https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1123864?page=4#answer-902788

BTW, I have been online and computing and Beta testing since 1986. 1986. Well familiar with silent majorities. And also how to Google to see if others have issues. See above.

Yes I remember computers of the 70s & 80s COBOL input on punch cards & output on a central line printer giving way to monochrome tereminals and golfball printers.

BTW Your google link 

I answered SEVERAL times on what I do to cause the crash. Again, are you reading this? ONLY Facebook open, safe mode, no theme, no plugins.I have said that. Look, I am happy to try and help and test. But long emails like this asking me to repeat myself take time away from work I do not have. Try it yourselves. Open Facebook, news feed, most recent. Page down and watch Task Manager show Firefox eating memory. Go a couple of hundred screens down. Not unusual if you have a lots of friends and been away 24 hours. And using 32 bit Firefox. How much memory do you use? Did you crash? Sorry. Just feels like you are not reading this John. ~Bob

I am sure you would have said if you had seen any behaviour like this yourself with Firefox crashing daily on Facebook. (I do not use Facebook myself)

Talk of going down a couple of hundred screens makes me wonder if your use of Facebook could be rather atypical. I could borrow someones facebook account or sign up for one if it its worth it without friends and possible to reproduce, but you will have to give more detailed instructions, and it would be much simpler for someone else to try this on facebook.

OK, I will try that. But do tell me, will any of my legacy add-ons have issues if I try 48? Would be good to know. This one I can test tonight. Easy to remove without affecting my 32 and 64 bit installs and existing profile John? ~Bob

No idea about your legacy addons. But Firefox sounds near unsusable as it is. There are potential workarounds for instance special unbranded versions of Firefox will allow you to avoid the signing if that is what you were asking about.

You may run as many versions and profiles of Firefox as you wish subject to the computers spec and resources. However there are risks with running legacy Firefox on the internet.

A couple of hundred screens could be 4-6 hours of posts on the news feed. Some people may jump in and out more quickly. Some may view much more thsn I. Problem is Firefox accumulates them all into memory and never releases. Until the tab is closed.

Firefox is PERFECTLY usable (shows me you are not following my thoughts). The only problem is with Facebook. If it acts like that on other sites, I have not found it. It may and may not.

And that was a non answer on add-ons, John. If 48 will disable older add-ions that may not be signed. I will not go there. I don't know how I would determine if they were signed or not. I guess I upgrade, see, and then downgrade. I am not worried on a go-forward, but would not want to lose functionality I have now. Which works outstandingly well except on Facebook where Firefox chokes all memory.

And, if you want to quiblle on searching for issues to the last month where people may have just given up, try this link:

https://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=facebook+memory+leak&spell=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQld2fm6TOAhUCy2MKHf5HBbgQvwUIGygA&biw=1191&bih=988

Limit to the last month and still significant. But we know it has to be something other than Firefox, yes?

~Bob

PS. Sorry. Just seems you refuse to believe there are memory issues in Firefox. 49 will not let me close plugin container at all (that I can find) so the crashes have moved to there from firefox.exe and just freeze rather than crash. Better? Maybe not.

And, btw, maybe its just 100 screens. I never counted. Perhaps I will next time i have something good to test.

A thousand pardons. My search above was for "facebook" memory leaks. My fingers and mind disconnected.

Firefox memory leak still has hits, but not to the same extent.

48 breaks a few things. I can only hope that quick add-on fixes come along.

John, very serious question:

What do you do? Are you responsible for design or features or programming in some way for FF? If so, and maybe I assume too much, but Facebook has to be the most popular single site online, how could you NOT have an account and experience how your product interacts there?

Maybe I am reaching. But perhaps you are not designing for the needs of your users.

~Bob

General Perspective

Thanks for your all your posts and continuing efforts with this problem. The fact that this is on Facebook means you may have discovered an important and possibly so far unreported issue (With respect to Firefox bugs).

I am not trying to quibble about the importance of the crashes. or that they happen due to Memory issues with Firefox on Facebook. However has anyone else trying to help you said thy could reproduce this ? I also note this thread has low viewing rates. And virtually no me too votes.(8 votes, some of those are probably down to a forum bug that apparently implies votes from those posting)

I am looking to you for guidance on how to reproduce this, so either we can suggest a workaround or a solution. Until it can be reliably reproduced no point in filing another Firefox bug..

