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Firefox using much CPU; how to find the offending tab/URL?

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  • Last reply by finitarry

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My Firefox 32 .0 is using lots of CPU, and it frequently goes into "not responding" state. I restarted in safe mode, and the same condition happened. Is there any way for me to determine what tab(s)/URL(s) are causing the problem? I really do not want to start closing each of my many tabs and windows one-by-one to see which one(s) might be causing the problem. I am running Windows 7 Professional 32-bit. Thanks.

--Barry Finkel

My Firefox 32 .0 is using lots of CPU, and it frequently goes into "not responding" state. I restarted in safe mode, and the same condition happened. Is there any way for me to determine what tab(s)/URL(s) are causing the problem? I really do not want to start closing each of my many tabs and windows one-by-one to see which one(s) might be causing the problem. I am running Windows 7 Professional 32-bit. Thanks. --Barry Finkel

All Replies (9)

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In the address bar, type about:crashes. Note: If any reports do not have BP in front of the numbers, click it and select Submit.

Using your mouse, mark the most resent 7 - 10 crash reports, and copy them. Now go to the reply box below and paste them in.

If you can't get Firefox to open, you will have to do this the hard way. Open the file browser / explorer on your computer. Enter this;

%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Crash Reports\submitted

Copy the last 5-7 Recent File Names in the folder, including the date and time created. Post all the information in the reply box below.

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Here are the most recent FF crashes:

bp-27b37a73-07e9-4b09-9fbb-3c90d2141006 10/6/2014 2:21 PM bp-98f91697-fa29-4965-90f8-1b99f2141006 10/6/2014 2:21 PM bp-0f58bd25-641c-49cb-8077-3498e2141006 10/6/2014 2:21 PM bp-414f9829-9bbc-443f-9589-a2efb2140929 9/28/2014 8:04 PM bp-46a485d8-a7c5-4954-96aa-eaf9d2140928 9/28/2014 7:29 AM bp-31f5f3d3-5d00-480d-b339-81c232140928 9/27/2014 9:09 PM bp-32fcaaa1-288c-48d2-b918-93cbb2140924 9/24/2014 8:10 AM bp-9197d45e-750b-479e-a050-41a612140924 9/23/2014 10:39 PM bp-a02a8a23-76ad-4370-95f6-271d62140921 9/21/2014 4:19 PM

I was able to check the two reports from yesterday (10/6), they both were OOM conditions. The Firefox private storage has increased from 645 Mb when FF restarted (10/6 14:12) to 888 Mn now (10/7 11:20). i am not sure why private storage has increased; I have not opened a lot of new tabs.

--Barry Finkel

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Had you tried running the computer in safe mode? What happen?

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I normally do not run in safe mode; I boot into safe mode when I need to update the graphics driver or when I need to run some tests. I cannot run a good test of Firefox in safe mode. I believe that the CPU usage problem on restart is due to the unchecking "Use hardware acceleration where available". As a test, I just re-checked that box, and I will see if there is a lot of CPU usage at the next restart of Firefox. If CPU usage is great, then I will conclude that the acceleration setting is the cause.

--Barry Finkel

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Running something in safe mode is a test for the problem. If the program works in safe mode, something in the program is the cause. If the problem goes away with the computer in safe mode, something in the computer is causing the problem. Mal-ware, some kind of blocker, incompatible program.

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Here is a status update. I did not experience high CPU usage when I started Firefox without add-ons (in FF safe mode) and with "use hardware acceleration" unchecked. I re-checked "use hdw acceleration", and when FF started it appeared to use 50% of the CPU. This was in the midst of doing other things, so I did not watch or use FF when it started. Then I unchecked "use hdw acceleration", and when FF started, it seemed to use abo0ut 35% of the CPU. But this was in the midst of today's patching (and rebooting), so I was not using nor watching FF when it started. I think that the "use hdw acceleration" is what is causing the large CPU usage, but I do not yet have conclusive proof. I will have to try some FF restarts when I have time to watch exactly what is happening just after the restart.

I also have had some FF crashes since my report of the 10/06 and earlier crashes; I have not had time to look at the crash information.

Report ID Date Submitted bp-1045ac1c-a0be-4657-af75-511d3c395403 10/14/2014 12:37 PM bp-1653afc9-2e6e-4701-a7df-34ef22141014 10/13/2014 7:59 PM bp-7a27242f-c1b2-44c2-b239-f820d3469f83 10/13/2014 3:14 PM bp-979c4806-fcf0-4efb-b0b5-520b92141013 10/12/2014 7:39 PM bp-ad7b49c7-2bc3-4998-a156-17be62141012 10/11/2014 7:15 PM bp-0cc84df7-376d-478d-81cd-49f972141007 10/7/2014 1:52 PM

--Barry Finkel

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Some of them say; Signature OOM = Out Of Memory

bp-0cc84df7-376d-478d-81cd-49f972141007 reports; Signature PluginWndProcInternal Do you know what this is? Disable it thru the Add-ons Manager.


Some of your crash reports weren’t sent to the Mozilla Servers.

In the address bar, type about:crashes. Note: If any reports do not have BP in front of the numbers, click it and select Submit.

Using your mouse, mark the most resent 7 - 10 crash reports, and copy them. Now go to the reply box below and paste them in.

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Here is a status update. I know that it is not proper etiquette to "morph" one problem into another. The original problem - Firefox using much CPU upon restart - has not re-appeared. And I never determined what the problem was. It may have been one or more URLs in my multiple FIrefox windows. I have restarted Firefox many times in the past two weeks due to OOM crashes, and, except for the initial flurry of activity opening one URL in each window (and re-prompting me for cookies [I hope to update that problem record today]), Firefox is not using excessive CPU.

As for Signature PluginWndProcInternal in one crash referenced in the reply above - I do not know what that plugin is. Here are my current plug-ins:

Adobe Acrobat 11.0.9.29 Citrix Onilne Web Deployment Plugin 1.0.0.104 (Citrix Online App Detector) Google Earth Plugin 7.1.2.2041 Google Update 1.3.25.5 Jave(TM) Platform SE 7 U71 10.71.2.14 NPCIG.dll 1.0.0.5 (Canon Image Gateway Mycamera Plugin NVIDIA 3D Vision 7.17.13.4052 (3D Vision Streaming Plugin) NVIDIA 3D Vision 7.17.13.4052 (3D Vision Plugin) OpenH264 Video Codec provided by Cisco Systems, Inc. 1.1 (Play back web video and use video chats.) Shockwave Flash 15.0.0.189 Shockwave Flash 13.0.0.206 OLD Shockwave Flash 11.9.900.170 OLD Silverlight Plug-In 5.1.30514.0

I probably can delete the two old shockwave plug-ins, but I am not sure how. I do not remember updating plug-ins recently.

As for the OOM dumps (happening more frequently now) - I will try to close as many tabs that I no longer need.

--Barry Finkel

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It does not make sense to have more than one version of Flash plugin installed. You should think about removing the older ones.

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