Firefox eating memory

Ian · External Since: Jun 03, 2007 Posts: 10

Folks,

My laptop started running rather slowly today. A quick shufty
indicated that firefox-bin was using 380MB (out of 512MB) of physical
memory and a further 175MB of virtual. That was for one window with
two tabs. Closing firefox did nothing, mainly because firefox-bin was
stil running and had to be killed manually.

Is this normal behaviour? Ubuntu 6.06, Firefox 1.5.0.12

Ian

Ian · External Since: Jun 03, 2007 Posts: 10

On 27 Jun, 13:22, Alex Monro <nospamdeleteabusen... RemoveThis @argaty.org.uk>
wrote:
> Ian wrote:
>
> > My laptop started running rather slowly today. A quick shufty
> > indicated that firefox-bin was using 380MB (out of 512MB) of physical
> > memory and a further 175MB of virtual. That was for one window with
> > two tabs. Closing firefox did nothing, mainly because firefox-bin was
> > stil running and had to be killed manually.
>
> > Is this normal behaviour? Ubuntu 6.06, Firefox 1.5.0.12
>
> I've noticed with every version of Firefox I've used, going back to the
> original betas, that it seems to have an appetite for memory. I dunno
> if it's a leak as such, or wether it's continually caching stuff.

I don't think its a leak (in the sense of memory just disappearing
from availability) because killing the process seemed to get it all
back.

> Incidentally, my pet hate in the latest FF - 2.0.0.4 - the individual
> close tab buttons on each tab. Far to easy to click by accident.

They annoy me too. Actually, what's really annoying is that they are
different on 1.5.0.12 (which I have on my laptop, because I haven't
got Ubuntu 7.04 working on it yet) and 2.0.0.4 (which I have on my
desktop). On the whole, I prefer the earlier ones - if I wanted
controls to move around relative to the window they affect I'd be
using a <spit> Mac.

Ian

Nick Craig-Wood · External Since: Nov 24, 2004 Posts: 16

Ian <ian.groups.RemoveThis@btinternet.com> wrote:
> My laptop started running rather slowly today. A quick shufty
> indicated that firefox-bin was using 380MB (out of 512MB) of physical
> memory and a further 175MB of virtual. That was for one window with
> two tabs. Closing firefox did nothing, mainly because firefox-bin was
> stil running and had to be killed manually.
>
> Is this normal behaviour? Ubuntu 6.06, Firefox 1.5.0.12

Firefox does seem to have gone a bit rubbish lately...

If you put this into ~/.mozilla/firefox/rc and make it executable

------------------------------------------------------------
#!/bin/sh
# This is sourced in the startup

# set the memory limit to something sensible
ulimit -v $((512*1024))
------------------------------------------------------------

Then you can set the max amount of memory firefox can use. I have it
set to 512MB. If it gets to 512MB then it dies rather than drag your
machine into swap. You might want to set it lower.

--
Nick Craig-Wood <nick.RemoveThis@craig-wood.com> -- http://www.craig-wood.com/nick

Paul Black · External Since: Aug 01, 2005 Posts: 75

Alex Monro wrote:
> Incidentally, my pet hate in the latest FF - 2.0.0.4 - the individual
> close tab buttons on each tab. Far to easy to click by accident.

This can be changed by setting browser.tabs.closeButtons:
0 - active tab
1 - all tabs
2 - none (used middle mouse click)
3 - a single common one (previous behaviour)

--
Paul

Lone Gaffe · External Since: May 14, 2007 Posts: 3

Alex Monro <nospamdeleteabusenews.RemoveThis@argaty.org.uk> wrote:
> I've noticed with every version of Firefox I've used, going back to the
> original betas, that it seems to have an appetite for memory. I dunno
> if it's a leak as such, or wether it's continually caching stuff.

I wish they would leave in memory data caching to the OS as it has a much
better idea of what is actually being accessed.

> Incidentally, my pet hate in the latest FF - 2.0.0.4 - the individual
> close tab buttons on each tab. Far to easy to click by accident.

Yep, a remarkably accident prone idea.

--
Geoff Lane, Airstrip One

Disc space
-- the final frontier!

Andy Burns · External Since: Nov 19, 2006 Posts: 60

On 27/06/2007 12:22, Ian wrote:

> My laptop started running rather slowly today. A quick shufty
> indicated that firefox-bin was using 380MB (out of 512MB) of physical
> memory and a further 175MB of virtual.

Unfortunately it does that, multiple tabs (however useful) don't help
the situation, and the "quick back/forward" page caching that came along
in v1.5(?) didn't help either. On my laptop FF often gets to 1.8GB and
TB about 300MB

Alex Monro · External Since: Jun 28, 2007 Posts: 1

Paul Black wrote:

> Alex Monro wrote:
>> Incidentally, my pet hate in the latest FF - 2.0.0.4 - the individual
>> close tab buttons on each tab. Far to easy to click by accident.
>
> This can be changed by setting browser.tabs.closeButtons:
> 0 - active tab
> 1 - all tabs
> 2 - none (used middle mouse click)
> 3 - a single common one (previous behaviour)
>
Great! Sorted. Thanks, Paul. I thought it probably was configurable
somewhere, but a quick skim had failed to find where.

Nix · External Since: Jul 29, 2004 Posts: 680

On 27 Jun 2007, Ian outgrape:

> On 27 Jun, 13:22, Alex Monro <nospamdeleteabusen... RemoveThis @argaty.org.uk>
> wrote:
>> I've noticed with every version of Firefox I've used, going back to the
>> original betas, that it seems to have an appetite for memory. I dunno
>> if it's a leak as such, or wether it's continually caching stuff.
>
> I don't think its a leak (in the sense of memory just disappearing
> from availability) because killing the process seemed to get it all
> back.

That's exactly how an in-process leak would behave. Kernelspace leaks
wouldn't result in the process's RSS or VSZ going up, just more and more
swapping and memory pressure and stuff in slabtop over time.

--
`... in the sense that dragons logically follow evolution so they would
be able to wield metal.' --- Kenneth Eng's colourless green ideas sleep
furiously

Dick Georgeson · External Since: Aug 09, 2004 Posts: 27

We have evidence that on Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:50:10 +0100, Paul Black
wrote:

> Alex Monro wrote:
>> Incidentally, my pet hate in the latest FF - 2.0.0.4 - the individual
>> close tab buttons on each tab. Far to easy to click by accident.
>
> This can be changed by setting browser.tabs.closeButtons: 0 - active tab
> 1 - all tabs
> 2 - none (used middle mouse click)
> 3 - a single common one (previous behaviour)
>

Where does this go please? /etc/iceweasel/iceweasel.rc doesn't seem to be
it
..

--
Dick Georgeson
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time
to reform. -- Mark Twain

Andrzej Adam Filip · External Since: Sep 01, 2006 Posts: 19

Ian <ian.groups RemoveThis @btinternet.com> writes:
> My laptop started running rather slowly today. A quick shufty
> indicated that firefox-bin was using 380MB (out of 512MB) of physical
> memory and a further 175MB of virtual. That was for one window with
> two tabs. Closing firefox did nothing, mainly because firefox-bin was
> stil running and had to be killed manually.
>
> Is this normal behaviour? Ubuntu 6.06, Firefox 1.5.0.12

Consider installing FasterFox extension and setting limit on "memory cache".
[ e.g. to 16MB]

--
[pl>en: Andrew] Andrzej Adam Filip : anfi RemoveThis @priv.onet.pl : anfi RemoveThis @xl.wp.pl
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible
with raisins in it.
-- Dorothy Parker