ogam5 said

.....genuinely appreciate the advice, safeman - but, after having decelerated hardware previously (at the express recommendation of a Mozilla tech) with NO appreciable SUSTAINED improvement to hanging up, not gonna change from 45 (which I installed last night - yeah, ironic, I do realize) at least for now - so FAR, no apparent conflicts with Flash but, haven't used it much yet, either.....

Well maybe I spoke too soon. Today with similar mix of tabs open I was over 2 Gb memory on one of the seven cores that was handling Firefox. Close Firefox and reopened and was back like it was last night (two cores running about 600+ Mb)! Odd. So the two solutions don't appear to always work. So yes the SUSTAINED fix is what we are after.

There have been numerous "solutions" suggested - none of which seem to work well. When will Mozilla fix the Quantum browser because right now it is reasonable to assume that Chrome use is growing.

Did you check your add-ons?

Since the engine in Quantum is completely new many of the legacy add-ons won't work correctly. Remove/disable all of them.

Make sure you uninstall Flash. Don't just say Never Activate.

Uninstall the remaining ad-ons.

Close Firefox and restart.

If you still have issues kindly start a new thread! That way we can have a better look under the hood.

.....you neglected to include, 'REinstall add-ons', Safeman - a LOT of the sites I frequent (INCLUDING my media provider's online player) still USE Flash, and simply WON'T operate otherwise.....

Ogam5 - that's correct. I was just trying to isolate what the culprit is. AFTER you are satisfied that Firefox is working correctly go to the Firefox 57 add-ons manager and find the version of Flash player that works with Firefox 57. If the bad behavior returns then you know that your setup doesn't support Flash in the Firefox environment.c

UPDATE CAUTION - For Firefox 57 desktop version Firefox will discontinue support of Flash. It already did discontinue flash for android Firefox (Firefox 56 was last version to support it). I suggest you use HTML5 Video Everywhere instead. Go to the Tools menu - highlight "Add Ons" and then "Get Add-Ons" and search for the app. If there is a page that still uses Flash either contact the web master and encourage them to go to HTML5 player or move on to another web page that uses HTML5 player. Flash just has too many security holes!

....I HOPE you meant to say, 'doesn't support FF at PRESENT'.....

- and I meant to say, ' doesn't support Flash - at PRESENT'.....

Actually there seems to be a conflict in whether it is officially supported or not. I an inquiring. I will let you know.

Here is what I found out.

So ogam5 and runnersweb here is what I suggest. Use the "HTML5 Video Everywhere" player instead of the Flash player. You can get this player by clicking Tools - "Add Ons" then "Get Add-Ons."

HTML 5 is being used by more and more developers. I know there are several still holding on to Flash but they are dwindling. Reach out to the web masters of the pages that still use Flash and let them that very soon Flash will no longer be supported. Otherwise move to a different provider that understands the security holes that Flash cannot fix. These are real! Time to move on. Just Google Flash Security Holes and you will find page after page of issues. And the player always used to crash. At least for me. I no longer have it installed.

TonyE said

Is this for the Android version of Firefox? If so support for Flash ended in Firefox version 56. The desktop version of Firefox supports Flash.

FredMcD said

Flash is supported for now. But in the future, it will no longer work on Firefox.

Hi ogam5 and runnersweb - Here in all of its glory are the official Firefox plans for the Flash plug-in. Took a while but here they are.

Plugins are a security and performance problem for Firefox users. NPAPI plugins are an obsolete technology, and Mozilla has been moving toward a Web which doesn't need plugins. The last remaining NPAPI plugin, Adobe Flash, has announced an end-of-life plan. To support the transition away from Flash, Firefox is working with other browsers to progressively and carefully make Flash usage less common. Below is the roadmap of past and future support for plugins in Firefox.

Schedule

June 2016 Starting with Firefox 47 in June 2016, all plugins other than Adobe Flash are click-to-activate. Users choose which sites are allowed to activate each plugin. In addition, the 64-bit Firefox for Windows only supports the Flash plugin.

March 2017 Starting with Firefox 52 in March 2017, plugins other than Adobe Flash are no longer supported in Firefox. Firefox Extended Support Release 52 will continue to support non-Flash plugins until early 2018.

August 2017 Starting with Firefox 55 in August 2017, users must choose which sites are allowed to activate the Flash plugin. Users will have the choice to remember the Flash setting per-site. This change will be rolled out progressively during August and September 2017.

In order to improve security and performance, Mozilla will maintain a list of sites which cannot use any plugins.

September 2017 Starting with Firefox 56 in September 2017, Firefox for Android will remove all support for plugins (bug 1381916).

Late 2018 In the second half of 2018, Firefox will no longer remember the Flash setting, and users will have to choose each session whether to activate Flash.

Early 2019 In early 2019, Firefox will show a user-visible warning on sites that continue to use Flash.

2019 A few months after the user-visible warning, Firefox will disable the Flash plugin by default. Users will not be prompted to enable Flash, but it will still be possible to activate Flash on certain sites using browser settings.

2020 In early 2020, Flash support will be completely removed from consumer versions of Firefox. The Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) will continue to support for Flash until the end of 2020.

2021 When Adobe stops shipping security updates for Flash at the end of 2020, Firefox will refuse to load the plugin.

.....'move to a different provider'??? UH-uh; NOT even REMOTELY an option.....this is, to but it BLUNTLY, an ASININE decision on Mozilla's part; still TOO damned many webpage administrators using Flash and I will NOT stop availing myself of their content because of it - there should be SOME expedient way of directing them ALL to switch out Flash for HTML5 then, by ALL browsers INSISTING uipon as much.....

.....is there any way of having BOTH Flash and HTML5 without any conflicts?

Carefully read this statement in the schedule of Flash Plugin in the previous posting.

"To support the transition away from Flash, Firefox is working with other browsers to progressively and carefully make Flash usage less common."

To me that means that Firefox has joined the other popular browsers (Chrome, Edge etc.) to make Flash less common in websites. Even Adobe admits there are issues.

I think Firefox is not to blame here. It is definitely Adobe. And Adobe recognizes it and is limiting support to it.

But Firefox HAS RECOGNIZED that there is a problem with performance and security and they say you should always set the Flash Plug-In as "Ask to Activate." That way you know when you are using it and it is not always activated. That way the other pages that are not using Flash are not compromised. I think this is an honest alternative.

ogam5 said

.....'move to a different provider'??? UH-uh; NOT even REMOTELY an option.....this is, to but it BLUNTLY, an ASININE decision on Mozilla's part; still TOO damned many webpage administrators using Flash and I will NOT stop availing myself of their content because of it - there should be SOME expedient way of directing them ALL to switch out Flash for HTML5 then, by ALL browsers INSISTING uipon as much.....

Agreed, Safeman - and, apologies for being so short but, I've just had a LITANY of issues for months now and, to be honest, there's a certain arrogance associated with attitudes about Flash vs. HTML5, that seems to ignore the former's continuing prevalent use.....still not clear, though, what can be done to resolve the Quantum problems with it - had Flash set for only as necessary and loading at my discretion as you suggest but, ultimately failed me.....

First update your video card drivers directly from the manufacturer nVidia, AMD or Intel

Refresh Firefox by typing "about:support" in the url bar then clicking "Refresh Firefox" on the top right

Test without any addons, uBlock Origin should be fine....

FIrefox will have 2-4 processes running in the background and this is normal, it is the new "Electroysis", these processes don't increase due to the amount of tabs open, but each process handles different elements of Firefox IE: The GUI, the page renderer, displaying images ect, so each website is running on multiple processes at the same time unlike Chrome where they are on a single process.

These processes should take up a good chunk of ram even with only a couple tabs open, but they should be in the same ballpark when using 20-40 tabs.

If video heavy sites are an issue it might be due to the codec in use, by default it's not using VP9, which is heavy on the CPU. To revert to H.264/AVC1 hardware accelerated playback: type "about:config" in the url bar, find the entry "media.webm.enabled" and set it to "False"

In your "about:support" tab it should show:

Multiprocess windows: Enabled Web Content Processes: 4 (or how many threads Firefox is/can using) Stylo: Enabled Compositing: D3D 11 (Windows) / OpenGL (OSX and Linux)

Hi Beerbaron23 THANKS for your help!

ogam5 and runnersweb you may want to try what he has to say.

Beerbaron23 said

First update your video card drivers directly from the manufacturer nVidia, AMD or Intel Refresh Firefox by typing "about:support" in the url bar then clicking "Refresh Firefox" on the top right Test without any addons, uBlock Origin should be fine.... FIrefox will have 2-4 processes running in the background and this is normal, it is the new "Electroysis", these processes don't increase due to the amount of tabs open, but each process handles different elements of Firefox IE: The GUI, the page renderer, displaying images ect, so each website is running on multiple processes at the same time unlike Chrome where they are on a single process. These processes should take up a good chunk of ram even with only a couple tabs open, but they should be in the same ballpark when using 20-40 tabs. If video heavy sites are an issue it might be due to the codec in use, by default it's not using VP9, which is heavy on the CPU. To revert to H.264/AVC1 hardware accelerated playback: type "about:config" in the url bar, find the entry "media.webm.enabled" and set it to "False" In your "about:support" tab it should show: Multiprocess windows: Enabled Web Content Processes: 4 (or how many threads Firefox is/can using) Stylo: Enabled Compositing: D3D 11 (Windows) / OpenGL (OSX and Linux)

Same Memory issues with Firefox Quantum 57.0, still persists >> Link link text

Please Help!!

.....honestly, that may be WAY too ambitious and circumspect for me, my needs.....

Understood. Just put that out there to pass along helpful hints.

ogam5 said

.....honestly, that may be WAY too ambitious and circumspect for me, my needs.....

Same problem here - massive memory use after upgrade from 56 to 57. Firefox was already (pre-57) using so much memory I had to upgrade from 4GB to 10GB and significant expense - just for FF. That satisfied FF and it finally started behaving and performing reasonably. With 57, it starts off using about the same amount of 56 but after a few hours, even hours of complete user inactivity, FF uses all the memory left on the system. It is using 5+GB as I type this. Of course the add-on which would provide diagnostic info on which tabs were eating all the memory (Sessionstore) no long functions on version 57. The restart add-on that would restart FF in one step and flush the memory back down to a reasonable level doesn't work anymore either. The wife is upset that her Facebook videos don't work anymore on 57. I hate the awful "Windows 10" look and you forced the tabs back to the top where they should never have been put in the first place.

I ask myself "Self, why are you putting yourself through this?" I don't have a good answer. I don't care about bleeding edge performance, I need a browser that is reliable, handles a heavy loads with grace, and is extensible to my needs. That is what brought me to Firefox so many years ago. V57 is none of those. In fact Firefox 3.X could handle 60+ windows with multiple tabs with add-ons. What happened to that code? Now you get to about 15 and it's so draggy. I need a browser that works not one I need to debug and repair.

I'm going back to 56 and staying there until and if Mozilla cleans up their act, and if not I guess I'll finally look elsewhere. I used Netscape before Firefox and Mosaic (remember that?) before NS and even used Cello. I've seen a lot of evolution, and in the last 5 years I have not liked where FF is going.