I would suggest at present using Fx 26/27 release if you need something with all bookmarks and plugins etc but use the Beta Fx27/8 in safe mode with all plugins disabled and see if it is possible to make that misbehave. We do need to confirm or otherwise that Firefox is ok in safe mode with no plugins.

If it behaves totally normally and crash free then proceed to test it with FlashPlayer enabled, at which point I imagine you will probably run in to problems.

I can access and read the gzipped file, but I will leave it to others to comment on that (not sure I notice anything unusual about it).

Hi,

I downloaded the latest beta which is FF27 b7 and also created a new profile using: rezas-mbp:~ Shadow$ /Applications/Firefox27.0b7.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -ProfileManager the profile is called "Shadow.beta"

Next i started FF27 b7 in safe mode. At the same time i'm running FF26 with everything in my default profile called "Shadow" so they seem separated.

One question though, if i close them both and just click on the link on my desktop for starting FF26 it can open the other profile. Is there any way to associate a profile with a binary? Now i need to run the command line and choose the profile for each. Maybe thats the only way but its good to know, dont seem to find much answer online :( will continue looking though.... the binary are names differntly ofc. FF26 --> Firefox.app FF27b7 -->Firefox27.0b7.app

Also my profile.ini file looks like this:

[General] StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0] Name=Shadow IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/Shadow

[Profile1] Name=Shadow.beta IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/Shadow.beta Default=1

WOOO noticed some intressting stuff now that i start FF from CMD prompt!

rezas-mbp:~ Shadow$ 2014-01-20 15:18:54.980 firefox-bin[4964:303] CoreText performance note: Client called CTFontCreateWithName() using name "Lucida Grande" and got font with PostScript name "LucidaGrande". For best performance, only use PostScript names when calling this API. 2014-01-20 15:18:54.981 firefox-bin[4964:303] CoreText performance note: Set a breakpoint on CTFontLogSuboptimalRequest to debug.

rezas-mbp:~ Shadow$ /Applications/Firefox27.0b7.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -ProfileManager OpenGL version detected: 210 OpenGL version detected: 210 rezas-mbp:~ Shadow$ OpenGL version detected: 210 OpenGL version detected: 210

rezas-mbp:~ Shadow$ Jan 20 15:20:47 rezas-mbp firefox-bin[4964] <Error>: CGContextTranslateCTM: invalid context 0x0. This is a serious error. This application, or a library it uses, is using an invalid context and is thereby contributing to an overall degradation of system stability and reliability. This notice is a courtesy: please fix this problem. It will become a fatal error in an upcoming update. Jan 20 15:20:47 rezas-mbp firefox-bin[4964] <Error>: CGContextScaleCTM: invalid context 0x0. This is a serious error. This application, or a library it uses, is using an invalid context and is thereby contributing to an overall degradation of system stability and reliability. This notice is a courtesy: please fix this problem. It will become a fatal error in an upcoming update. Jan 20 15:20:47 rezas-mbp firefox-bin[4964] <Error>: CGContextSetShouldAntialias: invalid context 0x0. This is a serious error. This application, or a library it uses, is using an invalid context and is thereby contributing to an overall degradation of system stability and reliability. This notice is a courtesy: please fix this problem. It will become a fatal error in an upcoming update. Jan 20 15:20:47 rezas-mbp firefox-bin[4964] <Error>: CGContextConcatCTM: invalid context 0x0. This is a serious error. This application, or a library it uses, is using an invalid context and is thereby contributing to an overall degradation of system stability and reliability. This notice is a courtesy: please fix this problem. It will become a fatal error in an upcoming update.

.....and the page continues with the same..... Any idea what this could be? Is this why i loose performance memory?

Put some more error in the text file here (a folder where i will put logs so save this link plz): https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7ccpwcr2a1tvvbj/rLCq2NiqGw

To shed some light on the errors:

PostScript issue looks like a silent warning : Reference https://github.com/thoughtbot/capybar.../581

• CGContextSetShouldAntialias:

• CGContextConcatCTM:

• CGContextSetInterpolationQuality:

These are all apple developer references to Quartz 2d drawing graphics. Referecehttps://developer.apple.com/library/i.../reference.html

Thanks for the info , i guess this is to be ignored then. i'm using both FF26 and the FF27b7 right now. Will report once any if the crashes, i need to use the beta more, have only 3 tabs in the beta and its at 340Meg so not that bad. FF26 is at 1.4Gig and moving up.....