If the problem is only on Facebook, and only with specific usage patterns then maybe Firefox is doing a pretty good job. If you get Plugin Crashes only on Facebook then at least part of the fault is likely to be with Facebook code and or third party plugin issues. If it were a relatively obscure site I do not think Mozilla developers would be interested, but on facebook that may be a different matter. That may increase the priority of this problem.

Forum Note: Recent Crashes

in4m8n said

Different computer. Tested and crashed at less than 1.5 GB memory used by FF: bp-63761701-ee19-4f98-8a39-5238c2160802 ~Bob Off to try 49

• Firefox 47.0.1 Crash Report [@ OOM | unknown | js::AutoEnterOOMUnsafeRegion::crash | CycleDetector::foundCycle ]
• Related Bugs (My commnet)
  • bug 1271033UNCONFIRMED --- Crash in OOM | unknown | js::AutoEnterOOMUnsafeRegion::crash | CycleDetector::foundCycle
  • bug 1259387NEW --- crash in js::AutoEnterOOMUnsafeRegion::crash | js::GCHashSetOperations<T>::lookupForAdd
  • (NOT safe mode. bug1259387 topcrash Fx45, )

in4m8n said

Alex, Brand new profile. Crashed about 2.5GB use (even a bit lower than usual). One tab open - Facebook of course. bp-0d997f2d-5813-4c6f-8245-84d062160802 ~Bob

• Firefox 47.0.1 Crash Report [@ OOM | unknown | js::AutoEnterOOMUnsafeRegion::crash | js::TenuringTracer::traverse<T> ]
• Bug 1257387
• (topcrash leave open - commented #c22 This crash signature is just a symptom of running out of memory. )

in4m8n said

bp-5e0c3b0c-a688-47f3-9b39-359752160802 bp-29694a5e-c88d-4744-ad36-14acc2160802

• bp- 5e0c3b0c-a688-47f3-9b39-359752160802
  • Firefox 49.0a2 Crash Report [@ IPCError-browser | ShutDownKill ]
  • includes related Bug 1279293 - Crash in IPCError-browser | ShutDownKill
  • (Tens of bugs - Bug 1279293 - Crash in IPCError-browser | ShutDownKill #c6 This is a generic signature, ... . Not safe mode. . )
• bp-29694a5e-c88d-4744-ad36-14acc2160802
  • (Not in safe mode many addons, this is a Flash hang)

Bug Filing

Alex has already filed one bug for you

• Bug 1291294 - Crash in OOM | large | mozalloc_abort | mozalloc_handle_oom | moz_xrealloc | NS_CycleCollectorSuspect3

What would be really useful, either to add (maybe only as a link initially) ) to that bug or to add to a further cross-linked bug would be

• STR - Steps To Reproduce
  Very clear but as concise as possible instructions detailing how someone should reproduce this issue.
  • Can you reproduce on Facebook without logging on to facebook ?
    That enables anyone and everyone to try to reproduce the issue
  • If applicable Something like

    Example
    1.) With a new Firefox profile, in Firefox's Safemode, with all plugins disabled, using Firefox Version## Release|DE
    2.) Open Facebook Newsroom news tab (https://newsroom.fb.com/news/) . No need to log in.
    3.) Right click on the first news item you see, and take the option to open in a newtab.
    Repeat for the next news item down., & continue doing this.. Firefox crashes after about ## repetitions.
    
    I have not tried that specific action but would hope it does not crash Firefox, or at least not until hundreds of tabs are open.
    
    STR involving a single tab and single window are best., but you know what actually causes crashes.

• A Crash ID from Developer Edition in the configuration I mentioned, safemode no plugins enabled
• If you could get a chance to look at about:memory because it may be usefull to see the reports from that and also see how they compare with Task Manger, Is the memory a leak or mainly cache usage for instance.

