Massive Memory Leak in Firefox 2.0.0.3

Alistair · Mar 23, 2007, 08:57 PM

Has anyone else been forced into downgrading back to 2.0.0.2 as a result of a massive memory leak in the latest "bug fix"? At least myself (on two separate computers) and one friend have had Firefox take a HUGE amount of memory in a short period of time (600+MB, with MASSIVE swapping going on). It seemed to happen when browsing with multiple tabs and some flash in them. Its obviously a 2.0.0.3 issue as this does NOT happen in 2.0.0.2 for me. Just curious is anyone else has seen this or has more information on it.

Erroneus · Mar 23, 2007, 09:45 PM

No problem here, using 2.0.0.3 on two machines. Sounds like a plugin or an extension going crazy.

Using latest flash and java 6.0 on both machines, plus a ton of extensions.

>GSXR<mrbusa · Mar 23, 2007, 09:51 PM

Me to.
Two machines and countless extensions and themes and no issues. It is using less than 50mb with four tabs open and flash enabled.

**Mousey** · Mar 23, 2007, 11:15 PM

i dunno i never checked, looks like you've given me something to look into.
i run FF 2.0.0.3 with no themes and only DownThemAll! (DL Accelerator)

MGaz · Mar 24, 2007, 12:40 PM

well ATM fire fox is eating up 120 MB's of system memory. that's nothing compared to how it was one day.. i'll see if i can find the screen shot i took.

My PC crawled to an almost halt.

in fact i think it slowed down so much it actually started going backwards! lol

MGaz · Mar 24, 2007, 01:01 PM

well ok, dummy me didn't take a pic of the memory usage, like i thought, but i can tell you it was a lot of my 1 gig.

What i did take a pic of was the cpu usage, my PC was crawling along

.

FF 92% cpu usage! somethings wrong there? surely? I never had that kind of problem with IE, all IE ever use to do was crash and chuck up errors and illegal operations all the time. Silly MS garbage.

Anyway, heres the pic:

Alistair · Mar 24, 2007, 04:14 PM

MGaz, thats exactly what it did to a friend and I once it started using the hard drive for swapping.

aNy_oNE · Mar 25, 2007, 08:51 AM

MGaz, firefox goes to about 99% cpu usage for me if im loading 3-4+ tabs at once, not uncommon. (although my CPU is crap, even compared to yours xD)

PangingJr · Mar 25, 2007, 10:16 PM

have you tried creating a new Firefox profile, or clean out the existing profile (only leave what you need, likes cookies, bookmarks files) ?

cozumel · Mar 25, 2007, 11:20 PM

I don't have any problems here with FF 2.0.0.3. Working perfectly.

H3X4D3C1M4L · Mar 26, 2007, 06:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MGaz

well ATM fire fox is eating up 120 MB's of system memory. that's nothing compared to how it was one day.. i'll see if i can find the screen shot i took.

My PC crawled to an almost halt.

in fact i think it slowed down so much it actually started going backwards! lol

Time for an upgrade

...upgrade of browser that is. FF does this with alot of tabs open, if I have like 30 tabs open my PC grinds to absolute 0 power.

Never had this problem with Opera, never dared try with IE

GutterPunk · Mar 29, 2007, 02:01 PM

I had 53 tabs open in IE w/o a problem.

FF yes the same problem and opera is ok

PangingJr · Mar 29, 2007, 05:03 PM

i use this below Firefox build in Vista right now...
Tete's Firefox 2.0.0.3 [2007032116 en-US win32 tete009 sse pgo]
Visual C++ 2005 SP1 (PGO) build, and CPU Instruction Set SSE3 Beta DLL (December 8, 2006) - http://www1.plala.or.jp/tete009/en-U...html#FFRELEASE

when tested with no Add-ons, no Flash (Proxomitron), and with 50 tabs opened, i can hardly see any system performance drop off/down.

GutterPunk · Mar 29, 2007, 06:01 PM

I wonder, I tested mine on XP

Im going to go home and test it on my Vista

Alistair · Apr 12, 2007, 05:30 PM

I have managed to come up with a way to trigger this memory leak on a consistent basis.

Step 1: Open Task Manager and sort by memory usage. (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC)
Step 2: Open Firefox
Step 3: Browse to a website
Step 4: Open new browser tab (CTRL+T)
Step 5: Navigate to chrome://browser/content/browser.xul
Step 6: Right-Click View Source
Step 7: Close View Source Window
Step 8: Close Tab opened above.
Step 9: Sit back and watch your memory usage climb.

PangingJr · Apr 13, 2007, 09:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alistair

I have managed to come up with a way to trigger this memory leak on a consistent basis.

Step 1: Open Task Manager and sort by memory usage. (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC)
Step 2: Open Firefox
Step 3: Browse to a website
Step 4: Open new browser tab (CTRL+T)
Step 5: Navigate to chrome://browser/content/browser.xul
Step 6: Right-Click View Source
Step 7: Close View Source Window
Step 8: Close Tab opened above.
Step 9: Sit back and watch your memory usage climb.

followed every steps there, and then left it for 10 mins, the system memory usage was about the same, there was not much going on here at all.

unless I missed something?

