Downloads fill RAM, crashes FF
I can recreate the scenario consistently. Go to a website which has large downloads. I hit a video website used by my company. Download 2-3 videos, at 700MB each simultaneously. Firefox.exe fills up your memory and 100% of your CPU (or 1 core in multi-core system). Please note this is NOT plugins container - this is firefox.exe. Happens if I disable plugins as well - I've disabled some, or all plugins, all seem updated. Prior to 3.6, had no issue. Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit, 2GB RAM
This happened
Every time Firefox opened
== I download files
All Replies (20)
Go to the address about:crashes and tell us your latest crash IDs. We can then look at the data specific to your crash and have a better idea of what is causing the problem.
The last crash ID I have is: ccf668a9-2a5e-4d82-9c1c-584412100715 Hope it helps! I understand that people are inundated with crashes, and not every situation is Firefox's problem, however this one is recent and has been frustrating me to no end.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Hi there. Same problem here.
When downloading large files, it seems like firefox is caching the file its downloading in RAM, rather than incrementally writing to disk.
I have disabled all add-ons, and resource manager says the hog is firefox.exe. It's interesting because I just started a download that is approx 850mb, and I can watch the memory that is being used increase slowly as the download progresses from
I have the same issue as beatroxx-- downloading a 1.7 GB iso (from www.damnvulnerablelinux.org) and when I get to about 1.4 or so GB, Firefox hangs. Task Manager shows the RAM usage for firefox.exe is about 1.5 GB. Using Win 7 x64, 4 GB of RAM on the machine.
Crash report is here: a626ee0c-14e2-4475-9ed9-7549e2100305
Same problem. RAM usage increases with download progress until RAM is full and Firefox freezes.
I do have Download Statusbar installed, but an earlier post said that the problem persists even with addons disabled.
Same problem here on 32bit ubuntu lucid, using the official firefox package 3.6.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.04.1.
This bug makes firefox completely unusable for me.
Same problem !!!
I think that I will start looking other browsers... after many years with ff.
You´re right, is really annoying
Confirmed to still exist in Firefox 3.6.7
Same problem, could not download a 500 MB file because of this annoying memory LEAK and then CRASH, tried 3 times, 3 times fail, FF uses as much as 1,5 GB of RAM! Thats insane now. Fed up, installed earlier version 3.5.8 (will see if its better or not with time). But am downloading now in Opera.
p/s : am on Windows 7 32 bit
I have had the same problem since 3.6.6. Even 3.6.8 did not help, just tested now. Memory usage 1,7 G to download 97 % of about 700 Meg file and freeze - every time, on Windows XP.
Then after killing the firefox.exe process "plugin-container.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close".
I just noticed on 3.6.8 that after killing processes and restarting, the Downloads starts downloading the file that I was trying to get, either if I click Restore session or not! And it loads just fine, without eating up the memory.
UPDATE: Installed 3.5.8 , but same problem I guess, I have 12 tabs open now and the FF using 540 MB of memory now, I guess with time it will add up to 1,5 gb......thats bad, noone from Mozilla cares about this?!
p/s: Im not even downloading anything with FF now.
Do you have the Firebug (1.5.4) Add-on? My problem goes away by disabling it.
MattiJur, yes I have, do you mean if I disable firebug the new version (3.6.7) wont eat the memory up to 1,5 GB?
Unfortunately this is not the case. I have firebug installed, downloads fill up RAM. Disabling the addin will not change this - both disabled, and uninstalled the addin, issue remained. Further tested on a VMWare system, fresh os install, clean firefox with no addins (3.6.8), and the issue remained.
I repeat: the issue is NOT with a plugin.
As a help, PLEASE don't complain about switching browsers, it's not a leak, it's not a "browser open for a long time and taking up memory" issue, this has to do with how downloading files are managed.
Trevor, strange I removed firebug, uninstalled 3.5.8, then installed 3.6.8 and till now its fine, using only 200mb.
thanks to MattiJur.
Same here, Firefox 3.6.8 on OS X 10..5.8. When the download reaches approx. 1.5 GB the browser chrashes.
Same here, Firefox 3.6.10 on Win7 X64 I can't *consistently* reproduce it though. Sometimes it freezes at 50/100% cpu load after 100MB, sometimes after 500MB...
Just noticed this flaw after I tried to download a game demo that is 1,7GiB big. After some experimenting, it showed that it does this also on smaller files.
I have no recent crash reports in about:crashes, since the issue is not a crash but a freeze which I need to end manually by killing it via task manager.
~Edit Correction: Disabling every Addon makes it work again.
Modified by Timiditas