By the way any findings from the last crash log?

I mentioned upthread I was unsure about Mac.s and memory

... Now as I said I am no expert on Mac.s IIRC they may share memory in a different way to other OS s but anyhow you mention you are having to clear memory and even so your crashes are showing up times in the order of 24hrs or less. I am guessing you will not need to wait too long before getting crash reports. As you say it is a huge memory leak I assume that is pretty quickly noticeable. .... 

So for my own benefit these links relating to Macs

• https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Performance/Conceptual/ManagingMemory/Articles/AboutMemory.html
• http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/104/whats-the-difference-between-real-virtual-shared-and-private-memory

Hi John,

I started a new job so havent had time to read nor use my privat MBP so much, it was on the verge of crash with 2.8GB mem used and really slow but i had to travel so i had to shut it down, And i'm not sure what you want me to do with the links? i just report my issues and was hoping someone will dig into it (maybe not you but developers). I cant really do that part specially now with all the work.

My general feeling is that version26 is much more stable but still gets very slow after a few days of use. Before this version it crashed more often.

I got a new PC laptop and used it for 3-4 days and already 2 crashes, this is ofc something different altogether but still i put it here if interested: bp-b75f8726-5be4-40e7-8088-f1e482140201 2014-02-01 12:48 bp-60b3fdaf-7219-4d21-ade7-309ed2140129 2014-01-29 22:48

Good thing is now on PC it remembers the session and opens all the tabs.

cheers

For forum cross referencing purposes.

• Note this relates to a new PC not the machine listed in the System details aside
• Reports for your Crash IDs
  bp-b75f8726-5be4-40e7-8088-f1e482140201
  bp-60b3fdaf-7219-4d21-ade7-309ed2140129
• Crash Signature: nvumdshim.dll@0xd8c6
• Related big: Bug 878434 - graphics driver crashes (dual NVIDIA/Intel GPUs)

• Windows 7
• App Notes

 AdapterVendorID: 0x8086, AdapterDeviceID: 0x0126, AdapterSubsysID: 21d117aa, AdapterDriverVersion: 8.15.10.2538
Has dual GPUs. GPU #2: AdapterVendorID2: 0x10de, AdapterDeviceID2: 0x0dfa,     AdapterSubsysID2: 21d117aa, AdapterDriverVersion2: 8.17.12.7593D2D? D2D+ DWrite? DWrite+ D3D10 Layers? D3D10 Layers+ WebGL? EGL? EGL+ GL Context? GL Context+ WebGL+

:-)

Good luck with the new job

Is the problem actually resolved ?

• Use beta and you are not getting crashes or a huge memory leak ?

It would have been handy to know what caused the issue, because that knowledge may benefit others, but If it works now for you that is the most important thing.

Thanks for your help so far.
Certainly do not feel guilty if you lack the time to continue helping with this.
Or need to come back to it at a later date.
Hopefully we were expecting to help you.

Maybe HelpDesk can come up with some method of helping.
Or helping to collect suitable information.

Otherwise my comments as under, but you will have heard that before.

There were two aspect to this "Firefox 26 on OS X 10.9.1 still has huge memory usage (leak) which leads to crash"

1. The Crash
2. The memory Leak

The combination is rather difficult to troubleshoot and solve.
Especially when it may only affect small numbers (as a proportion - % wise) of Firefox users and can not easily and reliably be reproduced.
We can not then find something to give to a developer to investigate.

