memory 2.5 gig at 11pm, 3.5 gig at 8 am. No use of firefox in that time yet 1 gig more of memory was allocated to it.
Firefox uses up memory, does not return it when finished, and then uses even more.
I decided to test my system and firefox use. From a fresh restart I only used firefox and no other program was accessed. I began the day with 1.5 GB of memory use, starting firefox with about 8-10 tabs brought this up to 1.8 gigs. I did my usual surfing and internet use. As the day went on I noticed the memory slowly creeping up. Closing firefox does not get rid of all the memory used up, much memory is still being used by something associated with firfox.
At 5pm the memory use was a 2.9 GB. I closed firefox and the memory only went down to 2.5 GB. I stopped using the computer for 2 hours and upon returning it had 2.2 GB (so I regained 0.3 GB by not using the program, but I never got back to the original amount of 1.5 GB).
I left firefox running and went to sleep. I woke up and noticed I had 3.5 GB of memory use, so while sleeping firefox managed to use another 1 GB of memory even though I was not using it. Upon closing firefox the memory went to 3.3 BG and never any lower.
Moral of this story if firefox has a problem with memory, it uses it up and never gives it back even when closing the program. I used firefox and only firefox and after one day I had to reboot my computer to get my resources back.
Using firefoxes workarounds do not work, they even suggested some add-on called Ramback the does literally nothing. None of their suggestions work because I believe they know what the problem is but do not want to say anything. Turns out there was some great features to give back memory but for some strange reason Mozilla does not want people doing that. Setting the minimize dump all memory works the best since it never uses all the memory it originally was using,. Having a program use 2 GB of memory and not be used is pretty bad, where did all that memory go. Is firefox going to come clean on where the memory goes or are they going to keep hiding it?? Whey do I have to keep rebooting my computer just to get my resources back when all I use if firefox??
All Replies (8)
First, try to update to Firefox 16. There are a few minor improvements in Memory usage and Garbage Collection in that release. Update Firefox to the latest release
After doing that, try going to about:memory in your address bar, and press the "minimize Memory Usage" button. Then you should be able to see what portion of Firefox is taking more memory, what tab, etc (and get more accurate counts).
Finally, have you tried in a fresh brand new profile? Profile Manager - Create, remove or switch Firefox profiles What websites are you on?
Well that was fast. I tried upgrading firefox before I wrote that message and it said there were no updates available, now it updated. I will see how it behaves.
I will try the about:memory if there is still a problem.
I have only had one profile, I never changed it or added other profiles. So there should only be one. I don't see what changing it will do. Why would a new one change anything? I need the same bookmarks and the browser settings so why would the profile matter unless it adds things not needed or adds things unknown to the user. I guess I do not understand why changing a profile means anything.
Basically creating a new profile, and not modifying any settings will let you see if it is your personal settings (add-ons, preferences, etc.) that are causing the high memory usage or if it is Firefox itself. You shouldn't delete your old profile, just create a new one, don't modify it, just use it for a while and see if it mimics the same behavior as your other profile.
Nothing work, this is horrible. Moving from XP to 7 and now I have to reboot my computer every other day because of the memory problems with this browser. It takes the memory and does give it back. One would have to wonder that this should be the easiest thing with ANY program, yet Mozilla has a problem they refuse to fix, instead they try to do a work around that never works and point their finger to other things doing the problem
For Mozilla FYI. I disabled every plug-in and there still was memory problems.
When I close all my other programs I get my memory back, I close firefox and get little to nothing back.
Are you seeing this memory usage in about:memory inside Firefox?
I don't want to give you the entire list but the bottom of the page. It adds up to 2126.42 MB or 2.13 GB
0.51 MB ── canvas-2d-pixel-bytes
217.44 MB ── explicit
1.96 MB ── gfx-d2d-surfacecache
8.89 MB ── gfx-d2d-surfacevram
0.51 MB ── gfx-d2d-vram-drawtarget
0.00 MB ── gfx-d2d-vram-sourcesurface
2.23 MB ── gfx-surface-image
0 ── ghost-windows
145.74 MB ── heap-allocated 164.59 MB ── heap-committed
18.84 MB ── heap-committed-unused
12.92% ── heap-committed-unused-ratio
3.07 MB ── heap-dirty
90.26 MB ── heap-unused
1.29 MB ── images-content-used-uncompressed
70.00 MB ── js-gc-heap
0 ── low-commit-space-events
358.61 MB ── private 273.45 MB ── resident
12.48 MB ── storage-sqlite
756.55 MB ── vsize
hello, the behaviour that you're observing on your pc is certainly not normal. you could try to reset firefox (this will keep your bookmarks & passwords): Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings