Firefox using multiple processes is incredibly slow
I see from Windows Task Manager that in the last day or so Firefox 55.0.2 (32-bit) has begun using three processes instead of just one, and during this same time it has become incredibly slow. Any page of any kind, even one with very little media, is frozen while loading (some pages take half a minute or more to get past this), and every page freezes periodically afterwards as well. This has made browsing an extremely trying experience.
Is anyone else having this problem? Does anyone know anything to fix it?
Alle antwoorden (12)
Did you have a look at the Firefox's performance settings article? You can limit or increase the number of content processes, according to what your hardware allows and how much memory your system has.
Note that this affects performance, but when limiting the number to e.g. 1, that does not mean you only see 1 process in the Windows Task Manager. In other words, a content process is not similar to an operating system process. If you want to limit that to 1, you would need to disable Multiprocess/e10s (by opening about:config and toggling the browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 preference to false and restarting Firefox.)
However, slow performance should not necessarily be related to the number of operating system processes and often indicate an issue with an add-on. Did you try if the same happens in Firefox’s Safe Mode?
Hello, Tonnes, and thank you for your reply. I did indeed look at that "performance settings" article before posting, and I tried unchecking "recommended performance settings," after which I saw underneath that that it was then set to a content process limit of 1 as the default. That did not, however, speed things up. After receiving your reply, I went into Safe Mode, and that did speed things up. So I went back into normal mode to try disabling individual add-ons to try to isolate the problem. This, however, only confused me more.
When I went into Tools:Add-ons, I saw in the "Extensions" tab that I have no extensions, even though I know that I had several. It said only, "You don't have any add-ons of this type installed." I then saw in the Plug-ins tab on that Add-ons Manager page that I have only three plug-ins, whereas I used to have several more. So now, besides not knowing why everything is so slow, I have no idea what happened to all of those add-ons or whether their disappearance is related to the recent extreme sluggishness.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/update-firefox-latest-version?cache=no Update Firefox to the latest version 55.0.2
FredMcD said
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/update-firefox-latest-version?cache=no Update Firefox to the latest version 55.0.2
Hello, FredMcD. As I noted in the first sentence of my post, I am running 55.0.2 (32-bit). Thank you for the suggestion anyway.
You can try to disable hardware acceleration in Firefox.
- Options/Preferences -> General: Performance
remove checkmark: [ ] "Use recommended performance settings"
"Use hardware acceleration when available"
You need to close and restart Firefox after toggling this setting.
You can check if there is an update for your graphics display driver and check for hardware acceleration related issues.
If it works in Safe Mode and in normal mode with all extensions ("3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Extensions) disabled then try to find which extension is causing the problem by enabling one extension at a time until the problem reappears.
Close and restart Firefox after each change via one of these:
- "3-bar" menu button -> Exit (Power button)
- Windows: File -> Exit
- Mac: Firefox -> Quit Firefox
- Linux: File -> Quit
Bewerkt door cor-el op
As for extensions, I can’t explain why you would not see them, other than that they would have been removed.
Most (NPAPI) plugins have been blocked except for Flash, and this may be a culprit. I have seen performance complaints, and the Adobe Flash protected mode in Firefox article mentions possible performance issues when its Protected Mode is enabled, which would apply to 32-bit version only.
Are you sure Flash is also up to date (currently 26.0.0.151), and could you perhaps uninstall it, test the performance and then reinstall it from here (if you need it), and test with and without its Protected Mode enabled? Note that the checkbox may reside under the More link.
You could also install the 64-bit version of Firefox which may offer slightly better performance, but that would be a workaround - Safe Mode proves it.
cor-el said
You can try to disable hardware acceleration in Firefox.You need to close and restart Firefox after toggling this setting. You can check if there is an update for your graphics display driver and check for hardware acceleration related issues. If it works in Safe Mode and in normal mode with all extensions ("3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Extensions) disabled then try to find which extension is causing the problem by enabling one extension at a time until the problem reappears. Close and restart Firefox after each change via one of these:
- Options/Preferences -> General: Performance
remove checkmark: [ ] "Use recommended performance settings"
"Use hardware acceleration when available"
- "3-bar" menu button -> Exit (Power button)
- Windows: File -> Exit
- Mac: Firefox -> Quit Firefox
- Linux: File -> Quit
Thank you, cor-el, for your recommendations. Although, as I remarked above, I actually (and inexplicably) no longer have any Extensions in Add-ons (see me comment above about how they all disappeared), I have just gone ahead and disabled hardware acceleration. The browsing is still slow, but perhaps it has improved—or perhaps it is wishful thinking. I am just going to try this for a short while.
Thank you also and again, Tonnes, for your second response. After I have given what I've just done a little time, I may try some of your further suggestions as well. And if I find any of what has been recommended to solve the problem, I shall return and mark the appropriate answer as helpful and the problem as solved. If none of this works, I may just cry—or perhaps comment to complain again and hope for some further suggestion. Thanks again to all.
What are your system specs?
Moses said
What are your system specs?
Hello, Moses. I am running Windows 7 Ultimate (Service Pack 1) on a Hewlett Packard g6 Notebook, Intel Core i3 CPU M 370 @ 2.40 GHz, 4.00 GB RAM, 64-bit operating system.
I took a couple of days away, and this evening the condition of my browsing has changed. When I opened Firefox a short while ago, it seemed to be running more smoothly. So I looked at both the Tools:Add-ons page and the Help:About Firefox page. The latter showed that Firefox has updated from 55.0.2 to 55.0.3 (32-bit) since I reported my issue. The former shows that all of the Extensions that had disappeared (at least I think so--I didn't memorize what all of my Extensions had been) are now back. I also found the following page from a link on the Add-ons page:
<https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-add-technology-modernizing?as=u&utm_source=inproduct>
That may be relevant to the brief disappearance of the Extensions.
I am grateful to all who have contributed to this thread. I am now going to see whether indeed this update to 55.0.3 has resolved the problem. In any case, I did not pursue any further solutions in the last day or two, and yet the operation of Firefox seems to have changed. I hope indeed the problem I was having is gone for good.
P.S.: one other thing has changed: Firefox is no longer showing multiple processes in the Windows Task Manager. We're back to just one again.
Maybe you previously used the multi-process feature in Firefox and that is no longer the case for some reason.
You can look at "Multiprocess Windows" to see the current multi-process state.
- "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" -> Application Basics: Multiprocess Windows
See also:
This in is a late comment which may help. I've found that disabling multiprocessing speeds my FFox 57.0.2 32-bit considerably. Go to about.config and change "browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2" to false.
Perhaps multiprocessing. doesn't work so well on my old machine (Shuttle XS36V, Intel(R) Atom CPU, Intel D2550 processor, 1.86GHz RAM). So I'm glad of the fix, despite the enhanced security afforded by multiprocessing.