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Why is firefox all of a sudden using 2gigs of memory when I scroll on twitter or upload images to facebook causing me to crash? This never happened before!

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Hello, My name is Alan M. Lubeski the Walt Disney World animator and imagineer. I have been using Firefox for years now and never had a problem. last week I noticed something strange started happening with the browser. When I scroll down on the Twitter followers page my browser would freeze and or crash. It also happens when I upload a large batch of files to my Facebook. I am not a computer expert but it seems anything with allot of images causes the browser to do this now. Could the browser be trying to cache every image on a page at the same time as it scrolls causing it to fill up 2 gigs of memory and then crash or freeze? I watched the task manager next to the browser as I scrolled down and as I scrolled down the memory usage for Firefox would just keep going up until it hits 2 gigs and then Firefox stopped working. I made sure it was not my add-ons, I did system maintenance and I ran several anti viruses and I made sure everything was up to date but there was zero issues and or reasons for this problem. I would hate to have to reinstall the browser because I have everything set up the way I want and need for work. I made no changes so I don't see a reason to go through all of that. I find it strange that this would just start happening on its own! Is there a real quick fix for this so that I can get back to work? I need my browser so I can manage my sites and upload my new art for my fans to see!

Alan M. Lubeski Amdoggett@yahoo.com

Facebook: (WIP Albums) facebook.com/alan.lubeski/photos_albums Twitter: (End project images) twitter.com/AlinRaven/media Linkedin: (Resume) linkedin.com/in/alinraven Youtube: (Videos) youtube.com/channel/UC5UchW3i0yBNxfRDg82c4Zg

Hello, My name is Alan M. Lubeski the Walt Disney World animator and imagineer. I have been using Firefox for years now and never had a problem. last week I noticed something strange started happening with the browser. When I scroll down on the Twitter followers page my browser would freeze and or crash. It also happens when I upload a large batch of files to my Facebook. I am not a computer expert but it seems anything with allot of images causes the browser to do this now. Could the browser be trying to cache every image on a page at the same time as it scrolls causing it to fill up 2 gigs of memory and then crash or freeze? I watched the task manager next to the browser as I scrolled down and as I scrolled down the memory usage for Firefox would just keep going up until it hits 2 gigs and then Firefox stopped working. I made sure it was not my add-ons, I did system maintenance and I ran several anti viruses and I made sure everything was up to date but there was zero issues and or reasons for this problem. I would hate to have to reinstall the browser because I have everything set up the way I want and need for work. I made no changes so I don't see a reason to go through all of that. I find it strange that this would just start happening on its own! Is there a real quick fix for this so that I can get back to work? I need my browser so I can manage my sites and upload my new art for my fans to see! Alan M. Lubeski Amdoggett@yahoo.com Facebook: (WIP Albums) facebook.com/alan.lubeski/photos_albums Twitter: (End project images) twitter.com/AlinRaven/media Linkedin: (Resume) linkedin.com/in/alinraven Youtube: (Videos) youtube.com/channel/UC5UchW3i0yBNxfRDg82c4Zg

All Replies (20)

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Here are some images of the memory usage that i'm taking about. Alan

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You are using 32 bit Windows? AFAIK Max memory chunk for one process in such systems is 2GB. All processes that overflow this border will be killed. But I don't know about swap. Maybe this limit can be increased, try to enable swapping. P.S. Amounts of Information had grown, this is not firefox issue. 32 bit OS's will die soon, it's time for x86_64. Hope you will understand me.

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CPete said

You are using 32 bit Windows? AFAIK Max memory chunk for one process in such systems is 2GB. All processes that overflow this border will be killed. But I don't know about swap. Maybe this limit can be increased, try to enable swapping. P.S. Amounts of Information had grown, this is not firefox issue. 32 bit OS's will die soon, it's time for x86_64. Hope you will understand me.

