One or more extensions may not be working properly.

Did you try to run Firefox in Safe mode?

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/firefox-uses-too-much-memory-ram

Try to create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problems.

See "Creating a profile":

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Firefox#Profile_issues

There may be extensions and plugins installed by default in a new profile, so check that in "Tools > Add-ons > Extensions & Plugins" in case there are still problems.

If the new profile works then you can transfer some files from the old profile to that new profile, but be careful not to copy corrupted files.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox

Yeah, the add-ons worked fine before the update to FF17. This is two new bugs for me in this version. Getting worse with every version now - I think I'll give Opera a try first. You really should scrap everything since version 3.6, and start new from there.

It is always possible that extensions aren't working properly after an update. Not every possible combination of extensions can be tested, so this may get unnoticed before a new versions gets released to a larger public.

For what it's worth, I had exactly the same problem (except that it's on Linux) since the upgrade to 17.0. When I disabled greasemonkey, the problem instantly disappeared, so it looks like the compatibility with greasemonkey got broken.

Likewise, I'm very disappointed with the frequent bugs/annoyances that come with the rolling upgrade system; I find myself more and more using Chromium because of it. Mozilla really needs to give people the option to run a stable branch that receives security updates only.

BoMby,

Were you able to identify if it was a particular extension causing the issue? If we can identify what is causing the problem, we can sometimes help by working with the 3rd party. Please let us know if you find anything.

@OneAhead

I looked into your greasemonkey report. I'm assuming it was an individual greasemonkey script and not GM itself, is that correct?

Really now, can't the developers at least try the most common extensions & add-ons people use, see if they work ok, BEFORE releasing new updates??? Why must we go through some laborious process, individually, EVERY time a new update is released, just to see why it still sucks up RAM, freezes, stalls & crashes?

The curious thing I have noticed is that there seems to be a disconnect between what FF17 knows about memory and what Windows knows. I can get FF all wadded up with gobs of memory after hours of using it. I tend to open and close lots of tabs.

I have tried all the things mentioned in every post on this subject and nothing makes a difference. It's not about any one thing, it is something internal. My latest experiment seems to confirm that. I got into a state where about:memory was showing FF at 1.2GB and the task manager in Windows seemed to support that. There is the application memory and there is the commit charge. Normally, when I boot new and no apps have been loaded, there is about 800MB in commit charge. When FF gets wadded up, it is usually 2.4GB there. About:memory usually shows the delta between all the other apps and FF. So far so good. So, now I closed all tabs but did not exit FF and left only about:memory loaded. After waiting 30 minutes, a:m shows still 1.2GB, but the commit charge has dropped to 1.6GB. That is below the level before any app starts, so FF is thinking it has a boatload of memory that the OS no longer thinks it has. No matter how many times I try to do GC or CC or Minimize_Memory, it is stuck at 1.2GB. FF has clearly lost track of memory. The OS still thinks it has 622MB, which is close to the delta between no apps and Commit Charge, and yet FF thinks it has double that.

My guess is that one of two things will now happen when I try to close FF. First, it will crash because it will try to access memory that has already been released. Or Second, it will spin the disk for the next 20 minutes paging in stuff that should have been released ages ago.

<<<Closed actually pretty quickly, I was wrong. Commit went to 823MB. Restarted FF and commit went to 966 and a:m showed 260MB v-size and the task manager shows FF at 136MB>>>

I know that if I disable all extensions and add-ons, the problem goes away, but that is only because FF is unusable at that point. I have to have the add-ons to make it usable. There is too much junk to block.

@Matt_G

Sorry for my late reply. The Greasemonkey scripts I have on my system are "Youtube to me" and "Google Search - Remove Redirection 2.02". The latter never worked and the former I used so long ago I can't remember. Funny thing is that I got the memory issues even though the greasemonkey extension was set to "disabled" (ie. greasemonkey icon was there but in washed-out color), and the problem only went away when I disabled greasemonkey in the extensions manager (ie. no greasemonkey icon present anymore).

Apart from that, I'm also running NoScript, but that doesn't appear to be related to the problem (and I can't live without it anyway).

One last piece of info: the problem was particularly pronounced when having a few tabs open on slashdot.org (which is heavy on JavaScript), bbc.co.uk and YouTube. The latter 2 would suggest a flash problem, but that wasn't the case; the plugin container's memory usage was not unusual and didn't change with removing greasemonkey. I even manually killed the plugin container at some point to see if the problem would go away and it didn't; it was really the firefox binary hogging up memory.

I am having this problem with FF 18.0.2, but I am also having the problem with Thunderbird so I think it is a Mozilla problem not specific to either program. Generally the problem is so severe that it brings my quad 64 bit processor to its knees, locking up with massive FF and TB page faults.

I, too, use lots of tabs and lots of windows. I'll probably switch to Chrome until the problem is fixed and delete all my tabs in TB and hope that allows me to work.

Right now I only have this one window of FF open with one tab and if memory is leaking it is too slow to notice over 1 minute.

SoftTest123,
Sorry you are having problems. It is probably unlikely to be a general Firefox problem.

If you want a solution it is probably best to start a new tread by asking your own question using /questions/new (And then post back here to cross link the new thread.)

You should also try Firefox in Firefox's SafeMode with all plugins disabled.

• Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode

Note also that keying into the location bar about:memory brings up an interactive utility showing a lot of memory information, and includes a button to clear some of that  memory.