  (John99 #answer-902785-said} You would need to use about:memory to record the details. That leads to another couple of questions
  # Is about:memory showing similar memory figures to what you are mentioning ?
  # Does the button on about:memory release the memory ?
  I have not really given proper details yet and this post is long enough, however if you have not already seen these could you look at them when you get the spare time please
  * Firefox uses too much memory or CPU resources - How to fix ->
  ** https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Mozilla/Performance/about:memory

in4m8n said

48 breaks a few things. I can only hope that quick add-on fixes come along. John, very serious question: What do you do? Are you responsible for design or features or programming in some way for FF? If so, and maybe I assume too much, but Facebook has to be the most popular single site online, how could you NOT have an account and experience how your product interacts there? Maybe I am reaching. But perhaps you are not designing for the needs of your users. ~Bob

No Bob, just another Firefox user like you. Almost all support on this site is from volunteers. What staff thee are tend to be overworked, and need to concentrate on only the highest priorities.

The majority of Developers are paid staff and again need to prioritise work. Your bug is getting developer attention at the moment so it would be a good time to try to add more relevant information.

"What would be really useful, either to add (maybe only as a link initially) ) to that bug or to add to a further cross-linked bug would be

   STR - Steps To Reproduce
   Very clear but as concise as possible instructions detailing how someone should reproduce this issue.
       Can you reproduce on Facebook without logging on to facebook ?
       That enables anyone and everyone to try to reproduce the issue "

John,

Have done this several times. And if you had a Facebook account, you would know you cannot have a newsfeed unless you login.

Has ANYONE tried this? It really is simple. Open task manager so you can watch Firefox memory, login to Facebook, got to newsfeed (likely already there, and tap page down until Firefox 32 blows up. 64 will not crash - at least until well after using a ridiculous 7 GB of RAM. But that in itself indicates a memory issue.

Not sure how many other words I can find to show this.

And if there are other sites that do this. I do not frequent them. OS I can only say with confidence it is 100% reproducible on Facebook.

==============================================

Asides:

48 only broke one plugin although maybe half are unsigned. Not bad.

With 49 I cannot disable Plugin Container. If I could, I could try more things. But that eats the memory on Facebook page even though Flash is disabled.

AFN

~Bob

Hi Bob, This looks like real progress

The bug 1291294 got a reply from Nicholas Nethercote; the Developer that coded the about:memory tool and has fixed many causes of Memory leaks in Firefox. His reply in full was

(#c5} John: if comment 0 and comment 4 involve the same user, then it's fine to have everything in this bug. If they are different users, then separate bugs is probably a good idea. I see you pointed Bob at the documentation for about:memory, which is great. That's definitely the right starting point for investigating this. No progress will be made without the information from about:memory. {My emphasis ~j99)

Note if you sign up for bugzilla (bugzilla.mozilla.org - requires and makes public your email address) you will be able to follow your bug that Alex posted and you could post directly in the bug if those working on it need more information.

I will post your STR in the bug myself.

Could I ask that you try your method of Crashing Firefox, but this time

• Besides using safemode and all plugins disabled
• Also use the about::memory tool:
  .All you need to do extra basically is to key in to the addressbar about:memory open that as a second tab in addition to your facebook page push buttons and wait a few minutes as it works away.
  In anticipation of you generating a crash within about 20 minutes may I suggest you to run about:memory and generate a report after you initially click on your first faceboook screen, five minutes later then say every 10 minutes.

CAUTION PRIVACY Note I am not absolutely sure even with the anonymised option whether about:memory is going to collect sensitive|confidential information from facebook. I do not think it should, but do not have a facebook acount to try it on.

So do not post the reports publicly until and unless you have studied its contents carefully. Note I and presumably all Developers have signed a legally binding None Disclosure Agreement if we see any of your private data in confidence in the course of Mozzilla work we will not disclose it to others. So IF they decide it is important information maybe you would consider posting it privately to a Developers mozilla address with your agreement to it being shared with those working on the bug.

Bugzilla where the bug is filed is public it is indexed by search engines and accessible to anyone. Normally if applicable the about memory reports would be added to the bug as an attachments. There is a possibility we may need to avoid doing that.

Hi John,

JUST getting to your reply. Yesterday was Windows 10 Anniversary updates and fixes and "real" work :)

Good news!