Alistair · Apr 14, 2007, 01:33 AM

Bon Echo? wasn't that a development build? This was the production 2.0.0.3 release I encounter this on. It is happening on 5 different machines for me all using these steps. There is no common extension shared on all systems either. The only similarity on them is that they are all on a 64-bit builds of Windows (XP and Vista).

aNy_oNE · Apr 14, 2007, 02:07 AM

I have ordinary 32bit WinXP Pro, and I did those things, memory usage stayed exactly the same. Firefox is normal 2.0.0.3 from the automatic update thing.

PangingJr · Apr 14, 2007, 02:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alistair

The only similarity on them is that they are all on a 64-bit builds of Windows (XP and Vista).

since you have problem with the specific build version, and so, of course, it won't be able to serve you well under your systems, i suppose i can only tell you that if i were you i could always try and use different builds of the Firefox, there are so many Firefox builds out there either milestone, branch, trunk, or nightly builds.
an alternate way would be to change back to the older build version if i found there was no problem with it.
one thing different between IE and Firefox is: there are new builds of Firefox comes out at almost every day, and a clean uninstalled and reinstalled of a Firefox can be done easily and very fast if desired.

Alistair · Apr 14, 2007, 05:19 PM

I have reverted most to the official release of 2.0.0.2 as that seems to lack this memory leak on them. I try to avoid the nightly builds, but experiment a bit with the latest development builds of the next generation from time to time.

Mar 23, 2007, 08:57 PM	#1
Alistair Spoos Join Date: May 2002 Location: State College, PA, USA Posts: 435 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Massive Memory Leak in Firefox 2.0.0.3 Has anyone else been forced into downgrading back to 2.0.0.2 as a result of a massive memory leak in the latest "bug fix"? At least myself (on two separate computers) and one friend have had Firefox take a HUGE amount of memory in a short period of time (600+MB, with MASSIVE swapping going on). It seemed to happen when browsing with multiple tabs and some flash in them. Its obviously a 2.0.0.3 issue as this does NOT happen in 2.0.0.2 for me. Just curious is anyone else has seen this or has more information on it. __________________ - Alistair

Mar 23, 2007, 09:45 PM	#2
Erroneus Get off my lawn! Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Denmark Posts: 13,415 Rep Power: 119 System Specs	No problem here, using 2.0.0.3 on two machines. Sounds like a plugin or an extension going crazy. Using latest flash and java 6.0 on both machines, plus a ton of extensions. __________________

Mar 23, 2007, 11:15 PM	#4
Mousey Synth's Long Lost Bro Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Web Design Hell Posts: 7,185 Rep Power: 245 System Specs	i dunno i never checked, looks like you've given me something to look into. i run FF 2.0.0.3 with no themes and only DownThemAll! (DL Accelerator) __________________

Mar 24, 2007, 12:40 PM	#5
MGaz All wheel driver! Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: five Cylinder Heaven, wales GB Posts: 204 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	well ATM fire fox is eating up 120 MB's of system memory. that's nothing compared to how it was one day.. i'll see if i can find the screen shot i took. My PC crawled to an almost halt. in fact i think it slowed down so much it actually started going backwards! lol __________________ Processor: 7.5 Memory: 7.7 Graphics: 7.2 Gaming Graphics: 7.2 Primary Hard Disk: 5.9 [3DMARK Vantage: 9229] [3DMARK 06: 18365] [3DMARK 03: 46941] [3DMARK 2001 SE: 36059] [3DMARK 2000: 29438]

Mar 24, 2007, 01:01 PM	#6
MGaz All wheel driver! Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: five Cylinder Heaven, wales GB Posts: 204 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	well ok, dummy me didn't take a pic of the memory usage, like i thought, but i can tell you it was a lot of my 1 gig. What i did take a pic of was the cpu usage, my PC was crawling along . FF 92% cpu usage! somethings wrong there? surely? I never had that kind of problem with IE, all IE ever use to do was crash and chuck up errors and illegal operations all the time. Silly MS garbage. Anyway, heres the pic: __________________ Processor: 7.5 Memory: 7.7 Graphics: 7.2 Gaming Graphics: 7.2 Primary Hard Disk: 5.9 [3DMARK Vantage: 9229] [3DMARK 06: 18365] [3DMARK 03: 46941] [3DMARK 2001 SE: 36059] [3DMARK 2000: 29438]

Mar 23, 2007, 09:51 PM	#3
>GSXR<mrbusa im a FREAK Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 2,107 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Me to. Two machines and countless extensions and themes and no issues. It is using less than 50mb with four tabs open and flash enabled.

