The one and only "Memory usage" thread & FQA

User Help for Mozilla Firefox
slamdunk
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Post by slamdunk »

How about adding new extensions till FF3.0 (LONG WAIT) is out.
Any suggestions on adapting a particular Usage pattern( besides the ones mentioned in first post) to cope with the memory problems?

I normally have 10 or more tabs open and I do Close some tabs and open new tabs all the time. Also I keep browser running for as long as it doesn't slow system down or crash. While surfing I have a habit of middle-clicking over links to open them in new Tab or if its a plain-link then I highlight the link, right-click over it and select Open in new Tab. I have plain-link extension installed. Firefox has an Undo-close Tab feature, I think it will be good if somehow we could allow user to re-use the closed Tab and open link in that closed tab. Or allow user to Open link in currently open tab on right.

(consider for FF3.0)In Eclipse3.2 status bar there is a heap-size monitor, and a button to force the Garbage Collection to run. Something similar would be nice in FF3.0.

At any given time I have several applications running..like winamp, Opera, Word, Textpad, Firefox, Eclipse IDE(with several tabs open)
system: w2k, 512mb
schapel
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Post by schapel »

donutbandit wrote:I saw it over 100 megs of memory on XP.

That's typical memory usage for a modern browser. <a href="http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=132550">The very latest version of Opera uses similar amounts of RAM</a>.
lucifah
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Post by lucifah »

this may seem n00bish, but what is the "normal" amount of memory used?

mine seems to hover aroun 60+mb all the time, with 4-5 instanced of firefox with multiple tabs (usually 2-3 tabs per instance)

it maxes out at 175+mb a few weeks ago when i was surfing some java-intensive website.
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Post by Guest »

schapel wrote:That's typical memory usage for a modern browser. <a href="http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=132550">The very latest version of Opera uses similar amounts of RAM</a>.


Yeah, On my system also the latest version (9) of Opera consumes a lot more memory than its previous versions and it crashes more frequently too.

Because of these high memory usage leading to crashes or system freeze (not directly related to FF), I had to install Session Saver extension, so that I can restore the session after reboot or starting FF again. I had installed Tab Mix plus too. The memory consumption increased after installing these extensions. I removed the SessionSaver because the TabMix Plus has the same functionality. I further tweaked the TabMixPlus Session settings so that it remembers only the current state of pages/tabs and not the history. This helped somewhat.

Now I'm afraid of visiting media intensive sites because FF doesn't release memory after using plugins( flash player, java applet, media players, ..etc).
schapel
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Post by schapel »

lucifah wrote:this may seem n00bish, but what is the "normal" amount of memory used?

Up to 200 MB is normal. Above that can be normal, too, if you're browsing sites with lots of large images.

Now I'm afraid of visiting media intensive sites because FF doesn't release memory after using plugins( flash player, java applet, media players, ..etc).

Session Saver (and other extensions, too) has known memory leaks of its own. You might want to try <a href="http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=380534">Session Manager</a> instead.


I'm not so sure that most of the slowdowns, crashes, and freezes are due to excessive memory usage. It may be that you're experiencing excessive memory usage, and also slowdowns, crashes, or freezes, but <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_implies_causation_%28logical_fallacy%29">correlation does not imply causation</a>.
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therube
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Post by therube »

schapel wrote:My memory usage goes up to 200 MB on a regular basis (and goes back down around 100 MB too). I can get memory usage to go up about that high just by starting the browser and loading one of many different pages (Examples: <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_mono/libc.html">1</a>, <a href="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/welcome/">2</a>, <a href="http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1980642">3</a>). It depends on what you're doing, but memory usage of about 200 MB or lower is commonplace. Most importantly, why bother with looking at a number that's nearly impossible to interpret if you're not experiencing any observable problems?

I agree - up to a point.
And I used to say the same myself.
But now it has gotten to the point where I am experiencing observable problems.
Unforturnately, no set of conditions to duplicate it!.

PS: What is "FQA" is the subject line - FAQ?
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schapel
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Post by schapel »

therube wrote:I agree - up to a point.
And I used to say the same myself.
But now it has gotten to the point where I am experiencing observable problems.
Unforturnately, no set of conditions to duplicate it!.

PS: What is "FQA" is the subject line - FAQ?

Why do you think it's memory usage causing the observable problems? It doesn't sound like causing the memory usage to go higher causes problems, because it's certainly easy to make memory use go to any arbitrary value you choose, but yet you say no set of conditions duplicates the problems.

It sounds to me like you're having problems, including possibly excessive memory usage. Trying to connect the problem back to memory usage may be a wild goose chase, which is why we're having so much trouble pinning the problems down. Maybe all the work we're doing tracking the memory leaks down is entirely the wrong direction for solving the problems users are really interested in getting fixed.

