing really changes much - some of my add-ons might have some influence on how fast FF eats the RAM and they certainly have visible impact on how much memory is used from the start, but even without any add-ons, the memory footprint of FF still gets bigger and bigger over time just by regular browsing. I've also tried both installing FF28 with clean profile into clean directory - again, the same behaviour was observed, although it used less memory by default and its memory footprint was getting bigger slower than with FF30. I've also tried current nightlies (FF33a1), both 32bit and 64bit, again with a clean profile, installed into a separate new folder. Again, didn't really solve anything. I also have a second separate Windows 8 install on my PC, so I've tried FF30 in this install as well, however, it behaves exactly the same. FF does this even under my Linux installation, so I really doubt it has something to do with my Win install. Note that I've also tried running current Pale Moon, and while its allocated memory grows much slower than with FF, it still grows over time unexplicably, and as Pale Moon is based on FF code, I'd say this suggests there's some kind of issue there. Also note that I usually have quite a few tabs open (around 50 is my average - and no, I don't want to use less tabs, before someone suggests that, I think any browser on current hardware should be able to handle 50 tabs without much issues, and pretty much any other browser is), but the same behaviour was observed even with under 10 tabs. I also always disable the delayed tab loading, meaning that all of my tabs load at browser startup, not just after I click on them, so my starting memory footprint with all of my tabs and add-ons is around 1.4GB (1.1 in Pale Moon), which probably means I'm seeing this issue manifest faster than many other would. I'm fine with the memory it eats at startup and with the slower startup. I would even be fine with my browser taking up 2 gigs of RAM (I've got 8GB of RAM for a reason), as long as it doesn't keep on allocating more and more memory without it ever going back down, even when I close several tabs. Finally, it might be interesting to note that the memory measurements at about:memory grow much slower than the allocated memory reported by Task manager - meaning that quite often, FF memory measurement says it's using 1395MB RAM, while in Windows Taks manager, the Firefox32 process is reported as already taking up e.g. 1.8-2.0GB of RAM, and around 1500MB RAM in FF can equal to 2.2-2.4GB in Task Manager (meaning it's pretty close to FF crashing). And the "Free memory" buttons in about:memory seem to have no effect on the allocated memory, reported in Task manager (even though they do have some minor effect on used memory reported by FF itself there). I don't really expect much help, I think I've already tried pretty much everything there was to try and for the time being it seems to me using Pale Moon is my only option right now, as in it the memory issues are at least somehow manageable and not as annoying as in classic FF, but I still thought I might post this here, if perhaps only for someone to take notice.

Asịsa ahọpụtara

Ya, rereading the bug with the PushtoClips signature it seems what is being affected is D2D failing on us. They are waiting for "Use Direct2D 1.1 on mozilla-central" from bug805406#c107 and after two patches there was an increase in linux being affected.

In the past it was recommended to temporarily disable D2D, but later is was a general out of memory error with specific use cases with large graphics.

Another user found updating to 31 to alleviate a majority of the crashes on a Windows 7 machine and the system called it a plugin container crash.

Hypothesis: From all that, its a combination of high graphics, freeing memory when it is in the 2GB usage of memory threshold and perhaps plugins using memory that causes this crash?

It has not been confirmed if 31 is affected, but that release version is out today :-)

In the meantime Ramback is a nice add on for general memory management. Again this is a work around and the issue is still being worked on.

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HI Rodney.Olivier, I would highly recommend starting a new thread for further investigation.

Doing so will allow the Mozilla volunteers to give you solutions that are more helpful to you. This may help them to solve your problem faster and more efficiently.

Please, feel free to post the link to your thread on this thread for volunteers interested in assisting you.

Thank you.

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I have this problem, too- in fact, I always have had this problem with Firefox- even in past versions. After a few hours of using the browser (and I'm not even viewing videos or playing games- I'm mostly just browsing for articles and sometimes for images) the amount of memory being used climbs and climbs. Just now, the browser got hung on some operation- it was lasting a long time, so I opened Task Manager and the amount of memory being used by Firefox was 756MB- which was outrage for the simple usage I have been doing. As I said, I have always found this to be a problem with Firefox, it baffles me why the problem still exists.

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Honestly, since my last post here, I just kinda accepted the fact that FF simply grows bigger and slower over time to the point that I have to restart it several times a day, or it crashes by itself, and learned to live with it. That's not to say I don't hate the fact, I do, very much so - but ever since Opera became a Chrome clone, there are simply no better alternatives. It's pretty much a question of using a browser that can be more or less customized to my needs, even if it suffers from this behaviour and to keep it responding at least somewhat fast I have to restart it several times a day, or using a browser that is much harder to customize and that eats ALL of my RAM, even if it is somewhat faster. At least FF doesn't go over 2GB all that often - Chrome with the same tabs and same extensions running easily hogs 6 gigs of RAM. I'd gladly give it those 6gigs if it was at least worth it experience-wise, but it isn't...

I've tried several different versions including different nightly builds, Aurora builds and so on...it's still the same. Sometimes it seems like it's better, and then it strikes back with a vengeance. At this point, I don't really believe it will change any time soon. Maybe there's really something on my PC that's causing it. Although if it is, it's there in my main Win 7 x64 install, in my testing Win 8.1 x64 install and in my Arch Linux install, as they all display similar behaviour when it comes to Firefox.

Really, the situation on the browser front is pretty terrible at this point when the old Opera is basically gone. They've all become so bloated and slow and "dumbified"...It's pretty sad, really.

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Case_f said

Honestly, since my last post here, I just kinda accepted the fact that FF simply grows bigger and slower over time to the point that I have to restart it several times a day, or it crashes by itself, and learned to live with it. That's not to say I don't hate the fact, I do, very much so - but ever since Opera became a Chrome clone, there are simply no better alternatives. It's pretty much a question of using a browser that can be more or less customized to my needs, even if it suffers from this behaviour and to keep it responding at least somewhat fast I have to restart it several times a day, or using a browser that is much harder to customize and that eats ALL of my RAM, even if it is somewhat faster. At least FF doesn't go over 2GB all that often - Chrome with the same tabs and same extensions running easily hogs 6 gigs of RAM. I'd gladly give it those 6gigs if it was at least worth it experience-wise, but it isn't... I've tried several different versions including different nightly builds, Aurora builds and so on...it's still the same. Sometimes it seems like it's better, and then it strikes back with a vengeance. At this point, I don't really believe it will change any time soon. Maybe there's really something on my PC that's causing it. Although if it is, it's there in my main Win 7 x64 install, in my testing Win 8.1 x64 install and in my Arch Linux install, as they all display similar behaviour when it comes to Firefox. Really, the situation on the browser front is pretty terrible at this point when the old Opera is basically gone. They've all become so bloated and slow and "dumbified"...It's pretty sad, really.

OMG I have the exact same problem. at 2.3 gb fire fox crashes. I've been able to reproduce it consistently by loading a bunch of Buzzfeed pages.

And changing to another browser is not an option either since i have a very customized FF environment that i just can reproduce with other browsers. Its so frustrating to see people saying they can use 6-7gb of ram when I have 16 gb in my computer can my FF cant make use of even a quarter of it.

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To be fair, I'm not sure what exactly has changed in the last few weeks as far as Developer version FF is concerned (since that's what I'm currently using), but it has become much more stable lately (the last two weeks or so). The memory used by FF does still increase over time (and it seems more and more like having Facebook open might have a factor in how quickly does the memory usage grow), but not as fast as before, and it seems to be more willing to actually release it from time to time now. When I posted my last comment, I was becoming really frustrated by it all, since I really couldn't go longer than 2-3 hours without FF crashing on me due to some kind of memory leak. Now, I could probably go a full day without it crashing. Granted, I got used to restarting it more often now when its memory consumption goes over 2 gigs, but it still takes quite noticeably longer to reach that state (and I'm trying to go longer and longer without restarts to see what would happen).

