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Firefox grows in memory usage until it crashes, about:memory shows greatest growth in canvas-2d-pixel-bytes, which is sitting about 1Gb at the moment. How can I find what is causing this and remediate it?

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  • Last reply by grimwiz

grimwiz
grimwiz
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Here is the tail end of my about:memory page.

Other Measurements 1,610.51 MB -- vsize 1,474.48 MB -- private 1,442.94 MB -- resident 1,038.83 MB -- gfx-surface-win32 1,034.81 MB -- canvas-2d-pixel-bytes 

 386.84 MB -- heap-committed
 358.65 MB -- heap-used
 154.00 MB -- js-gc-heap
  49.35 MB -- heap-unused
   2.13 MB -- heap-dirty
   0.00 MB -- gfx-surface-image
   0.00 MB -- gfx-d2d-surfacecache
   0.00 MB -- gfx-d2d-surfacevram

I am running XP SP3, with an Intel graphics chipset on dual monitors.

Here is the tail end of my about:memory page. Other Measurements 1,610.51 MB -- vsize 1,474.48 MB -- private 1,442.94 MB -- resident 1,038.83 MB -- gfx-surface-win32 1,034.81 MB -- canvas-2d-pixel-bytes 386.84 MB -- heap-committed 358.65 MB -- heap-used 154.00 MB -- js-gc-heap 49.35 MB -- heap-unused 2.13 MB -- heap-dirty 0.00 MB -- gfx-surface-image 0.00 MB -- gfx-d2d-surfacecache 0.00 MB -- gfx-d2d-surfacevram I am running XP SP3, with an Intel graphics chipset on dual monitors.

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cor-el
cor-el
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Start Firefox in Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode to check if one of the extensions or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox (Tools) > Add-ons > Appearance/Themes).

grimwiz
grimwiz Question owner
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My extensions are foxyproxy, gmarks, ietab2 and noscript.

Of that selection, the only likely suspect is ietab2 as it is the only one which has graphical effects which could reach the size detected by the memory diagnostics.

Restarting destroys the evidence, temporarily solving the issue for the person who reported it but failing to find the root cause and ultimately preventing a fix to the core product. That was why my question was not how to solve it, but how to diagnose it and prevent it from happening again.

Anyhow, I ended up killing windows and seeing which one reduced the memory footprint when it was closed - the culprit seemed to be http://www.three.co.uk/Help_Support/International/Going_abroad_Pay_Monthly/Destination_Details?content_aid=1214306373622. This site seems rather plain so my deepest suspicion lies with ietab2.