208537 - Mozilla will not start, uses up all available memory

Status: VERIFIED WORKSFORME

(MailNews Core :: Backend, defect)

Description

[Daniel Nilsson]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; SunOS sun4u; en-US; rv:1.3) Gecko/20030317
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; SunOS sun4u; en-US; rv:1.3) Gecko/20030317

This is a problem that has appeared after using mozilla for several month. After
having mozilla run for a few weeks, the memory usage all of a sudden start going
up from normally about 100MB to several hundred MB (> 600MB). If I exit mozilla
and try to restart, it will not come up again but end up in a loop using more
and more memory. Finally after allocating over 1GB of memory the system runs out
of swap and kills the mozilla process. Mozilla is configured to start Mail and
News on startup and the mail session consists of one IMAP account and Local Folders.

The first time this happened, we were able to solve the problem by deleting the
ImapMail folder to have mozilla recreate the content. That solution worked for a
few months. This time we tried both deleting ImapMail and renaming Local
Folders, but mozilla would still be stuck in a loop allocating memory on startup.

This problem was seen with the 1.3 release of mozilla running under Solaris 8
/SPARC. Mozilla was built with gcc 2.95.3. I also tried the startup mozilla 1.4
RC 1 on the same profile, this version was built with the SUN Forte 6u2
compilers. It is worth noticing that mozilla is running in a network environment
where multiple users are sharing the same installation. This problem has so far
only happened to one out of five users.

Deleting the whole profile and creating a new profile solved the problem for
now, but the user was not very happy... While mozilla was trying to startup and
it was stuck in the loop allocating memory (nothing has appered on the screen at
this point) I attached gdb to this process and got this backtrace so see what it
was doing:

