Firefox 23 uses 1.2 GB of RAM with 4 tabs open!
I just checked task manager, since my computer was running a bit slow, and found firefox to be using nearly 1.2 GIGABYTES of RAM, with only 4 tabs open + Chatzilla for IRC. I have Skyrim running at the same time, and it is using LESS RAM than Firefox is!
I've tried disabling plugins, to the point where I only have the Flash and Adobe PDF ones running, I had to disable the plugin container since it crashes repeatedly (Usually at least once every couple of days). I tried using the "Free Memory" options in about:memory, and they do literally nothing to reduce the RAM usage. It's normally between 400 and 600 MB (Which is still insanely excessive for a browser). Closing Chatzilla only reduces the RAM usage by about 10-15 MB, so it doesn't seem to be the problem.
How in the name of all that's sacred is a browser using more RAM than a modded version of Skyrim?
Comment by a forum moderator.
This is a popular thread with over 10000 views. By all means scroll through and read it for useful tips & information. If however you have your own problem See
- My comment about telemetry in post-524332and consider turning that on.
- My post 510510 & use special link and start your own thread.
- (2nd edit 21Jan2014) Also note some related questions with solutions found after they started a new thread
/questions/982539 the addon no script was apparently causing 1GB of memory use.
/questions/980440 a workaround was to tweak the pref Browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers to improve the memory issue
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and you may need to disable hardware acceleration.
Oops, should've mentioned I disabled hardware acceleration already. I've been through several of the steps in that How to Fix article, and none seem to help at all. It just keeps hogging several hundred MB.
Even restarting it and opening a couple of tabs quickly jumps it up to 100MB+.
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
If the new profile works then you can transfer some files from an existing profile to the new profile, but be careful not to copy corrupted files.
Okay, I tried that. Started the new profile, and Firefox jumped to 230 MB used after opening 2 new tabs. Nothing complex either, just a couple of wiki pages.
I'll keep using it for a couple of hours, see how it goes, but I'm not expecting much at this rate.
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Boot the computer in Windows Safe Mode with network support (press F8 on the boot screen) as a test to see if that helps.
Okay, tried using Firefox in the new profile and my default one. Still getting around 400MB-600MB or higher usage. The 1.2GB seems to at least have been a one off occurence. I'll try the safe mode thing and get back to you.
Tried that. Didn't seem to help. Firefox did it again today, it's using 1.1GB of RAM right now. (Again, MORE than the high spec game running at the same time)
It's happening to me too! Right now, I have two tabs opened, one of google search and the other is this one and the RAM usage is 1.2 GB. This is totally insane!
By the way, have you or are you using the addon named "Ghostery" ?
No, I am not.
So no answers as to why Firefox has a god-awful memory leak issue?
I've been having the same problem and it only started within the last week. I've tried most of the fixes and nothing seems to work. It has reduced a bit, when it went as high as 1.5Gb with no more than 5 tabs open. Currently it's running at about 750mb for 4 tabs. It starts off at about 200mb straight from the off. It's very frustrating. It wasn't like this last week.
Well, have to say I'm very unimpressed with both Firefox and its Support now.
could you provide more details about your configuration? please go to firefox > help > troubleshooting information, copy the contents of that page and paste them here into a forum reply. that might help us better understanding what's going on, thank you
I currently have 5 tabs open and am using 1.7gb of RAM and 74% of Physical memory according to Task Manager. How do I go about finding what plug-ins and add-ons I have? What's the difference between the two?
hello GrahamPhotog, please file a separate new question for your issue - where it says "Troubleshooting Information" you can then automatically add your plugin & addon configuration, which will greatly help in diagnosing the issue. thank you!