That is a tad to complicated for me lol

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You can track memory usage with about:memory (put it into address bar) And kill unnecessary tabs/plugins, before they kill firefox process with memory overflow. Also, some memory can be freed with Clear Recent History

Modified by CPete

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CPete said

You can track memory usage with about:memory (put it into address bar) And kill unnecessary tabs/plugins, before they kill firefox process with memory overflow. Also, some memory can be freed with Clear Recent History

I just tried about:memory and tried to free the extra memory Firefox is using and it had no effect! I cleaned the history same result. The issue is it's using the memory in real time. As I actively scroll down the page the browser loads the images. The further I scroll the more images load and the more memory gets used. If I scroll faster the memory gets used faster, If i scroll slower it gets used slower. but the memory usage always go up unless i stop doing ANYTHING! Once Firefox hits 2 gig of memory it freezes and or crashes. If I stop scrolling just before it hits 2 gigs I can do nothing to make it go down except wait or reload Firefox. It will go down its self over a very long time but cleaning cache and history or turning off the add-ons has no effect! It seems like its trying to save and hold to much data at once and its crashing its self is there any way Firefox caches everything on a page and dose not let it go so that when you scroll it fills up the memory and crashes its self? If so how do you stop that from happening?

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CPete said

You can track memory usage with about:memory (put it into address bar) And kill unnecessary tabs/plugins, before they kill firefox process with memory overflow. Also, some memory can be freed with Clear Recent History

What I can do if it helps is use about:memory to record what happens right before a crash and try and post the results here.

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What I can do if it helps is use about:memory to record what happens right before a crash and try and post the results here.

Good idea

Modified by CPete

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CPete said

What I can do if it helps is use about:memory to record what happens right before a crash and try and post the results here.

Good idea

OK. The first image Is a fresh boot of Firefox on a random twitter page with task manager next to it. The second is the same except seconds before a crash. The ONLY thing I did was scroll down. Also I caught the about:memory process log.

