RSSTracing the memory leak: Is it Firefox 3?
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published January 20, 2009, 10:24 AM
Yesterday, we mentioned that we've been noticing recent versions of Firefox, including 3.0.5, have exhibited the memory leak problems that used to plague Firefox 2. We are noticing this on both Windows XP SP3 and Vista SP1.
We'd also noticed that systems where the add-on Tab Mix Plus was installed, did not appear to exhibit the same memory leak. Today, we uninstalled Tab Mix Plus (reluctantly, because we like it) from one system. On that system, the memory use pattern has changed, perhaps moderated, though we're not sure the leak has gone away. It now appears to be slower than in our tests yesterday, and from time to time, something in Firefox does clean up parts of memory from time to time. In one test, we had two Firefox windows open with seven tabs open in one of them, a dozen in the other -- a pretty full slate. Task Manager is showing us that Firefox grabs memory in one-megabyte chunks per second, for about a minute at a time, and then leveling back out to about 300,000 KB.
So if it's not a leak right now, at least it's a fight, and we'll let you know what else we find.
I just went to the TMP forum (http://tmp.garyr.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=2). The only post I can find on memory leaks dates back to September 2008.
If you think you've found a problem with TMP you might at least have the courtesy to raise the matter on the authors support forum, preferably before you start blogging about it.
That said I think there is problem in FF3.0.5, but I'm not yet willing to pin it on TMP. My experience is that it becomes unresponsive for 5-20 secs, but I cant cause it to happen at will, hence it's hard to test.
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|Two windows: 7 tabs and 120 tabs, current mem
637meg, peak 730. (I grew up on dialup w/ one
phone line and still browse the get everything
now, hang up the modem, read offline way which
is useful again now that my ATT UVerse connect.
is giving me 10 to 13 minutes on, and 3 m. & up
off.)
What I have noticed is that FF does not seem to
completely use the disk cache--I've noticed that
if I close a tab full of thumbnails, use a third party
app to "clear" the firefox cache and back in FF hit
ctrl-shft-tab some images load from "nowhere"
instantly and most don't load, show the broken
image placeholder.
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|Off topic.
My ATT UVerse connect is now stable.
What Happened that I know of?
1) I sent off for an ethernet cable. (16 bucks
less sh + h.)
2) I made the above comment.
3) The weather changed.
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|Loving this crap...
Article 1: Breaking news: We have no idea what's going on, but we'll post speculation to drum up interest and get more hits. More @ 11!
Article 2: We still have no idea what's going on, but we've played with a few plug-ins and sutff (which we should have done..and much more, prior to making articles announcing how clueless we are), but we'll post this like some CES count-down to drum up interest and get more hits (and hey, an increased article count doesn't hurt...)! More @ 11!
How many of these "teaser/fluff bites" do we get before we get the article that the first one should have been?
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|well said.
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|Lol! I checked my calendar, and it's not April first yet. This does seem like a joke though. Is this really a scientific test? It isn't solid news. I could post something saying that I've found badly formed code in BetaNews because it loads sluggishly on my dad's laptop. Oh wait, his laptop is a 400Mhz running Windows 98. Still, my report would have the same level of speculation and credibility as this article. (grin) Something to chuckle about though.
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|I had the same issues, so I had googled "fix for firefox memory leak". it lead me to this site: http://internetducttape....emory-leak-firefox-hack/
It is a set of config hacks that shows you how to curb firefox's footprint in memory, it is old information but it still works just as well for 3.x.
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|I always chuckle when I see memory tweak articles. Why would you want FF or the OS to use less memory than it was designed to? Do you think this has any performance benefits without some other penalty?
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|If your running it off a USB drive, you need everything you can get. speed becomes less important. My memory footprint before changes was 1GB, afterwards I got it down to 35MB with a small lag.
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|I did not use Tab Mix Plus as one of my regular Add-On's, but figured, why not try.
I installed it and when I opened Firefox, it was taking 126+MB of Memory, in the last 10 minutes since I installed it, it has gradually gone down, now sitting @ 117MB. Still way to much for a Browser with some add-ons, but an improvement.
There is still an issue too because since i put on 3.05, I have notice more FF Crashes and wanting to do a "Bug Report" then I ever did in 2.x.
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|FF 3 has crashed once for me in the 6+ months I have used it. The source? Google Chrome attempting to import bookmarks.
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|I run FF 3.0.5 with 17 extensions (no Tab Mix ext) and rarely close it, usually only for a reboot, and mine is only using 96mb of memory right now with 6 tabs open.
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|I'm using FF 3.0.5 running 20+ extensions and 20+ tabs - found mem usage at 660,000 - I'd love to know where the leak is coming from
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