So, overall, I would be pretty hopeful, if it wasn't for the fact that this problem has seemingly disappeared for a few weeks, only to come back with a vengeance later.

But still, keeping my fingers crossed for a possibility to finally mark this issue as solved.

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Case_f said

For the past several weeks I'm becoming increasingly aware of severe memory issues when using FF (currently FF30 32bit). No matter what I do, FF seems to keep allocating more memory to the point where it starts having severe issues and slowdowns, eventually crashing when the used memory reaches about 2.4GB, according to Windows Task manager (I'm running Win7 64 on 8GB of RAM). Currently, the whole process got so bad that it only takes several hours for FF to crash. I don't even have to use FF for this to happen - if I simply leave it running for two hours, when I come back, it's process is already using a few hundred MB of memory more. I've tried disabling all of the add-ons. I've tried disabling all of the plugins, including Flash (which is always udated to latest version). I've tried the safe mode. I've even tried a clean profile. Nothing really changes much - some of my add-ons might have some influence on how fast FF eats the RAM and they certainly have visible impact on how much memory is used from the start, but even without any add-ons, the memory footprint of FF still gets bigger and bigger over time just by regular browsing. I've also tried both installing FF28 with clean profile into clean directory - again, the same behaviour was observed, although it used less memory by default and its memory footprint was getting bigger slower than with FF30. I've also tried current nightlies (FF33a1), both 32bit and 64bit, again with a clean profile, installed into a separate new folder. Again, didn't really solve anything. I also have a second separate Windows 8 install on my PC, so I've tried FF30 in this install as well, however, it behaves exactly the same. FF does this even under my Linux installation, so I really doubt it has something to do with my Win install. Note that I've also tried running current Pale Moon, and while its allocated memory grows much slower than with FF, it still grows over time unexplicably, and as Pale Moon is based on FF code, I'd say this suggests there's some kind of issue there. Also note that I usually have quite a few tabs open (around 50 is my average - and no, I don't want to use less tabs, before someone suggests that, I think any browser on current hardware should be able to handle 50 tabs without much issues, and pretty much any other browser is), but the same behaviour was observed even with under 10 tabs. I also always disable the delayed tab loading, meaning that all of my tabs load at browser startup, not just after I click on them, so my starting memory footprint with all of my tabs and add-ons is around 1.4GB (1.1 in Pale Moon), which probably means I'm seeing this issue manifest faster than many other would. I'm fine with the memory it eats at startup and with the slower startup. I would even be fine with my browser taking up 2 gigs of RAM (I've got 8GB of RAM for a reason), as long as it doesn't keep on allocating more and more memory without it ever going back down, even when I close several tabs. Finally, it might be interesting to note that the memory measurements at about:memory grow much slower than the allocated memory reported by Task manager - meaning that quite often, FF memory measurement says it's using 1395MB RAM, while in Windows Taks manager, the Firefox32 process is reported as already taking up e.g. 1.8-2.0GB of RAM, and around 1500MB RAM in FF can equal to 2.2-2.4GB in Task Manager (meaning it's pretty close to FF crashing). And the "Free memory" buttons in about:memory seem to have no effect on the allocated memory, reported in Task manager (even though they do have some minor effect on used memory reported by FF itself there). I don't really expect much help, I think I've already tried pretty much everything there was to try and for the time being it seems to me using Pale Moon is my only option right now, as in it the memory issues are at least somehow manageable and not as annoying as in classic FF, but I still thought I might post this here, if perhaps only for someone to take notice.

I have the same exact problem. Can't figure it out. I also have 8GB ram. I switched to IE and then Google Chrome and they both do the same thing. A simple add-on that releases the ram would be nice.

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