Seamonkey 2.40, 2.46 apparently has a memory leak

Discussion of bugs in Seamonkey
Cenkron
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Joined: November 29th, 2012, 7:50 am

Seamonkey 2.40, 2.46 apparently has a memory leak

Post by Cenkron »

I have been a user of Seamonkey for a long time, since the mid version 1.X versions.
Among other things, I am a software developer, but not on Seamonkey.
I think this applies mostly to the browser. Email does not seem to show the problem.
I tend to run the browser with two open windows, each with around 10 to 15 tabs open, along with the mail window.
My environment is Win 10 Pro.
Even when I minimize all three Seamonkey windows, with Task Manager showing the Details screen, and I am not doing any typing or mousing, I see the memory usage increasing first slowly, then faster and faster, with the CPU utilization climbing from the 12% range into the 20% range, and the memory usage climbing from around 400 MB.
After some time, not very precise, memory climbs to around 2 GB or more.
If I then try to use the browser, the performance becomes slower, and eventually loses keyboard functionality almost completely.
This continues until it is no longer possible to c lose Seamonkey with either the keyboard or the mouse, and eventually it traps and the message about having to emanates from Windows.
During this, which is moderately consistent, there are no videos, no audios, flash is blocked, repeating GIFS and other such ad stuff is disabled, so there is very little apparently going on.
This is version 2.46, though I think it started for me with 2.40. I did not used to see this behavior. My wife sees it also on a different computer. I see it on several computers.
This behavior is nonlinear with respect to the number of open browser tabs; more tabs cause the problem to be worse way out of proportion to the tab count.
Staying around 8 tabs total does not seem do it at all, though it may just be too slow to see. It does not seem to matter what sites the tabs are opened on, though my choices are usually pretty passive ones anyway.
If more info is wanted, I will try to get it.
I suspect there is more than a memory leak, but cannot venture any intelligent opinion on what else might be going on.
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ElTxolo
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Re: Seamonkey 2.40, 2.46 apparently has a memory leak

Post by ElTxolo »

... My environment is Win 10 Pro.
How to Ask Questions The Smart Way - How to Report Bugs Effectively ;)
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:91.0) Gecko/20240109 SeaMonkey/2.53.18.1
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:91.0) Gecko/20240324 SeaMonkey/2.53.19 :lildevil:

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isaacschemm
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Re: Seamonkey 2.40, 2.46 apparently has a memory leak

Post by isaacschemm »

ElTxolo wrote:
... My environment is Win 10 Pro.
:roll: Well, maybe your crappy system is the culprit ...
I'm using Windows 10 Pro and SeaMonkey has been working OK for me :)
That being said, I almost never have more than 4 tabs open at one time. Usually I have 1 or 2.
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therube
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Re: Seamonkey 2.40, 2.46 apparently has a memory leak

Post by therube »

I admit it, I'm a tab-a-holic.
Tabs, in & of themselves wouldn't be the issue.
memory usage climbing from around 400 MB.
After some time, not very precise, memory climbs to around 2 GB or more
That is not normal. Is unexpected. Or at least would not seem normal & would bear investigation.
CPU utilization climbing from the 12% range into the 20% range
While perhaps not wanted, less surprised to see that, but that's going to depend more on just what is going on in particular tabs.


(Yesterday, out of the blue [Win7], svchost.exe starts eating 25% CPU, 100% of 1 of 4 cores. Initial thought was wuauserv [Windows update service] as that has long been an issue in Win7, but this time it was not. Anyhow, I stopped that service, but to no avail. The process listed (under that) svchost.exe were not registering with me, I figured I'd just kill that svchost itself, but I was blocked from doing so. It's been a long time since I rebooted, knew that it was time to do so - but not in a position to do so, currently, so wasn't keen on going that route. Anyhow, eventually, whatever the issue was, it subsided.)
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
LordOfTheBored
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Joined: December 7th, 2005, 8:36 pm

Re: Seamonkey 2.40, 2.46 apparently has a memory leak

Post by LordOfTheBored »

isaacschemm wrote:
ElTxolo wrote:
... My environment is Win 10 Pro.
:roll: Well, maybe your crappy system is the culprit ...
I'm using Windows 10 Pro and SeaMonkey has been working OK for me :)
That being said, I almost never have more than 4 tabs open at one time. Usually I have 1 or 2.
Ditto, except I have a bunch of tabs for some reason.
Cenkron
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Joined: November 29th, 2012, 7:50 am

Re: Seamonkey 2.40, 2.46 apparently has a memory leak

Post by Cenkron »

I listened to the various comments. I followed the suggestion by ElTxolo to try safe mode. That turned out to be very interesting. It seriously reduced memory creep and CPU usage. That result indicated issues with add-ons and plugins, so I turned my attention to them. I finally removed both flash and flashblock, after a year or so of waffling. I removed several others that I wasn't using. Trying this a few days, it became apparent that things were much improved. I specifically kept Better Privacy, having little tolerance for supercookies. One of problems is that I live in the boonies and internet is served by wireless (not satellite), and is around 1 megabit/S, so not much tolerance for thirsty websites. Anyway, this was much better, but I decided to look some more and finally decided to install AdBlock. Bingo. Idling CPU usage reduced to around 1% average. Memory usage for the usual 33 or so tabs sitting stationary at around 950 MBytes. No growth, Stable for hours. Life is good.
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ElTxolo
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Re: Seamonkey 2.40, 2.46 apparently has a memory leak

Post by ElTxolo »

... and finally decided to install AdBlock ...
  • Image If you want, much better performance, remove AdBlock plus (It's a major memory hog).