Before anything can be filed as a bug for developers to look at we need to find some way of reliably reproducing the issue, and in a manner that shows it is a genuine Firefox problem

1. Crashes
   These only tend to get attention if The Crash
   • Affects a supported Release version of Firefox.
     (That is the case obviously, if a regression forces you to use an earlier unsupported version ! )
   • Affects a clean Firefox, because otherwise it is not a Firefox problem.
     (Or at most with the one or two problem addons only)
     • I am not sure you have managed to produce crash ID s from such a configuration as yet.
     • If Firefox works ok in such a configuration and does not have a memory leak the problem is not Firefox alone.
     • Suitable configuration changes will resolve the issue
   • A exception is if a crash occurs with Flash Player.
     (Because that is potentially a problem for the majority of Firefox users I would hope that to receive developer attention.)
     We then need sufficient information to file a Firefox or maybe also an Adobe FlashPlayer bug.
2. The Huge Memory leak
   • I hoping this is huge and bad  ;-)
     The worse the leak the easier & quicker it should be to spot, demonstrate and record.
   • That could be website related. If we could gather two series of about:memory reports. One for each of two separate websites that show the inexorable rise of Memory usage that should be enough to file a bug and ask a developer to investigate.
   • I say two separate series and websites because if it is a single bad website I daresay it would not be considered a Firefox problem.
   • You can see how complicated the about:memory reports look. It does really help someone else to reproduce the issue if all surfing is restricted to a single site, and again a clean Firefox configuration is used.

Thanks allot, its taking me allot of time to get into the new role and new company so as you say i wont be having lots of time to use my personal computer but still its on during the evening and i will be using it 1-2h. What i observe is that the memory constantly goes up from 700Meg up to 2.8GB and more with the same tabs more or less. On the other hand FF has been more resilient to crashes even if things get badly slow down, example would be playing a youtube video where the sound and motion is totally out of sync. So far i used FF26 mostly from last time but now i shutdown the MBP so from tomorrow evening i will move to FF27 and see how it goes, if you want i can add the memory log when i reach the high numbers ?

Thanks for the good explanation, i realize it cant be easy to debug such crashes and leaks. I can keep adding info whenever i encounter crashes and with logs for big memory uses.

Cheers

I would say you should make the most of having multiple installs / channels and the multiple profiles.

Setup whatever combination is most stable and useful and have that available if you need it. There is no point in just using Firefox in a troubleshooting configuration all the time. That is going to be; at the least very inconvenient; and it will probably prevent you doing things you like or need.

You mention

What i observe is that the memory constantly goes up from 700Meg up to 2.8GB and more with the same tabs more or less. 

• About how long does it take to go from 0.7 to 2.8GB I presume that is over a number of days ?
  (Or is it in a small number of hours browsing time ?)
• Is that quoting the about:memory figures or some other source ?
• Is that reproducible in a test configuration: safe-mode and all plugins disabled ?
  • If so does that happen if you stick within one site for the test period ?
  • Then I may suggest it would be worth logging the about:memory results each hour as a gzipped file.
    Then try to do something similar by repeating using a different site.
    Before completing each test series, get a report, then use the buttons on about:memory, and get another report. I am sure it will be of interest to see if that does free up memory.
  • If you do have a huge memory leak that should then show up.
    Comparing the gzipped files would demonstrate the increase in memory usage, and what the items were that used the memory.
    I imagine HelpDesk would be able to check the detail and have a good idea of whether that is down to a website issue or a Firefox issue.

P.S.

Assuming things go to plan Firefox 27 will move from Beta to Release this coming week and Beta will update to Firefox 28.

Hi, the crash reports that you have submitted from the new computer has a graphics card with a known issue Bug 878434 - graphics driver crashes (dual NVIDIA/Intel GPUs)

In the related bug the current work around to stop the crashes are to turn off hardware acceleration. On the Windows machine that you reported the crash reports from, not the mac machine, to turn off the hardware acceleration you can follow these steps: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/upgrade-graphics-drivers-use-hardwar...

In regards to the original issue where memory is leaking in the Mac machine, John99 is right, in the about:memory report there is an exact break down of every process in Firefox that will help lead to the leaking culprit.

Hopefully the new PC will be only crash in certain circumstances. Maybe only playing Flash content, or only with certain combination of plugins enabled. Hopefully the crashes will be avoidable with Hardware Acceleration disabled.

Running separate profiles for different work may help you get the most out of the new computer.
Or just quickly switching to safe mode may be a convenient alternative method of avoiding crashes.

If you need to discuss the other new PC in any depth it is probably better starting a new thread for that subject.

Note Firefox Safe Mode disables hardware acceleration.

If Firefox does not crash in safe mode but does ordinarily crash that is one thing that we usually try checking. That is especially the case if FlashPlayer is involved.

