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Firefox crashies often and it seems it is eating more memory than it should just before stalling/crashing

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This is a recent issue that has been occurring over the past month. The other threads addressing similar issues are several months old and are a bit different. I run Win7 Professional 64bit. I am running Firefox ESR 52.2.1 (32 bit) because I need to use Java and the newer browsers from Firefox do not support this. I notice when I start my browsing with one window open FF is using about 550,000k of memory plus anywhere between 02 and 07 of my CPU. As I keep using the internet and open another tab or two or another window the memory sometimes shoots up to over 1,000,000k of memory being used which stalls my system, I get the error that Firefox isn't responding, can't do a thing so I either have to end the session and Windows tries to find a reason or The browser crashes and I send a crash report in. I can't figure out what is causing this and could use some help. Thanks.

This is a recent issue that has been occurring over the past month. The other threads addressing similar issues are several months old and are a bit different. I run Win7 Professional 64bit. I am running Firefox ESR 52.2.1 (32 bit) because I need to use Java and the newer browsers from Firefox do not support this. I notice when I start my browsing with one window open FF is using about 550,000k of memory plus anywhere between 02 and 07 of my CPU. As I keep using the internet and open another tab or two or another window the memory sometimes shoots up to over 1,000,000k of memory being used which stalls my system, I get the error that Firefox isn't responding, can't do a thing so I either have to end the session and Windows tries to find a reason or The browser crashes and I send a crash report in. I can't figure out what is causing this and could use some help. Thanks.

All Replies (4)

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try testing this issue via windows safemode w/networking.

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what do you mean "safemode w/networking"? i know safe mode but that's it.

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When multi-process windows in Firefox is enabled then Firefox will use more memory and may be less responsive.

You can try this to see if it has effect:

  • set dom.ipc.processCount to 1 if it is currently set to a higher value (4)
  • disable multi-process windows in Firefox

You can disable multi-process windows in Firefox by setting these prefs to false on the about:config page.

  • browser.tabs.remote.autostart = false
  • browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 = false

You can open the about:config page: via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I'll be careful" to continue.

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tek360 said

what do you mean "safemode w/networking"? i know safe mode but that's it.

safe mode is provided with different options. when the safe mode screen appears, there will be several options to pick from.

the one with networking allows/permits the networking to stream in and out of the machine. in this case, networking via the internet.

so, if the problem you have now in regular mode windows is not present in safe mode or safe mode w/networking windows, then you have found a clue towards solving it.