Firefox Community Forum

Hi, after update 137.0.1 (64-bit) using Firefox with latest Gecko driver 0.36.0 in Python Selenium stalls and fails to initiate drivers without returning initiation errors every second launch, previously this stall without returning initiation errors would happen every ~25th launch. Also when it does successfully launches previously 9 instances used to use about 95% of my 8 GB RAM, now 6 instances use 100% RAM. Nothing else in my system changed besides Firefox update.

For some weeks I have ad an issue with Firefox using 50%-100% of CPU. Normally it is the Firefox process itself, sometimes it is also "Privileged Cont".

OS is Kubuntu 24.04. Firefox has done this across 2-3 versions.

Things I have tried:

Restarting Firefox No change, I'll even get 100% cpu usage with no tabs open

Refresh Firefox to remove settings and addons No change

Uninstall Snap and try direct Apt package No change

Remove ~/.mozilla to fully remove any residual settings/cache/etc No change

Try with and without hardware acceleration See: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1308215 No change!

I would blame my old computer hardware, but Brave runs fine. I am now using Brave, but would dearly like to return to Firefox as I miss containers, and I don't support a chromium dominated web.

I am a heavy Firefox user, and have been using it (and its predecessor) since Netscape. In the last year, the size of my Firefox profile has more than doubled, from 500MB to 1.3GB. What's the probable cause(s), and what can I do about it?