1641724 - Since updating Firefox Nightly after the Memorial Day weekend, browser is unstable and locks up

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: Performance: Responsiveness, defect)

Description

[Patricia Lawless]

Basic information

from @t on Slack:
Very bad system instability and eventual lockup since updating Firefox Nightly sometime this past (Memorial Day) weekend. 78.0a1 / MacOS 10.13.16. Running only with Tab Counter and Privacy Badger add-ons after restoring 2071 tabs across 72 windows it would lock up the entire Mac in ~15 minutes just sitting there (menubar clock stopped, window contents in other apps turned black).
By activating NOSCRIPT add-on (which I'd already setup to block A TON of trackers/analytics etc.), I get about an hour of use of FF78 before it starts locking up other apps, then about 30 more min use before FF itself stopped responding.
~60-70GB of free disk space, Activity Monitor would show only ~6.5GB memory used of / 8GB physical memory.
Only other apps running: BBEdit 9.5 plain text editor, Notes app, Activity Monitor, Finder. I'm trying to narrow it down (and close tabs & windows as I can in case it's a recently opened tab), but otherwise something has gone seriously wrong with Nightly sometime in the past week.

Steps to Reproduce:
Update Firefox Nightly (to 78.0a1) on MacOS
Run with many tabs/windows open

Expected Results:
No computer lock up.

Actual Results:
Entire Mac locks up in about 15min.

More information

Screenshot: (if relevant, please attach a screenshot or screencast to this bug report)

Profile URL: (follow the instructions at https://profiler.firefox.com/)

Basic systems configuration:

OS version: MacOS 10.13.16

GPU model:

Number of cores:

Amount of memory (RAM):

Thanks so much for your help.

Comment 1

[Marc Leclair [:mleclair]]

So I too am getting some kind of weird performance since updating Nightly. My system randomly locks up on certain apps ( Mostly the one with media in the page such as reddit, or any news website. However it did happen with stackoverflow yesterday for what it's worth). I was able to capture two profiles:

1. https://share.firefox.dev/3cgTeiD and 2) https://share.firefox.dev/2ZLZxbj not sure if those profiles will give much info but that's what it spit out while I was trying to switch tab and Nightly just hanged

OS version: MacOS 10.15.3

GPU model: Radeon pro 560x 4gb

Number of cores: 8 core i9

Amount of memory (RAM): 32gb

Comment 2

[Markus Stange [:mstange]]

These profiles show time spent in cycle collection, freeing up almost 1GB. Can you attach an about:memory report?

So this issue is definitely different from bug 1638356. It might also be different from the issue Tantek is seeing.

Comment 3

[Marc Leclair [:mleclair]]

Attachment: memory-report.json.gz

This is the about:memory useage I got when my Nightly started being unresponive / janky

Comment 4

[Markus Stange [:mstange]]

Tantek, do you still see these bad problems?

Comment 5

[Randell Jesup [:jesup] (needinfo me)]

At this point, perhaps we should close this

Comment 6

[Markus Stange [:mstange]]

Yeah let's close it.