The third-party programs that integrate with Firefox, and your extensions, can be the cause of such memory leaks:

Do you have this problem when running in Firefox Safe Mode? http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode Don't select anything right now, just use "Continue in Safe Mode."

If it does not occur in Safe Mode, an extension is at fault. To find out which one, see Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems.

Does the problem occur in a new profile? Profile Manager - Create, remove or switch Firefox profiles Follow the directions to create a new profile temporarily for troubleshooting. Don't delete your old (default) profile.

Yeah it does it in safemode and does it all the time, and has been doing this since 3.5, and, the people who wrote the memory module should be fired.

4.0 beta 6 was fine, then when 4.0 beta 7 was released, poof, the problem re-appears. It seems the coders for the memory module should be fired, their lack of capacity to comprehend the complaints about this is amazingly abusive to the firefox user base, and that there seems no one willing to tell them to take a hike means firefox is likely to become a historic relic of web browser history--part of an e-museum.

So when you're done assuming what works for you works for everyone, and the elite Mozilla coding people are done not replying to support tickets about this problem, that I did some time ago but my thread has been deleted instead of ever answered or addressed, maybe you'll figure out there is an actual memory management problem inherent in firefox on a sizeable number of systems since 3.5:

https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/698730?s=memory+leak&as=s

https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/754461?s=memory+issue&as=s

http://example.com https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/743450?s=memory+issue&as=s

https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/708305?s=memory+issue&as=s

https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/685739?s=memory+issue&as=s

See it's not "try it in safe mode and see if it goes away" or "it must be a plug-in" as the variety of versions of firefox that have had this problem is vast, while the issue continues to be utterly ignored by Mozilla.

So whenever the elitist gods of Mozilla cease from assuming volunteer means "we're always doing our best" and "we'll get around to it when we can" while they tout "the internet should be free" and yet want us to tow the expense of their incompetence that's been going on since 3.5, I guess we'll this issue will get fixed.

Myself, I am returning to another browser, an older one, that words for most what I need it for, and does it all in less than 100 megs of ram with 35 tabs open, 20 of which are youtube videos. To me that's more valuable and assures the internet is "free" for me more than firefox's frustration has since 3.5.

And, a note to you wonderful developers who ignore us, you've got an issue where the memory addressing is getting shifted at the binary address level, it's likely an issue with the compiler you're using, particularly with 4.0 beta, unless you've stuck with the same cross platform scheme that has been the issue since 3.5, then, it's merely ignoring us that is the cause of the 4.0 beta memory leaks in apparent necessary according to Mozilla persistence.

I'd strongly suggest abandoning something in the design of FireFox that has carried over from 3.5, and, instead of assume a "container" to solve the problem, design a memory management system that actually manages the memory consistently, one that has your own "hooks" or "jump tables" to allow the variety of FireFox flavors across platforms without relying on third party structures that are not reliably supported and/or that Mozilla coders clearly are incapable of writing to without trespassing on some address of, or, give up the project for you've failed.

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I hope someone can see this because all I see is 'Post a Reply' a blue cat avatar. Firefox is in safe mode and I have done every thing under the sun to pull it out. I C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe <~ did that all is well.

Do I uninstall it, reinstall it? any ideas will be greatly appreciated os windows xp ser pk udate

Yea, I'm tired of hearing FF blame add-ons and such. It is the add-ons that make the browser desirable over others, plain and simple. So if it were my product, i think i'd get my butt on the ball to find out WHICH add-ons or themes are causing the problem instead of trying to get customers to do your work for you. You , of course don't have to as google and IE are both catching up in this aspect without the memory problems that your notoriously known for.

It is not add ons or extensions. As a loyal user since the first version, I finally quite FF last year and went to Chrome. I thought I'd try FF4- RC and it is even worse than ever! I opened the identical two tabs in FF 4, IE 9 and Chrome 10.

IE 9: 70,000 K Chrome: 80,000 K FF 4: 188,900 K

That is over 100,000k more! Not acceptable.

Also, FF 4 occasionally does not shut down and remove itself from memory and just sticks in the background sucking memory resources. Earlier versions did the same thing.

I'm a former IT Director and Advanced Technology teacher who had Firefox deployed across a large system, but had to remove it when the memory leaks became severe.

I had hopes for this version, but it seems worse than ever.

I just upgraded to 4.0, and I thought you'd have cleaned up the memory leak problem, but it's still there! Example: I open FF, check memory use, then minimize it with nothing running (seemingly). Ten minutes later, mem use is ip by 40 K (25%).

What's wrong??

-- j

Just one questions; How come this serious thread has been marked as "SOLVED"? Who solved it and when?

Has there been a cure to FF memory leak disease that we all should be ware of and what is it?

Thank you

I'm on Windows 7 64bit and had the same problem. Removing some extensions AND plugins has kept my FF between 400MB and 500MB for the last two days of continuous use with about 40 tabs opened in two windows. Before disabling any of the following it easily reached in the 700-900MB of memory usage for the same setup.

The plugins I've disabled so far are: Google Update and iTunes Application Detector.

I still have 8 extensions active (Adblock Plus, FireFTP, JavaConcole 6.0.22, etc.) and have disabled the following ones : DOM Inspector and JavaConsole 6.0.20.

Upgraded to FF4 after being a long-time supporter. Memory leaks have always plagued me but they are bad in 4. Memory jumps up by around 20Mb after loading 'heavy' pages and never releases this extra 20~25mb. Memory also just continues to creep with just www.google.co.nz loaded. Been pulling my hair out with this since the FF4 upgrade.

Tried clean profile with no add-ons and still doing it. Suspected ABP and TabMix plus initially but proved that while these add overhead, they are not the problem.

Watch my resources video with FF4, Chrome12 and IE9 with only www.google.co.nz loaded with the "Robert Bunson's" animated image.

Relucantly switching to Chrome as can't live with need to constantly restart FF. Very sad :(

if you cant get on with firefox 4 find a friend who has 3.6 and get them to burn you a disc,uninstall 4 then reinstall from disk and click on restore bookmarks.and make sure you untick the box that updates firefox so they have to ask your permission,just say no each time. version up to 3.6.15 is ok any thing higher is buggered up unless you are an expert in which case these instructions dont apply.

The Firefox 4 memory leak issue is NOT caused by extensions. My specific issue caused FF to leak to 3.4GB of memory. The problem was narrowed down to having Google.com/ig open. Once that tab was closed, memory stopped leaking.

I'm sure the Google home page is not the only page to cause these leaks, but in my case, it was the culprit. Now I'm going to close this browser and use Chrome until Firefox releases something stable.

[Rant removed by moderator. Please read Mozilla Support rules and guidelines and remember that this forum is for helping people, thanks. If you need help and are not the person who started this thread, please use https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/new where volunteers can get more details about your setup.]

[Rant removed by moderator. Please read Mozilla Support rules and guidelines and remember that this forum is for helping people, thanks. If you need help and are not the person who started this thread, please use https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/new where volunteers can get more details about your setup.]

This thread is marked as solved by the person who asked the question, and with the last few posts being by other people wanting to complain, I'm locking this thread.

If you need help and are not the person who started this thread, please use https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/new where volunteers can get more details about your setup. Thanks.