Main Process ↓ Explicit Allocations

2,394.28 MB (100.0%) -- explicit ├──1,526.85 MB (63.77%) ── heap-unclassified ├────278.90 MB (11.65%) -- add-ons │ ├──228.91 MB (09.56%) -- {b9db16a4-6edc-47ec-a1f4-b86292ed211d}/js-non-window/zones │ │ ├──219.30 MB (09.16%) -- zone(0x263a5800)/compartment([Expanded Principal], [anonymous sandbox] (from: resource://gre/modules/addons/XPIProvider.jsm -> jar:file:///C:/Users/AlinGrizzly/AppData/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/pdd7crb2.default-1426548650172/extensions/%7Bb9db16a4-6edc-47ec-a1f4-b86292ed211d%7D.xpi!/bootstrap.js -> resource://gre/modules/commonjs/toolkit/loader.js -> resource://gre/modules/commonjs/sdk/loader/sandbox.js:32)) │ │ │ ├──214.98 MB (08.98%) -- classes │ │ │ │ ├───76.77 MB (03.21%) -- class(Function) │ │ │ │ │ ├──76.73 MB (03.20%) -- objects │ │ │ │ │ │ ├──76.72 MB (03.20%) ── gc-heap [3] │ │ │ │ │ │ └───0.01 MB (00.00%) ── malloc-heap/slots [3] │ │ │ │ │ └───0.03 MB (00.00%) ++ shapes │ │ │ │ ├───67.90 MB (02.84%) -- class(Object) │ │ │ │ │ ├──67.85 MB (02.83%) -- objects │ │ │ │ │ │ ├──56.93 MB (02.38%) -- malloc-heap │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├──55.93 MB (02.34%) ── slots │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └───1.00 MB (00.04%) ── elements/non-asm.js │ │ │ │ │ │ └──10.93 MB (00.46%) ── gc-heap │ │ │ │ │ └───0.05 MB (00.00%) ++ shapes │ │ │ │ ├───43.00 MB (01.80%) -- class(Call) │ │ │ │ │ ├──42.99 MB (01.80%) -- objects │ │ │ │ │ │ ├──40.91 MB (01.71%) ── gc-heap │ │ │ │ │ │ └───2.07 MB (00.09%) ── malloc-heap/slots │ │ │ │ │ └───0.01 MB (00.00%) ++ shapes │ │ │ │ ├───25.36 MB (01.06%) -- class(Array) │ │ │ │ │ ├──25.07 MB (01.05%) -- objects │ │ │ │ │ │ ├──24.91 MB (01.04%) ── gc-heap │ │ │ │ │ │ └───0.16 MB (00.01%) ++ malloc-heap │ │ │ │ │ └───0.30 MB (00.01%) ++ shapes │ │ │ │ └────1.95 MB (00.08%) ++ (5 tiny) │ │ │ └────4.32 MB (00.18%) ++ (6 tiny) │ │ └────9.61 MB (00.40%) ++ (3 tiny) │ ├───48.04 MB (02.01%) -- {d10d0bf8-f5b5-c8b4-a8b2-2b9879e08c5d}/js-non-window/zones/zone(0xd2cd400)/compartment([System Principal], jar:file:///C:/Users/AlinGrizzly/AppData/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/pdd7crb2.default-1426548650172/extensions/%7Bd10d0bf8-f5b5-c8b4-a8b2-2b9879e08c5d%7D.xpi!/bootstrap.js (from: resource://gre/modules/addons/XPIProvider.jsm:4313)) │ │ ├──47.81 MB (02.00%) ++ classes │ │ └───0.23 MB (00.01%) ++ (5 tiny) │ └────1.96 MB (00.08%) ++ (5 tiny) ├────266.76 MB (11.14%) -- window-objects │ ├──220.02 MB (09.19%) -- top(https://twitter.com/WisdomTreeETFs/followers, id=29) │ │ ├──134.37 MB (05.61%) -- js-zone(0x263a5800) │ │ │ ├──120.43 MB (05.03%) -- strings │ │ │ │ ├───97.96 MB (04.09%) -- string(<non-notable strings>) │ │ │ │ │ ├──95.88 MB (04.00%) -- malloc-heap │ │ │ │ │ │ ├──95.18 MB (03.98%) ── two-byte │ │ │ │ │ │ └───0.71 MB (00.03%) ── latin1 │ │ │ │ │ └───2.07 MB (00.09%) ++ gc-heap │ │ │ │ └───22.47 MB (00.94%) ++ (503 tiny) │ │ │ └───13.95 MB (00.58%) ++ (8 tiny) │ │ └───85.65 MB (03.58%) -- active │ │ ├──85.16 MB (03.56%) -- window(https://twitter.com/WisdomTreeETFs/followers) │ │ │ ├──48.57 MB (02.03%) -- js-compartment(https://twitter.com/WisdomTreeETFs/followers) │ │ │ │ ├──39.68 MB (01.66%) -- classes │ │ │ │ │ ├──26.72 MB (01.12%) ++ class(XrayExpandoObject) │ │ │ │ │ └──12.96 MB (00.54%) ++ (16 tiny) │ │ │ │ └───8.88 MB (00.37%) ++ (6 tiny) │ │ │ └──36.60 MB (01.53%) ++ (4 tiny) │ │ └───0.48 MB (00.02%) ++ window(about:blank) │ ├───26.11 MB (01.09%) ++ top(about:memory, id=33) │ └───20.62 MB (00.86%) ++ (9 tiny) ├────160.11 MB (06.69%) -- js-non-window │ ├──109.22 MB (04.56%) -- zones │ │ ├───98.45 MB (04.11%) -- zone(0xd2cd400) │ │ │ ├──60.92 MB (02.54%) ++ strings │ │ │ └──37.53 MB (01.57%) ++ (274 tiny) │ │ └───10.77 MB (00.45%) ++ (8 tiny) │ ├───29.31 MB (01.22%) ++ runtime │ └───21.58 MB (00.90%) ++ gc-heap ├─────56.88 MB (02.38%) -- heap-overhead │ ├──38.77 MB (01.62%) ── bin-unused │ └──18.11 MB (00.76%) ++ (3 tiny) ├─────45.17 MB (01.89%) ++ (19 tiny) ├─────31.97 MB (01.34%) -- images │ ├──30.93 MB (01.29%) -- content/raster │ │ ├──30.92 MB (01.29%) ++ used │ │ └───0.01 MB (00.00%) ++ unused/<non-notable images> │ └───1.05 MB (00.04%) ++ (2 tiny) └─────27.64 MB (01.15%) ++ workers/workers(chrome)

Other Measurements

4,095.94 MB (100.0%) -- address-space ├──3,041.50 MB (74.26%) -- commit │ ├──2,768.94 MB (67.60%) -- private │ │ ├──2,427.12 MB (59.26%) ── readwrite [5025] │ │ ├────332.34 MB (08.11%) ── readwrite+writecombine [48] │ │ └──────9.48 MB (00.23%) ++ (4 tiny) │ ├────167.46 MB (04.09%) -- mapped │ │ ├──148.09 MB (03.62%) ── readonly [54] │ │ └───19.37 MB (00.47%) ++ (3 tiny) │ └────105.11 MB (02.57%) -- image │ ├───65.09 MB (01.59%) ── execute-read [122] │ └───40.02 MB (00.98%) ++ (3 tiny) ├────762.11 MB (18.61%) ── free [646] └────292.32 MB (07.14%) -- reserved