I found this associated with the gfx font error https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=798853

There is some kind of null pointer to the font reference, but there are not alot of reports of this. Please update Firefox and see if this still occurs.

Hi,

I updated to v27 and so far its stable even if the memory still going up. On the other hand i been so busy with work so i basically use the MBP 1-2h in the evening maybe watching netflix which uses Silverlight.

I will disable the Hardware accelerator on the pc laptop and see how it goes.

Some answers to your questions John:

    About how long does it take to go from 0.7 to 2.8GB I presume that is over a number of days ? 

--> can take 2-3 days

   Is that quoting the about:memory figures or some other source ?

--> i check my task manager

   Is that reproducible in a test configuration: safe-mode and all plugins disabled ?

--> Hasnt been using it that much really in this mode, since v27 its been sort of stable even if it gets really slow and force me to restart. --> For the rest i basically need more time on my hand to do proper testing. Hopefully my workload goes down in a few weeks and i will return to the internet more :D Thanks guys

Try using a separate Firefox profile only for the netflix movies.

That may isolate the problem

• May make it easier to troubleshoot
• Offer a workaround
  If closing down only that Netflix Firefox instance reduces the memory problem
• Separates the About Memory results

First time post here, so please forgive any protocol errors.

I didn't know whether or not to start a new thread for this, but, I figured, people having a memory leak problem might well end up here in this thread looking for answers, so I'm posting here.

A couple of days ago my system came to a grinding halt with "out of memory" - FireFox (27.0.1) was using 43G of memory (I have 64G on a MacPro, was 10.9.1 yesterday, 10.9.2 today - same issue). I tried the "usual things" - no luck. I have about 10 windows open, averaging about 3 tabs per window. As I sit here typing, with Activity Monitor on the 2nd monitor, it's eating up about 20MB per second - it's ticking up like a clock.

Thinking maybe something was going on with a specific window, I closed, watched, closed, watched etc etc.

I've finally found the answer (mostly)...

I have 4 minimized windows. I've just un-minimized said windows, and FireFox has gone down from 2.3GB to 1.32G, and memory use is stable - it flits up and down a bit, but hovers around 1.32GB. I minimize those 4 again, and the memory use starts going up again, regular as clockwork - it's now back up to 2GB and counting. I've repeated this several times - as soon as the last window is un-minimized, I go back to 1.3GB, and the leak stops. I have, at this time, been unable to determine is it's a specific window being minimized that's causing the problem - I've tried many combinations and the only pattern I can see at the moment is "none minimized" vs "some minimized".

There is obviously however, at least on my system, a serious memory leak with minimized windows.

Hi MacKnickKnack,
I hope you are correct, that will make a whole lot of people happy if we can fix that.

If you can find a reproducible situation that causes a leak and a cure (unminimise the Window) that is great.

It is something we can then file a bug for so that Apple or Firefox developers can fix the issue. (Unless it is a site issue)

Could I ask you to start a new thread please, we will cross link the threads, so anyone interested can follow both. It is a lot easier to deal with one specific case per thread.

It may be after the weekend when I get back to this, but others will help if you have questions.

Hope to make progress with this issue, Thanks for your help.

1. Please use this special link to start your own question
   • Try to follow the prompts to include full troubleshooting information
   • Post back here to confirm you have started a new thread.
2. Test using
   • An additional new profile,
   • All plugins disabled
   • It simplifies matters if all the Windows and browsing is restricted to a single site. (A public one with no sign in is best.)
3. Please ensure that about:memory results are recorded and posted somehow. (Please retain your gzipped report files)

I have already posted further comments and links to useful articles in two almost adjacent posts upthread; with further useful information in another thread Firefox 25 still has memory leaks /questions/978195#answer-521852 .

I have done as you instructed.

I reproduced the problem on a clean new profile, without additions, add-ons etc etc, and a single, public, URL.

The new thread is here...

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/987722

Thanks MacKnickKnack,

Glad to see that although the problem turned out to be a Firefox bug that it is one that has been fixed in Firefox 28. So now no problems if running Firefox 28 ( Currently Beta )

• http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/#beta/beta-desktop

* Bug 937878 - Extremely high layer memory usage on Mac when browser windows are minimized