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Firefox freezes from time to time when reaching certain Memory limit

  • 4 replies
  • 5 have this problem
  • 9 views
  • Last reply by ljcool08

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Hi. I'm using Firefox 57.0.4 on an old laptop with 2GB memory. While it works quite well and fast, something happens whenever I reach over 700MB of memory usage. It will occasionally use 50% of the CPU causing Firefox to temporarily freeze for a second or two. It does this at about 10 second intervals and only stops if I restart Firefox which also releases the memory usage. The only extensions I am using are Decentraleyes, Multi-Account Containers, NoMiner, uBlock, and VideoDownloadHelper.

Hi. I'm using Firefox 57.0.4 on an old laptop with 2GB memory. While it works quite well and fast, something happens whenever I reach over 700MB of memory usage. It will occasionally use 50% of the CPU causing Firefox to temporarily freeze for a second or two. It does this at about 10 second intervals and only stops if I restart Firefox which also releases the memory usage. The only extensions I am using are Decentraleyes, Multi-Account Containers, NoMiner, uBlock, and VideoDownloadHelper.

Chosen solution

Let's try a refresh then:

The Refresh feature (called "Reset" in older Firefox versions) can fix many issues by restoring Firefox to its factory default state while saving your bookmarks, history, passwords, cookies, and other essential information.

Note: When you use this feature, you will lose any extensions, toolbar customizations, and some preferences. See the Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings article for more information.

To Refresh Firefox:

  1. Open the Troubleshooting Information page using one of these methods:
    • Click the menu button New Fx Menu, click help Help-29 and select Troubleshooting Information. A new tab containing your troubleshooting information should open.
    • If you're unable to access the Help menu, type about:support in your address bar to bring up the Troubleshooting Information page.
  2. At the top right corner of the page, you should see a button that says "Refresh Firefox" ("Reset Firefox" in older Firefox versions). Click on it.
  3. Firefox will close. After the refresh process is completed, Firefox will show a window with the information that is imported.
  4. Click Finish and Firefox will reopen.

Did this fix the problem? Please report back to us!

Thank you.

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All Replies (4)

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Let's try disabling multi-process to see if that fixes the memory usage issue (note this will make Firefox perform slower, but will improve memory usage):

To disable e10s/multiprocess go to about:config by typing it in your URL bar. Search for browser.tabs.remote.autostart using the search box on about:config. There may be multiple results. Set them all to false and restart the browser.

If this solved your problem, mark this reply as the solution.

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Mkll said

Let's try disabling multi-process to see if that fixes the memory usage issue (note this will make Firefox perform slower, but will improve memory usage): To disable e10s/multiprocess go to about:config by typing it in your URL bar. Search for browser.tabs.remote.autostart using the search box on about:config. There may be multiple results. Set them all to false and restart the browser. If this solved your problem, mark this reply as the solution.

I have two entries of that. The other one says browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 and I've disabled both. Actually it seems to happen when I disable e10s.

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Chosen Solution

Let's try a refresh then:

The Refresh feature (called "Reset" in older Firefox versions) can fix many issues by restoring Firefox to its factory default state while saving your bookmarks, history, passwords, cookies, and other essential information.

Note: When you use this feature, you will lose any extensions, toolbar customizations, and some preferences. See the Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings article for more information.

To Refresh Firefox:

  1. Open the Troubleshooting Information page using one of these methods:
    • Click the menu button New Fx Menu, click help Help-29 and select Troubleshooting Information. A new tab containing your troubleshooting information should open.
    • If you're unable to access the Help menu, type about:support in your address bar to bring up the Troubleshooting Information page.
  2. At the top right corner of the page, you should see a button that says "Refresh Firefox" ("Reset Firefox" in older Firefox versions). Click on it.
  3. Firefox will close. After the refresh process is completed, Firefox will show a window with the information that is imported.
  4. Click Finish and Firefox will reopen.

Did this fix the problem? Please report back to us!

Thank you.

more options

Mkll said

Let's try a refresh then: The Refresh feature (called "Reset" in older Firefox versions) can fix many issues by restoring Firefox to its factory default state while saving your bookmarks, history, passwords, cookies, and other essential information. Note: When you use this feature, you will lose any extensions, toolbar customizations, and some preferences. See the Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings article for more information. To Refresh Firefox:
  1. Open the Troubleshooting Information page using one of these methods:
    • Click the menu button New Fx Menu, click help Help-29 and select Troubleshooting Information. A new tab containing your troubleshooting information should open.
    • If you're unable to access the Help menu, type about:support in your address bar to bring up the Troubleshooting Information page.
  2. At the top right corner of the page, you should see a button that says "Refresh Firefox" ("Reset Firefox" in older Firefox versions). Click on it.
  3. Firefox will close. After the refresh process is completed, Firefox will show a window with the information that is imported.
  4. Click Finish and Firefox will reopen.
Did this fix the problem? Please report back to us! Thank you.

Did a refresh and so far so good. Although it did try to sync with my account and installed uBlock. Disabled e10s and will try a few other stuff to see if it's working better. Fingers crossed.

Edit: So I think it has finally been resolved. Something must've went wrong with memory management because now it releases memory better and doesn't randomly use 50% even when nothing's on causing it to freeze every few seconds. Every now and then though I see an extra firefox.exe running but goes away even if I already had e10s disabled.

Modified by ljcool08