(gdb) bt
#0  0xfc4d0ac0 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#1  0xfc4d0a84 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#2  0xfc4d0cb0 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#3  0xfc4d0e54 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#4  0xfc4b927c in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#5  0xfc4b9304 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#6  0xfc4ba0f8 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#7  0xfc4a9820 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#8  0xfc4a9890 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#9  0xfc4b6eac in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#10 0xfc4b8878 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#11 0xfc4b814c in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#12 0xfc4b826c in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#13 0xfc4b895c in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#14 0xfc4b8b6c in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#15 0xfc4b8c5c in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#16 0xfc4c8ff8 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#17 0xfc4c8e68 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#18 0xfc4c8698 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmork.so
#19 0xfc7d464c in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmailnews.so
#20 0xfc7d4894 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmailnews.so
#21 0xfc7af36c in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmailnews.so
#22 0xfc931958 in
__1cNnsMsgDBFolderbEGetFolderCacheElemFromFileSpec6MpnLnsIFileSpec_ppnYnsIMsgFolderCacheElement__I_
()
   from /local/mozilla/libmsgbaseutil.so
#23 0xfc5b8a1c in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmsgimap.so
#24 0xfc5b9074 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmsgimap.so
#25 0xfc7c0358 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmailnews.so
#26 0xfc7be750 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmailnews.so
#27 0xfc7bc144 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmailnews.so
#28 0xfc7cd458 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmailnews.so
#29 0xfc7c3104 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmailnews.so
#30 0xfc7bc894 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libmailnews.so
#31 0xfd976f54 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libgklayout.so
#32 0xfd976864 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libgklayout.so
#33 0xfd97657c in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libgklayout.so
#34 0xfd975db8 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libgklayout.so
#35 0xfd982544 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libgklayout.so
#36 0xfd982800 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libgklayout.so
#37 0xfd8f3980 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libgklayout.so
#38 0xfd94b84c in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libgklayout.so
#39 0xfd947eb8 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libgklayout.so
#40 0xfe15d198 in XPTC_InvokeByIndex () from /local/mozilla/libxpcom.so
#41 0xfdf4e194 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libxpconnect.so
#42 0xfdf56220 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libxpconnect.so
#43 0xfe2be724 in js_Invoke () from /local/mozilla/libmozjs.so
#44 0xfe2c6e64 in js_Interpret () from /local/mozilla/libmozjs.so
#45 0xfe2be780 in js_Invoke () from /local/mozilla/libmozjs.so
---Type <return> to continue, or q <return> to quit---
#46 0xfe2be9a0 in js_InternalInvoke () from /local/mozilla/libmozjs.so
#47 0xfe297368 in JS_CallFunctionValue () from /local/mozilla/libmozjs.so
#48 0xfcd9cf18 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libjsdom.so
#49 0xfcde1f54 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libjsdom.so
#50 0xfd7241c8 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libgklayout.so
#51 0xfd7263e4 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libgklayout.so
#52 0xfcda4864 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libjsdom.so
#53 0xfd6990f8 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libgklayout.so
#54 0xfcf1c1b4 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libdocshell.so
#55 0xfcf2c27c in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libdocshell.so
#56 0xfcf1beb0 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libdocshell.so
#57 0xfcf3be84 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libdocshell.so
#58 0xfcf3b35c in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libdocshell.so
#59 0xfcf3b228 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libdocshell.so
#60 0xfcf3b09c in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libdocshell.so
#61 0xfddb5468 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libnecko.so
#62 0xfdc1fcac in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libimglib2.so
#63 0xfdc1e958 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libimglib2.so
#64 0xfde5eb04 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libnecko.so
#65 0xfddae990 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libnecko.so
#66 0xfddae590 in NSGetModule () from /local/mozilla/components/libnecko.so
#67 0xfe11d950 in
__1cMNS_AsyncCopy6FpnTnsIAsyncInputStream_pnUnsIAsyncOutputStream_iiIIpnJnsIMemory__I_
()
   from /local/mozilla/libxpcom.so
#68 0xfe13a3e8 in PL_HandleEvent () from /local/mozilla/libxpcom.so
#69 0xfe13a8d0 in PL_ProcessEventsBeforeID () from /local/mozilla/libxpcom.so
#70 0xfd301b18 in _end () from /local/mozilla/components/libwidget_gtk.so
#71 0xfe1002e0 in __1cLnsVoidArrayREnumerateForwards6MpFpv1_i1_i_ () from
/local/mozilla/libxpcom.so
#72 0xfd30bf88 in _end () from /local/mozilla/components/libwidget_gtk.so
#73 0xfe23d428 in gdk_event_dispatch () from /local/gtk/lib/libgdk-1.2.so.0
#74 0xfe6c720c in g_main_dispatch () from /local/gtk/lib/libglib-1.2.so.0
#75 0xfe6c7954 in g_main_iterate () from /local/gtk/lib/libglib-1.2.so.0
#76 0xfe6c7b34 in g_main_run () from /local/gtk/lib/libglib-1.2.so.0
#77 0xfe563010 in gtk_main () from /local/gtk/lib/libgtk-1.2.so.0
#78 0xfd301830 in _end () from /local/mozilla/components/libwidget_gtk.so
#79 0x22114 in __1cKgetCountry6FrknJnsAString_r0_I_ ()
#80 0x22aa8 in main ()
(gdb) 
(gdb) 


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start mozilla

Actual Results:  
mozilla stuck allocating memory

Expected Results:  
started as expected

Comment 1

[Kim Scarborough]

Maybe dumb question, but... did you try deleting his XUL.mfl?

Comment 2

[Daniel Nilsson]

No, I didn't try to delete that file. I did notice though that the XUL.mfasl
file (I assume that is the one you are referring to) was around 4MB when I first
started looking at this problem. But this file did shrink in size when trying to
start mozilla so I assume it was dynamically recreated.

Comment 3

[R.K.Aa.]

Daniel: Is this still an issue with recent builds?

Comment 4

[Daniel Nilsson]

This is not an issue on recent builds, closing