Now, what do you folks want from about:memory??? Does it give you anything after I crash and restart? Should I use it in 64bit where it will not crash but bloats almost endlessly. Tell me what works and then I assume you want me to attch it here?

Just saw what you are asking for....

Hard to tell now when it will crash. Has nothing to do with time, John. Has to do with both how many scrolled screens and the content on those screens.

Will try this perhaps tonight. If not on Sunday for sure.

May even try in 64 bit as it is similar in "leaking" but not crashing.

More as I know it.

Thanks.

~Bob

OK.....

Just did 64bit FF. Ran two reports from about:memory. One early on and one when RAM hit a little over 5GB.

There IS information in here I would not like to share. How can I get these two to you? Not huge. Maybe half a meg for both.

Once you can tell me they have value, I will do it in 32bit, but that will be trickier as I want to capture just before it crashes.

Let me know please.

~Bob

Thanks for doing that Bob. There is no doubt the reports will help explain what is happening.

Did you use the anonomyse option ? When you did the report there is an additional tickbox|checkbox for that.

Please keep that now you have it but the 32bit about:memory reports are more relevant to your bug report and should be in Firefox's safe mode with all plugins disabled, as stressed earlier in this thread. Please provide the crash ID for the 32 bit Firefox crash that relates to your about:memory reports when you run them.

I do not fully unsderstand the about:memory reports and their data, but Nicholas Nethercote actually coded the about:memory reporter for Firefox and is one of those looking at and commenting in your bug The latest comment by the way is

#c8Honestly, if they are OOMing just on Facebook, odds are they have some addon that is leaking, or they have some graphics driver issue. Lots of people leave Facebook open all the time without problems, so the question is what is unique for this user. about:memory should tell us whether it is addons or graphics drivers.

Have you registered with bugzilla so that you may post there yourself ? If not I will happily pass on the about:memory reports for you.& will send only to named persons not the public bug report itself, if they contain sensitive information.

It is not possible to attach text files or gzipped files in this forum and anyway it is public. The files can be attached in bugzilla, but we will avoid doing that if it contains any confidential information because again the site is public.

When you run the 32bit about:memory report with the anonymise option does it still contain sensitive information ? or would it be ok to post that version publicly ?

Hi John,

Running out for the day, but the issue is the content of the file shows everything I was seeing including friend and contacts on Facebook. SO do not want to make that public. I would think the anonymize is for me, not content.

I will do 32 bit tomorrow.

Have not registered bugzilla. Prefer not to, but then how would I get all these files to you?

Will do more tomorrow. Thanks.

~Bob

I will send you one of my email addressses by Private Message from this forum (it will show up on the top edge of the forum page or link )

Please do not use my email address as shown on bugzilla, and if you do send anything please let me know either by private message or by a comment in this thread.

When you try the anonymised report will you please let me know if that is suitable for public viewing or not.

32 bit files now sent as well. I hope these help! Please let me know what is found. And thanks again.

~Bob

I do not think the about:memory report is typical of a memory leak. Do you have the Crash ID that is associated with the Firefox 32bit about:memory report ?

Lets hope one of the experts in the bug report may be able to help with this.

I did not let it crash, John. Otherwise I could not have run the report. As close as I could get without a crash.

Unless you know a way to crash and then run the report, I think this is the best that can be done.

~Bob

Lets see what comes back from the bug report. Generating about:memory reports and continuing until it crashes means that we get two sets of data, the about:memory one detailing the memory status, and then the Crash Report providing additional information from the crash. It also confirms you are in safemode and with plugins disabled.

The memory shown in about:memory does not look like a problem. Did you try the RamBack addon mentioned in tha article I linked to erlier ?

• Firefox uses too much memory or CPU resources - How to fix
  • -> addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/ramback/

Does that reduce the memory usage reported by Task Manger ?

Hi John,

Did files get to the developer? Any reply? I have been away for a day.

I did not notice the link on Ramback. I shall look. I will tell you that I tried Firemin and it keeps the memory used as shown in Task Manager VERY low, but does not prevent 32 bit Firefox from crashing. I'll guess this will do the same, but happy to try. Will look a little later.

~Bob

Ramback has no options NOR documentation. It does nothing in 64 BIt FF. Will try 32 bit....