"FQA" means "Frequently Questioned Answers"
slamdunk
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Post by slamdunk »

Hendikins wrote:Firefox Tweaks
<a name="minimize"></a>Memory Usage Upon Minimize
There is a pref that enables trimming Firefox memory usage when you minimize all Firefox windows. This pref is for Windows only. To enable it, set config.trim_on_minimize to true using about:config.


Note that the above about:config entry is of Boolean type and not String. If by mistake you added it as of Type String then delete and recreate the entry config.trim_on_minimize.
You can delete it by opening and editing the file Pref.js located in your Firefox Profile folder.
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Post by Guest »

why bother with looking at a number that's nearly impossible to interpret

Interpretation is up to whom ever is interpreting !! So this leak, oh i'm sorry feature, will always be there !!
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Post by schapel »

Anonymous wrote:Interpretation is up to whom ever is interpreting !! So this leak, oh i'm sorry feature, will always be there !!

Exactly! Now that Firefox has a reputation for having memory leaks, users will forever be complaining of them. Even if they're all fixed and Firefox uses less memory than any other browser, I'm convinced many users will still refer to it as a memory hog.

Stop worrying about a <i>number</i> and worry about all the other, more serious problems in Firefox, such as crashing, hanging, hogging the CPU, and data loss. And stop blaming those problems on memory leaks, which almost certainly have nothing to do with those problems.

If you want to know if excessive memory use is really causing your computer to slow down, you can read <a href="http://www.richland.edu/staff/dkirby/172vmo.htm">this article on virtual memory optimization</a>. If your system is not thrashing, and you're not getting dialogs about being low on memory or running out of memory, most likely the problems you observe are not due to excessive memory usage. You can also read <a href="http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/25774">this article about diagnosing which process is consuming CPU cycles</a>. Some users might even have a hardware problem with memory that's triggered only when memory use goes beyond a certain limit; you can use a <a href="http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp">memory diagnostic</a> to see if that's the problem.

On a related note, ever since I bought my Windows XP computer two years ago, every four or five days I get a message about "Insufficient system resources" and I cannot open any applications until I reboot the computer. Any idea about how I can track down what's causing the problem? It's not browser memory leaks, because closing all browsers does not help the problem.
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Post by James.T »

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this, but it does say the one and "only" in the subject line. I've used Fx since 0.7, I never had a problem with it until 1.5 when memory usage would exceed 1GB and my whole system would slow down. I tried numerous things, unistalling, reinstalling, completely wiping the profile and starting on a fresh clean install, the "memory leaks" were still there for me so I stuck with 1.0.7. Recently I tried Bon Echo, and the memory management there is awesome on my system, it hardely ever exceeds 60MB and even virtual memory stays low, when a tab is closed for more then 5 mins the memory goes back down (as it should). In fact, I've had Bon Echo opened for 24 hours now, constantly browsing for most of those, thousands of tabs have been opened and closed, 30+ tabs opened at once at intervals throughout my browsing session and still the memory in use now with 1 tab left open is barely even 40MB.

To cut a long story short, I'm just wondering now, is this a fluke or is everyone who's used/using Bon Echo experiencing this?
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malliz
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Post by malliz »

James.T wrote:To cut a long story short, I'm just wondering now, is this a fluke or is everyone who's used/using Bon Echo experiencing this?

Cannot speak for everyone but Bon Echo is good
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Post by Guest »

On a related note, ever since I bought my Windows XP computer two years ago, every four or five days I get a message about "Insufficient system resources" and I cannot open any applications until I reboot the computer. Any idea about how I can track down what's causing the problem? It's not browser memory leaks, because closing all browsers does not help the problem.


See what you have running at start up (start, run, type msconfig) and what services you have running !!
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Post by Guest »

James.T wrote:...opened for 24 hours now, constantly browsing for most of those, thousands of tabs have been opened and closed, 30+ tabs opened at once at intervals throughout my browsing session and still the memory in use now with 1 tab left open is barely even 40MB.

how many thousands james? 10? 5?

i cruise all day on fx, i have 512 mb ram, i'll pop open maybe 13 tabs as i research whatever. i am on win98se, and i always have like 63% of memory available. i'm not saying that there is no memory leak, just that it as elusive as a greased duck. some get it, some don't. personally, with what i have learned of the subject, i feel that it is connected to extensions. but this is just my opinion, i do not write code.
dsotm
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Post by dsotm »

I frequently need to browse a photo resource site. When ff reaches 200mb (around 12-15 tabs open) memory it slows to a crawl, right clicking a tab can take 10 secs to open the context menu, and the problem is only solved either by closing all the other tabs, or restarting ff - is there any fix for this

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