FF recently using more RAM on some websites

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xanthon
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Joined: December 17th, 2005, 11:55 pm

FF recently using more RAM on some websites

Post by xanthon »

For the last 19 days, some websites (including this website) have resulted in Firefox using an alarming amount of RAM during normal use (FF 93.0 initially, now 94.0.1). I have been unable to determine the reason and hope someone can shed light on that question.

I first load this site, then a board, then a topic, all in the same tab. Today there wasn't a problem. RAM in use had been 1.6 GiB and that reached 3.2 GiB when I loaded the first topic. Since the problem began I have reduced the RAM in use (1) by not opening and leaving open a settings tab and (2) by closing another tab after taking a screenshot; both those tabs were using a lot more memory than other tabs. I was starting with 9 tabs and leaving them open (but not necessarily loaded). I now keep 7 tabs open. I close other tabs after use.

Yesterday, RAM increased from about 2.0 GiB to total RAM (8.0 GiB) when I left a topic on this site open for several minutes while away from the keyboard. When all memory is used like that, the system sometimes uses as much as 3 GiB of swap. Yesterday, about 6 MiB of swap was used.

I have tried reducing the "Content process limit" (on the General page of Settings) from 8 to 6 and now to 4. That hasn't prevented the use of memory from escalating. The limit was 4 yesterday.
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DanRaisch
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Re: FF recently using more RAM on some websites

Post by DanRaisch »

Does the same thing happen if you launch the application in Mozilla Trouble Shooting Mode? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/di ... shoot-mode
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xanthon
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Re: FF recently using more RAM on some websites

Post by xanthon »

Thanks for replying. I'll try that as an absolutely last resort; Firefox in its native state isn't pretty. I haven't installed any new add-ons.
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dickvl
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Re: FF recently using more RAM on some websites

Post by dickvl »

You can check the Firefox Task Manager (about:performance) and about:memory pages.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/ta ... ng-firefox
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fi ... -resources
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xanthon
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Re: FF recently using more RAM on some websites

Post by xanthon »

Thanks. I have looked at those pages. When swap is in use, it is impossible to open anything.

I have disabled hardware acceleration and will see whether that results in an improvement.
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therube
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Re: FF recently using more RAM on some websites

Post by therube »

I'll try that as an absolutely last resort
Why not try it as a first resort - regardless of "pretty" or not.
It may very well be one of the pretty "fixes" that is causing the issue.

(In particular in that some of the previous "pretty fixes" are no longer supported, & are not apt to [any longer] work as expected, & may very well cause issues.)
Fire 750, bring back 250.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14 Pinball CopyURL+ FetchTextURL FlashGot NoScript
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xanthon
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Re: FF recently using more RAM on some websites

Post by xanthon »

Thanks for replying. I tried it. This site seemed to behave so I disabled one of my add-ons. That didn't stop RAM going wild on another of the troublesome sites so I have re-enabled the add-on and disabled hardware acceleration. So far so good. Troubleshoot mode isn't something I want to try for long. The blinding backgrounds are particularly obnoxious.
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therube
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Re: FF recently using more RAM on some websites

Post by therube »

Troubleshoot mode isn't something I want to try for long.
It's not made to be (particularly).


(I'll note that elsewhere, where escapes me at the moment, in a totally different application, it was an antivirus's [either by "plugin" or simply by injecting itself into the process space] that caused enormous RAM usage issues.)
Fire 750, bring back 250.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14 Pinball CopyURL+ FetchTextURL FlashGot NoScript
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