    Install and configure uBlock0 (open source, GLPv3).

    It's minimalist, with a minimal memory footprint, better and more options than AdBlock plus








    Cheers! Image
How to Ask Questions The Smart Way - How to Report Bugs Effectively ;)
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:91.0) Gecko/20240109 SeaMonkey/2.53.18.1
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:91.0) Gecko/20240324 SeaMonkey/2.53.19 :lildevil:

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Cenkron
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Joined: November 29th, 2012, 7:50 am

Re: Seamonkey 2.40, 2.46 apparently has a memory leak

Post by Cenkron »

I am trying ublock, I will see how it goes. I didn't see any memory problem with AdBlock. Memory was much better with it than it was without it.
Justinh
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Re: Seamonkey 2.40, 2.46 apparently has a memory leak

Post by Justinh »

I see this a lot also. Memory usage often gets near 1GB with fair amount of CPU cycles at idle. I usually have a lot of tabs in a window, but usually only one window. I usually have a session running for hours or days.

And, unnecessarily criticizing the poster's system is rather rude and disrespectful. I'm disappointed to see that on this forum.
Cenkron
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Joined: November 29th, 2012, 7:50 am

Re: Seamonkey 2.40, 2.46 apparently has a memory leak

Post by Cenkron »

Justinh, I agree with you about the Windows dig, but in fact the suggestions were useful and I followed them to my benefit.
It appears that the memory leak may not be intrinsic to Seamonkey, but is related either to advertising displays, or to one or more plugins/addons.
My memory problem was apparently cured by some combination of removing Flash, FlashBlock, DOM inspector, and a couple other probably benign addons that I don't remember,
making the various PDF and DOC/DOCX extension addons ask for permission, and installing either Adblock or Ublock. I am now running the following addons:
Better Privacy,
Ubllock, and
StopTube
My memory usage is now totally stable for extended (multiple day) times, with two pages containing around 43 (currently) open tabs.
Previously a reboot would have been required after about six hours under these circumstances.
I cannot assign blame to any specific removed addon because I did not go back and add them back in to see who was guilty.
I have a tendency to suspect Flash, however.
LordOfTheBored
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Re: Seamonkey 2.40, 2.46 apparently has a memory leak

Post by LordOfTheBored »

Cenkron wrote:I have a tendency to suspect Flash, however.
If in doubt, blame Flash. Words to live by.
oBOL57ReCrat99
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Re: Seamonkey 2.40, 2.46 apparently has a memory leak

Post by oBOL57ReCrat99 »

Add Seamonkey version 2.49.2 on Fedora Linux 26 x86_64 to the list of instances of this problem. I had the problem for a long time Unfortunately (I can't remember how long) before I twigged that Seamonkey was the cause and put it down to ageing hardware going flakey.

Cenkrons description of 17/7/2017 is exactly applicable to my situation. In addition when Seamonkey memory usage exceed 6GiB of 8 GiB available RAM the computer becomes generally unreliable, mouse cursor movement becomes intermittent, switching windows not all of which are Seamonkey windows has long delay and sometimes multiple presses of the space bar are required to wake the computer from sleep. Killing the Seamonkey process frees the system from these problems and after restarting Seamonkey with recovery of windows Seamonkey memory usage for the same tabs and windows as before is less than 800 MiB.
oBOL57ReCrat99
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Joined: March 7th, 2018, 6:02 pm

Re: Seamonkey 2.40, 2.46 apparently has a memory leak

Post by oBOL57ReCrat99 »

Reply to Cenkron post of 2017-8-10.

I don't believe that I have flash installed, however I cannot find any way to vere\ify this. Seamonkey gives me a list of add-ons available but no list of those already installed.
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therube
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Re: Seamonkey 2.40, 2.46 apparently has a memory leak

Post by therube »

I don't believe that I have flash installed
What does about:plugins show?
What does Addons Manager -> Plugins show?
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
oBOL57ReCrat99
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Re: Seamonkey 2.40, 2.46 apparently has a memory leak

Post by oBOL57ReCrat99 »

Thankyou therube.

"What does about:plugins show?
What does Addons Manager -> Plugins show?"

I only have 2 plugins installed neither of which is flash.
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