FireFox 44 and major memory usage issues
Since the update to Firefox 44, I notice that even not that far into a session, Firefox is using major memory when I check into my task manager. I don't even believe I'm doing anything even particularly heavy that would explain this. Usually, I'm reading my favorite papers online when this happens. I do have multiple tabs open, but it's not as if I'm running feature length movies in each tab. I do notice that papers tend to have quite a few more dynamic ads, now, and that's certainly part of it, but I don't think it should be doing this just because of ads.
I've done the whole expirementation with hardware acceleration (I currently have it checked off). I've done the updating of drivers for my graphic card. I'm also not sure its any add-ons of extensions. The only plugins ever constantly in use are Adobe Acrobat, which I rarely end up using particularly early in a session. I run three extensions: Classic Theme Restorer, QuickJava and Status-4-Evar.
Is there any explanation for this outside of those? Are any of those extensions particularly glitchy/memory-hungry? Again, this didn't happen until the automatic upgrade to Version 44 and its additional patches. I've provided my Troubleshooting Information below.
I'm bringing this up because what ultimately happens is that the browser freezes/hangs for minutes at a time, then for a few seconds seems to wake back up before hanging again. Obviously, this makes the browser completely unusuable and I have to close out of Firefox in a way I don't want to losing all of my logins for that session, and such.
All Replies (9)
Totally forgot to mention: Firefox sometimes uses over 1,000 MB when I just have maybe four or fire different newspaper articles opened to give you some kind of idea of the memory usage.
100-200MB for one browser window is not all that unusual at all these days. Browsers have lots of features and security updates these days (sandboxing, etc) Chrome uses even more. I'm running Firefox ESR 38.6.1.
Aside from whether it's a lot or not, it's way more than it's been using on my computer prior to the update to 44. I would not be posting this where this something I'd been dealing with on all versions of Firefox.
Just had three pages open and maybe 990 MB usage, and it was STILL hanging. Maybe it's not a memory issue then? What I really want to know is if maybe it's any of the three extensions. I can't imagine I'm the only one who uses them.
Modified by FireFoxFan1
Stephen Fox said
Find Out Which Extension is Eating Up Your Memory in Firefox
I followed the steps in there including copying the ID for each extension, and it didn't find either of the extensions.
You can try to disable hardware acceleration in Firefox.
- Tools > Options > Advanced > General > Browsing: "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.
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.
- Tools > Options > Advanced > General > Browsing: "Use hardware acceleration when available"
Thanks, but as I said in the opening post:
I've done the whole expirementation with hardware acceleration (I currently have it checked off). I've done the updating of drivers for my graphic card.
Create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problem.
See "Creating a profile":
- https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles
- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Firefox#Profile_issues
If the new profile works then you can transfer files from a previously used profile to the new profile, but be cautious not to copy corrupted files to avoid carrying over problems.
Boot the computer in Windows Safe Mode with network support (press F8 on the boot screen) to see if that has effect.
Note yet another question opened this time about Firefox 45
- Firefox 45 hangs at browser start-up /questions/1113712