    ├──260.66 MB (06.36%) ── private [2739]
    └───31.66 MB (00.77%) ++ (2 tiny)

15.63 MB (100.0%) -- decommitted ├──14.53 MB (92.98%) -- js-non-window │ ├──14.00 MB (89.58%) ── runtime/gc/nursery-decommitted │ └───0.53 MB (03.40%) ── gc-heap/decommitted-arenas └───1.10 MB (07.02%) -- workers/workers(chrome)

   ├──0.70 MB (04.45%) -- worker(resource:///modules/sessionstore/SessionWorker.js, 0x1a4d7800)
   │  ├──0.70 MB (04.45%) ── gc-heap/decommitted-arenas
   │  └──0.00 MB (00.00%) ── runtime/gc/nursery-decommitted
   └──0.40 MB (02.57%) -- worker(resource://gre/modules/osfile/osfile_async_worker.js, 0x11359800)
      ├──0.40 MB (02.57%) ── gc-heap/decommitted-arenas
      └──0.00 MB (00.00%) ── runtime/gc/nursery-decommitted

3,759 (100.0%) -- event-counts ├──3,751 (99.79%) -- window-objects │ ├──2,306 (61.35%) -- top(chrome://browser/content/browser.xul, id=3)/active │ │ ├──2,305 (61.32%) -- window(chrome://browser/content/browser.xul)/dom │ │ │ ├──2,302 (61.24%) ── event-listeners │ │ │ └──────3 (00.08%) ── event-targets │ │ └──────1 (00.03%) ── window(about:blank)/dom/event-targets │ ├──1,099 (29.24%) -- top(https://twitter.com/WisdomTreeETFs/followers, id=29)/active │ │ ├──1,090 (29.00%) -- window(https://twitter.com/WisdomTreeETFs/followers)/dom │ │ │ ├──1,085 (28.86%) ── event-listeners │ │ │ └──────5 (00.13%) ── event-targets │ │ └──────9 (00.24%) ── window(about:blank)/dom/event-targets [9] │ ├────137 (03.64%) -- top(about:newtab, id=35)/active/window(about:newtab)/dom │ │ ├──135 (03.59%) ── event-listeners │ │ └────2 (00.05%) ── event-targets │ ├────127 (03.38%) -- top(https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1059889#question-reply, id=31)/active │ │ ├──114 (03.03%) -- window(https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1059889#question-reply)/dom │ │ │ ├──110 (02.93%) ── event-listeners │ │ │ └────4 (00.11%) ── event-targets │ │ └───13 (00.35%) ++ window(about:blank)/dom │ └─────82 (02.18%) ++ (7 tiny) └──────8 (00.21%) ++ add-ons/{82AF8DCA-6DE9-405D-BD5E-43525BDAD38A}/window-objects/top(resource://skype_ff_extension-at-jetpack/skype_ff_extension/data/c2c_options_menu.html, id=22)/active/window(resource://skype_ff_extension-at-jetpack/skype_ff_extension/data/c2c_options_menu.html)/dom

31.97 MB (100.0%) -- images ├──30.93 MB (96.72%) -- content/raster │ ├──30.92 MB (96.70%) -- used │ │ ├──20.57 MB (64.32%) ── source │ │ └──10.35 MB (32.38%) ── decoded-heap │ └───0.01 MB (00.02%) ++ unused ├───1.04 MB (03.25%) -- chrome │ ├──0.96 MB (02.99%) -- raster/used │ │ ├──0.79 MB (02.46%) ── source │ │ └──0.17 MB (00.53%) ── decoded-heap │ └──0.08 MB (00.26%) ── vector/used/source └───0.01 MB (00.03%) ++ uncached/raster/used

634.47 MB (100.0%) -- js-main-runtime ├──353.73 MB (55.75%) -- compartments │ ├──330.57 MB (52.10%) -- classes

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It made me crop it but here is the end.