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Application Basics
Name Firefox
Version 23.0.1
User Agent Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:23.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/23.0
Build Configuration
about:buildconfig
Extensions
Name
Version
Enabled
ID
ChatZilla 0.9.90.1 true {59c81df5-4b7a-477b-912d-4e0fdf64e5f2}
Flashblock 1.5.17 true {3d7eb24f-2740-49df-8937-200b1cc08f8a}
Norton Vulnerability Protection 12.0.0.380 - 1 true {BBDA0591-3099-440a-AA10-41764D9DB4DB}
Norton Identity Safe Toolbar 2013.1.3.1 false {F04D2D30-776C-4d02-8627-8E4385ECA58D}
Skype Click to Call 6.11.0.13348 false {82AF8DCA-6DE9-405D-BD5E-43525BDAD38A}
Important Modified Preferences
Name
Value
accessibility.typeaheadfind.flashBar 0
browser.cache.disk.capacity 358400
browser.cache.disk.smart_size.first_run false
browser.cache.disk.smart_size.use_old_max false
browser.cache.disk.smart_size_cached_value 358400
browser.history_expire_days.mirror 180
browser.places.importBookmarksHTML false
browser.places.smartBookmarksVersion 4
browser.startup.homepage about:blank
browser.startup.homepage_override.buildID 20130814063812
browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone 23.0.1
browser.tabs.warnOnClose false
browser.urlbar.matchBehavior 0
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled false
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npctrl.dll false
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npqtplugin.dll false
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npswf32.dll false
dom.mozApps.used true
dom.w3c_touch_events.expose false
extensions.lastAppVersion 23.0.1
gfx.blacklist.suggested-driver-version 10.6
gfx.direct2d.disabled true
layers.acceleration.disabled true
network.cookie.prefsMigrated true
places.database.lastMaintenance 1377745715
places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages 104858
places.history.expiration.transient_optimal_database_size 167772160
places.last_vacuum 1318038075
plugin.disable_full_page_plugin_for_types application/pdf
plugin.importedState true
plugin.state.npauthz 0
plugin.state.nppandowebplugin 0
plugin.state.npspwrap 0
privacy.cpd.cookies false
privacy.cpd.downloads false
privacy.cpd.formdata false
privacy.cpd.history false
privacy.cpd.sessions false
privacy.sanitize.migrateFx3Prefs true
privacy.sanitize.timeSpan 0
security.warn_viewing_mixed false
storage.vacuum.last.index 1
storage.vacuum.last.places.sqlite 1375482419
Graphics
Adapter Description ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650
Adapter Drivers atiu9p64 aticfx64 aticfx64 atiu9pag aticfx32 aticfx32 atiumd64 atidxx64 atidxx64 atiumdag atidxx32 atidxx32 atiumdva atiumd6a atitmm64
Adapter RAM 1024
Device ID 0x68c1
Direct2D Enabled Blocked for your graphics driver version. Try updating your graphics driver to version 10.6 or newer.
DirectWrite Enabled false (6.1.7600.16972)
Driver Date 3-15-2010
Driver Version 8.712.2.1000
GPU #2 Active false
GPU Accelerated Windows 0/2 Basic
Vendor ID 0x1002
WebGL Renderer Google Inc. -- ANGLE (ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 )
AzureCanvasBackend skia
AzureContentBackend none
AzureFallbackCanvasBackend cairo
JavaScript
Incremental GC true
Accessibility
Activated false
Prevent Accessibility 0
Library Versions
Expected minimum version
Version in use
NSPR 4.10 4.10
NSS 3.15 Basic ECC 3.15 Basic ECC
NSSSMIME 3.15 Basic ECC 3.15 Basic ECC
NSSSSL 3.15 Basic ECC 3.15 Basic ECC
NSSUTIL 3.15 3.15
please keep the skype click-to-call extension disabled, since other users have reported it as a source for memory leaks recently.
also go to about:config and right-click and reset all preferences starting with "dom.ipc.plugins.".
I disabled Grammarly, which definitely caused escalating RAM usage i.e. it just kept going up. I also disabled Shockwave which also helped. But if I go onto pages with video, the RAM goes up and doesn't come back down if I close the page.
I may have to move to Chrome if this continues without any explanation.
If the plugin options are enabled, I get the plugincontainer.exe thingy crashing at least twice a week. I'll try re-enabling it, but that doesn't seem like good advice to me when it makes Firefox work worse, and disabling them was given as advice to solve memory problems in the first place.