Jeremy Harris Posted March 10, 2018 Author Share Posted March 10, 2018 9 minutes ago, Alphonsox said: There seems to be a real problem with the latest (Quantum) versions of firefox. The web is full of complaints and requests for help. I'm currently using 1.2GB of memory across six separate firefox process, which given that I only have four open tabs is absolutely insane. Currently I have Firefox 58 open, with this tab plus an empty search engine tab, plus AutoCad. Memory use is showing as 2.74Gb (out of 4 Gb total) and the Firefox processes are using a total of 1.32Gb, which seems equally insane! What on earth does Firefox do with all this memory it's hogging? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Alphonsox Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 Do you have any addins active ? - I'm running Ghostery and Adblock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted March 10, 2018 Author Share Posted March 10, 2018 1 minute ago, Alphonsox said: Do you have any addins active ? - I'm running Ghostery and Adblock Just Ublock Origin and Flash Block Plus. If anything, they should limit the amount of memory Firefox uses, I think, as I only enable flash when a site requests it and I have a particular desire to see something that's still using Flash. I don't generally see ads anywhere, but often get messages from some sites to turn the adblock off. If the site looks worth looking at I will for that session only, if it doesn't I just don't bother with the site at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 I like Midori but it can be a bit hands on: http://midori-browser.org/faqs/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted March 10, 2018 Author Share Posted March 10, 2018 One of the best features of Firefox is being able to seamlessly sync all your toolbar bookmarks across all machines you have, which is one reason I switched back to using it. For example, I set up an old Mini-ITX box with Lubuntu a couple of days ago, to be dedicated to a single job, and when I opened Firefox and activated sync all my bookmarks appeared in the toolbar, with no need for me to faff around copying them over. The only thing it didn't do was also copy across the CSS tweak that gets Firefox to look as it should, rather than as Mozilla think it should (which is pretty dire, and a retrograde step in my opinion). I have a copy of my customised CSS tweak file though, so it only takes seconds to load that and get things back as they should be, tabs at the bottom, bookmarks toolbar above them, the normal toolbar above that and the proper menu bar at the top.................. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 My SeaMonkey is using 355MB with 6 Tabs open. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 RAM will go out Monday. Wait and see if it makes any difference before fiddling too much? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted March 10, 2018 Author Share Posted March 10, 2018 34 minutes ago, Onoff said: RAM will go out Monday. Wait and see if it makes any difference before fiddling too much? Many thanks, will do. I'd rather not change browser if I can help it, as I like the way all the machines look the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldkettle Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 3 hours ago, JSHarris said: windows "pseudo folders" like "My Documents", "My Photos" etc all now point to folders on the 500 Gb drive, not the SSD Just to make sure, Jeremy. Your %appdata% is on the SSD, right? Regardless, extra memory will surely help. You could also use Resource Monitor to look at the disk queue, might be useful to compare the picture when the speed is OK vs when it is slow. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted March 10, 2018 Author Share Posted March 10, 2018 41 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: My SeaMonkey is using 355MB with 6 Tabs open. I shut Firefox down an hour or so ago, started it up again, and it's up to over 2Gb of memory use with just two tabs open again.................. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted March 10, 2018 Author Share Posted March 10, 2018 Just now, oldkettle said: Just to make sure, Jeremy. Your %appdata% is on the SSD, right? Regardless, extra memory will surely help. You could also use Resource Monitor to look at the disk queue, might be useful to compare the picture when the speed is OK vs when it is slow. Yes, it is. All of the OS files and programme files, including profiles, are on the SSD, all I have on the HDD are data files. The problem seems to be primarily that if the machine is left on for any length of time, Firefox just grabs more and more memory until it eventually results in the system using the page file. Even though the page file is on the SSD, this still slugs the machine down. I can't see any good reason why Firefox needs to use several Gb of memory, it's only a browser, for goodness sake. What's odd is that Firefox doesn't do this on a Linux machine, as far as I can tell. At least I've never had the same problem with the machine practically grinding to a halt with Linux. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldkettle Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 3 minutes ago, JSHarris said: I can't see any good reason why Firefox needs to use several Gb of memory, it's only a browser, for goodness sake. What's odd is that Firefox doesn't do this on a Linux machine, as far as I can tell. At least I've never had the same problem with the machine practically grinding to a halt with Linux. I just notices that you are on V.58 - seems to be old by the current update standards. There is a reason why they keep fixing it :-) My limited experience with Ubuntu shows it can be quite slow as well though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ragg987 Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 I have an aging laptop , Core i5, 4Gb RAM, upgraded to an SSD and Windows 10 x64. I also use Firefox. Observations: Windows 7 to 10 was a good boost. I suspect this is because Win10 has much improved memory handling and compression over 7 SSD was a major speed boost Firefox will grab as much memory as it can, but in practise it does not slow the laptop down (at least not noticeably). As far as I can see it is just taking advantage of available memory, which i see as a good thing. I use uBlock. I tend to have 5-10 tabs open, including memory hogs like gmail. Multiple family members use this laptop, each has their own account. It is not unusual for 2 or more accounts to be logged in concurrently, but the Windows memory compression and paging seems to work well. It slows down a bit when switching accounts. So the main difference to your setup might be Win10 - any chance you have the free upgrade still available? MS stopped it for new upgrades over a year ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Alphonsox Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 11 minutes ago, JSHarris said: Yes, it is. All of the OS files and programme files, including profiles, are on the SSD, all I have on the HDD are data files. The problem seems to be primarily that if the machine is left on for any length of time, Firefox just grabs more and more memory until it eventually results in the system using the page file. Even though the page file is on the SSD, this still slugs the machine down. I can't see any good reason why Firefox needs to use several Gb