│ │ ├──295.85 MB (46.63%) -- objects │ │ │ ├──209.36 MB (33.00%) ── gc-heap │ │ │ └───86.49 MB (13.63%) -- malloc-heap │ │ │ ├──76.85 MB (12.11%) ── slots │ │ │ ├───9.47 MB (01.49%) ── elements/non-asm.js │ │ │ └───0.18 MB (00.03%) ── misc │ │ └───34.72 MB (05.47%) -- shapes │ │ ├──29.21 MB (04.60%) -- gc-heap │ │ │ ├──12.51 MB (01.97%) ── tree │ │ │ ├──10.92 MB (01.72%) ── dict │ │ │ └───5.78 MB (00.91%) ── base │ │ └───5.50 MB (00.87%) ++ malloc-heap │ ├───12.30 MB (01.94%) ++ (7 tiny) │ └───10.86 MB (01.71%) ── compartment-tables ├──229.85 MB (36.23%) -- zones │ ├──196.39 MB (30.95%) -- strings │ │ ├──180.29 MB (28.42%) -- malloc-heap │ │ │ ├──164.91 MB (25.99%) ── two-byte │ │ │ └───15.38 MB (02.42%) ── latin1 │ │ └───16.09 MB (02.54%) -- gc-heap │ │ ├──10.92 MB (01.72%) ── latin1 │ │ └───5.17 MB (00.82%) ── two-byte │ ├───27.70 MB (04.37%) ── unused-gc-things │ └────5.77 MB (00.91%) ++ (7 tiny) ├───29.31 MB (04.62%) ── runtime └───21.58 MB (03.40%) -- gc-heap

   ├──13.73 MB (02.16%) ── unused-arenas
   └───7.84 MB (01.24%) ++ (2 tiny)

649 (100.0%) -- js-main-runtime-compartments ├──610 (93.99%) -- system │ ├──602 (92.76%) ++ (488 tiny) │ └────8 (01.23%) ── [System Principal], inProcessTabChildGlobal?ownedBy=chrome://browser/content/browser.xul [8] └───39 (06.01%) -- user

   ├──13 (02.00%) ++ (9 tiny)
   ├──10 (01.54%) ── [Expanded Principal] [10]
   ├───9 (0
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What version of ff are you using? And what cash limit is set? (Edit>Preferences>Advanced>Network)

You can save report in a file with 'Measure and save...' from about:memory and paste link to the file here.

Modified by CPete

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CPete said

What version of ff are you using? And what cash limit is set? (Edit>Preferences>Network) You can save report in a file with 'Measure and save...' from about:memory and paste link to the file here.

Version 37.0.2 cache limit is set to 347 MB I tried it with the override on and off it makes no difference.

Do you want me to cause another crash so I can try and get it in a file or is the log I posted good enough?

Modified by The Grizzly Bear King

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Do you want me to cause another crash so I can try and get it in a file or is the log I posted good enough?

No. Just increase cash limit up to few GB. I hope it will help.

Even in my system, where max process memory limited to 4GB, crashes happens sometimes, when I scroll down tumblr. Browser can't cash all data created by js.

Modified by CPete

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CPete said

Do you want me to cause another crash so I can try and get it in a file or is the log I posted good enough?

No. Just increase cash limit up to few GB. I hope it will help. Problem happens with 'endless' scrolling lists, yes? Even in my system, where max process memory limited to 4GB, crashes happens sometimes, when I scroll down tumblr. In my opinion the only solution - move to 64 bit system.

I made the change you suggested below are the results. Here is the report file. http://www.megafileupload.com/2GOw/memory-report.json.gz Below are some images of the test.

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CPete said

Do you want me to cause another crash so I can try and get it in a file or is the log I posted good enough?

No. Just increase cash limit up to few GB. I hope it will help.

Even in my system, where max process memory limited to 4GB, crashes happens sometimes, when I scroll down tumblr. Browser can't cash all data created by js.

The last few days its happening way to fast! I cant get anything done. I can not add twitter followers or post large collections of images. Its so bad its hindering my work. It has never been like this!

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Is there no help?

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The solution is always exists. Try to load ff in safe mode. Still same result?

Modified by CPete

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CPete said

The solution is always exists. Try to load ff in safe mode. Still same result?

That was the first thing I did and no the same thing happens.

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I don't know how to help you. Let's wait for someone more experienced.

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CPete said

I don't know how to help you. Let's wait for someone more experienced.

ok thank you

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Anyone out there with help?