Mar 24, 2007, 04:14 PM	Thread Starter #7
Alistair Spoos Join Date: May 2002 Location: State College, PA, USA Posts: 435 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	MGaz, thats exactly what it did to a friend and I once it started using the hard drive for swapping. __________________ - Alistair

Mar 25, 2007, 08:51 AM	#8
aNy_oNE DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 162 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	MGaz, firefox goes to about 99% cpu usage for me if im loading 3-4+ tabs at once, not uncommon. (although my CPU is crap, even compared to yours xD)

Mar 25, 2007, 10:16 PM	#9
PangingJr Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 5,989 Rep Power: 70	have you tried creating a new Firefox profile, or clean out the existing profile (only leave what you need, likes cookies, bookmarks files) ? Last edited by PangingJr; Mar 25, 2007 at 10:38 PM.

Mar 25, 2007, 11:20 PM	#10
cozumel I'm dangerous but cute... Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Under the waves... Posts: 3,577 Rep Power: 60 System Specs	I don't have any problems here with FF 2.0.0.3. Working perfectly. __________________ Don't worry about money - Be a beach bum! Scuba Rocks

Mar 29, 2007, 02:01 PM	#12
GutterPunk I = Greatest Dood Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Nebraska Posts: 5,949 Rep Power: 71	I had 53 tabs open in IE w/o a problem. FF yes the same problem and opera is ok __________________ Rock On \m/ Thank you Mousey for the Sig! --------------- Intel Core2Duo E6660 (3.4GHZ) ~ Tuniq Tower 120 ~ Enermax Galaxy 1000W ~ Corsair Dominator @ 1090MHZ 5-5-5-15 (OCZ XTC Modded Cooler)~ EVGA 8800GTX W/ HR-03 Plus 120MM ~ Asus DVD-RW LiteScribe ~ LG DVD-RW ~ Corsair Voyager 2GB ReadyBoost Drive ~ Vantec Nexus Fan Controller ~ ThermalTake Armor 25CM fan ~ Personal Finance Blog: Dent Your Debt

Mar 29, 2007, 05:03 PM	#13
PangingJr Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 5,989 Rep Power: 70	i use this below Firefox build in Vista right now... Tete's Firefox 2.0.0.3 [2007032116 en-US win32 tete009 sse pgo] Visual C++ 2005 SP1 (PGO) build, and CPU Instruction Set SSE3 Beta DLL (December 8, 2006) - http://www1.plala.or.jp/tete009/en-U...html#FFRELEASE when tested with no Add-ons, no Flash (Proxomitron), and with 50 tabs opened, i can hardly see any system performance drop off/down.

Mar 29, 2007, 06:01 PM	#14
GutterPunk I = Greatest Dood Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Nebraska Posts: 5,949 Rep Power: 71	I wonder, I tested mine on XP Im going to go home and test it on my Vista __________________ Rock On \m/ Thank you Mousey for the Sig! --------------- Intel Core2Duo E6660 (3.4GHZ) ~ Tuniq Tower 120 ~ Enermax Galaxy 1000W ~ Corsair Dominator @ 1090MHZ 5-5-5-15 (OCZ XTC Modded Cooler)~ EVGA 8800GTX W/ HR-03 Plus 120MM ~ Asus DVD-RW LiteScribe ~ LG DVD-RW ~ Corsair Voyager 2GB ReadyBoost Drive ~ Vantec Nexus Fan Controller ~ ThermalTake Armor 25CM fan ~ Personal Finance Blog: Dent Your Debt

Apr 12, 2007, 05:30 PM	Thread Starter #15
Alistair Spoos Join Date: May 2002 Location: State College, PA, USA Posts: 435 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	I have managed to come up with a way to trigger this memory leak on a consistent basis. Step 1: Open Task Manager and sort by memory usage. (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC) Step 2: Open Firefox Step 3: Browse to a website Step 4: Open new browser tab (CTRL+T) Step 5: Navigate to chrome://browser/content/browser.xul Step 6: Right-Click View Source Step 7: Close View Source Window Step 8: Close Tab opened above. Step 9: Sit back and watch your memory usage climb. __________________ - Alistair

Apr 14, 2007, 01:33 AM	Thread Starter #17
Alistair Spoos Join Date: May 2002 Location: State College, PA, USA Posts: 435 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Bon Echo? wasn't that a development build? This was the production 2.0.0.3 release I encounter this on. It is happening on 5 different machines for me all using these steps. There is no common extension shared on all systems either. The only similarity on them is that they are all on a 64-bit builds of Windows (XP and Vista). __________________ - Alistair

Apr 14, 2007, 02:07 AM	#18
aNy_oNE DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 162 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	I have ordinary 32bit WinXP Pro, and I did those things, memory usage stayed exactly the same. Firefox is normal 2.0.0.3 from the automatic update thing.

Apr 14, 2007, 05:19 PM	Thread Starter #20
Alistair Spoos Join Date: May 2002 Location: State College, PA, USA Posts: 435 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	I have reverted most to the official release of 2.0.0.2 as that seems to lack this memory leak on them. I try to avoid the nightly builds, but experiment a bit with the latest development builds of the next generation from time to time. __________________ - Alistair