of memory, it's only a browser, for goodness sake. What's odd is that Firefox doesn't do this on a Linux machine, as far as I can tell. At least I've never had the same problem with the machine practically grinding to a halt with Linux. This looks like a memory leak to me - My unattended Firefox instance is now up to 1.7Gb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Alphonsox Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 According to the Mozilla release calendar version 59 is due to be released in 3 day time (13/3/2018). I've just downloaded the v59 Beta version to see if there's any difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted March 10, 2018 Author Share Posted March 10, 2018 12 minutes ago, Alphonsox said: This looks like a memory leak to me - My unattended Firefox instance is now up to 1.7Gb I'm thinking the same. There's no way Firefox is really using all that memory, and it's clear that memory usage just increases with time, even with the machine doing very little. Shutting down Firefox and restarting it gets back to a few hundred Mb of memory, but over the next few hours it just creeps up and up. I doubt it can be pre-caching that much data, so it has to be something else. It's odd that it seems to be Windows specific, too, as the same doesn't seem to happen with the same version of Firefox running on Linux, as far as I can tell. Might be something to do with Windows memory management, perhaps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ragg987 Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 13 minutes ago, oldkettle said: I just notices that you are on V.58 - seems to be old by the current update standards. FF 58.0.2 seems to be the latest, so seems pretty up to date to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted March 10, 2018 Author Share Posted March 10, 2018 1 minute ago, Alphonsox said: According to the Mozilla release calendar version 59 is due to be released in 3 day time (13/3/2018). I've just downloaded the v59 Beta version to see if there's any difference. Thanks, I think I'll do the same, and see if the problem's been fixed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ragg987 Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 Just a thought - did you fiddle with any of the memory or pre-fetch parameters in firefox? Under about:config Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted March 10, 2018 Author Share Posted March 10, 2018 25 minutes ago, ragg987 said: Just a thought - did you fiddle with any of the memory or pre-fetch parameters in firefox? Under about:config No, it's a pretty much vanilla install, with the exception that I added some CSS tweaks to get back the same user interface appearance that dates back to the early days of Firefox. Previously I used to use an add-on to do this, but that stopped working from Firefox 56, so I had to revert to tweaking the appearance directly. Not as easy, but it can't have had any significant effect on memory use, as it's only loaded when Firefox starts, and only changes the interface appearance back to something usable (IMHO). If anyone wants to do this, then you can download the files and folders that need to be added to the chrome directory in your user profile from Github easily enough, then use a text editor to weak the CSS file to get the appearance you prefer. I prefer tabs on the bottom, the bookmark toolbar displayed properly and a conventional menu at the top, but you can pretty much tweak the look to suit what you specifically prefer. I'm typing this using the Firefox 59.0 Beta that @Alphonsox suggested, so will see how that goes. It's fast at the moment, but only has one tab open and the memory use is currently only at 330Mb or so, but that just really indicates a fresh start. Only time will tell if memory usage creeps back up as it used to or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldkettle Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 45 minutes ago, ragg987 said: FF 58.0.2 seems to be the latest, so seems pretty up to date to me. yeah, I misread the wiki 2017-09-21 Firefox 58 Firefox 57 - thought it was the release date Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted March 10, 2018 Author Share Posted March 10, 2018 20 minutes later, with Firefox 59.0 Beta just sat doing nothing but with this tab open to this site, and the memory use has crept up to over 900Mb, and it's clear that even when doing nothing at all, the resource monitor is showing an inexorable increase in memory use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Alphonsox Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 9 minutes ago, JSHarris said: 20 minutes later, with Firefox 59.0 Beta just sat doing nothing but with this tab open to this site, and the memory use has crept up to over 900Mb, and it's clear that even when doing nothing at all, the resource monitor is showing an inexorable increase in memory use. I'm now at 1.8G, so certainly no better and may actually be worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldkettle Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 5 minutes ago, JSHarris said: 20 minutes later, with Firefox 59.0 Beta just sat doing nothing but with this tab open to this site, and the memory use has crept up to over 900Mb, and it's clear that even when doing nothing at all, the resource monitor is showing an inexorable increase in memory use. One of the standard recommendations they give is starting FF in Safe mode (which will mean IIRC no extensions among other things). If you trust the few sites you keep open this could help check whether it is the extension. Also, if you open a different static page, may be on your own web site instead of this one, does the memory grow as well? FWIW, I have noticed a stackoverflow page in Chrome can easily get to 300MB and more if left for a few days (and I usually have quite a few of those open) - that's in the office where I have no control of the extensions. The nice thing is I can usually kill this page only and keep working. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted March 10, 2018 Author Share Posted March 10, 2018 6 minutes ago, oldkettle said: One of the standard recommendations they give is starting FF in Safe mode (which will mean IIRC no extensions among other things). If you trust the few sites you keep open this could help check whether it is the extension. Also, if you open a different static page, may be on your own web site instead of this one, does the memory grow as well? FWIW, I have noticed a stackoverflow page in Chrome can easily get to 300MB and more if left for a few days (and I usually have quite a few of those open) - that's in the office where I have no control of the extensions. The nice thing is I can usually kill this page only and keep working. I can try that, but the only things running are UBlock Origin and Flash Block plus, both of which are suggested as solutions to the high memory use problem by Mozilla themselves, so it seems unlikely that either would now start using memory when they haven't in the past. I'm tempted to roll back to Firefox 56, as I'm reasonably sure that was better than 58. I only started seeing serious problems with Firefox 58, although that may be down to my pattern of use, and I may not have been running Firefox 57 long enough on this machine to cause an issue, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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