Closed Bug 1672933 Opened 5 years ago Closed 5 years ago

Large memory consumption

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, enhancement)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
Untriaged
Type:
enhancement

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED INVALID

People

(Reporter: nji9, Unassigned)

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/78.0

Steps to reproduce:

I just changed to TB from a MS Live mail.
It used about 40 MB.

Actual results:

TB uses 140 MB at its start, and then about 300 MB later on.

Expected results:

TB should not need as much mem, especially on HW with not so much mem.
Maybe it should be possible to deactivate/ remove the lightning components (as I don't need them at all)?

It's exactly the same with you.

And the problem is, when I'm going to send a lot of messages, at least, more than 150-200 messages, but short, by using Disqus.com, to send lots of "Like", to that, consumes me in total, after a good time of having sent those 150-200 messages, a cool amount of 2.7 GBytes of RAM.

But, it's cumbersome, when you have to send lots of messages, one by one, of course, it consumes me so much RAM.

Didn't they say it shouldn't be beyond 2 GBytes of RAM?

Compared to thunderbird 68., which doesn't consume as much, 78. consumes more than barbarity.

At 68.*, it did not consume beyond the amount of 1 GBytes.

I don't understand how Mozilla does such a thing with a good mail client that, then many don't realize consumes more than 75% of the actual consumption of 68.*.

Really. I don't understand how you can consume enough RAM when sending, or receive things that, in a few minutes, you get more percentage of memory consumption than the previous version. I don't get it.

When you open Firefox, it stays, at the very least, in a margin of 231 MBytes (all depending on what and how many messages you receive or save). Which isn't exactly that amount of RAM that consumes me, whether it's opening and watching messages for a while.

But what I find abusive is that it consumes a lot of RAM, even when it reaches more than 2.7 GBytes after all.

In Firefox, when I visit a fairly large page, it lets me navigate to that page. But when I see RAM consumption it actually goes beyond 4 GBytes (or even more, at most, 8 GBytes). But soon, when you close the tab, the memory looks good afterwards. That's right, under control.

What I don't understand is how the Thunderbird doesn't have that position, because it's abusive.

Cheers.

Windows 10 Pro 20H2 64-Bit
Thunderbird 78.4.0 64 Bit
Multiple Add-ons
32 GB RAM

105 MB at the start (main password input filed)
310-315 MB when the 3-pane-window is shown with 7 imap/pop accounts and multiple feed and news accounts

When sending multiple times a simple message the RAM consumption increases up to 345 MB and decreases down to 325 MB after some time.

The reporter should test in safe mode and should report, which addons are installed / used. Maybe the addons are the reason for 2-3 GB of RAM consumption.

(In reply to Santiago José López Borrazás from comment #1)

Didn't they say it shouldn't be beyond 2 GBytes of RAM?

What do you mean by this? We need more information about your system. OS, OS version, 32/64 Bit? Thunderbird version and 32/64 Bit? Which Addons are installed? How much RAM is installed in your system?

you get more percentage of memory consumption than the previous version. I don't get it.

There could be multiple reasons. Maybe in the prior version the calendar addon was deactivated, maybe the new version has addons, which use other techniques to continue to work, which could be due to the transition to WebExtensions. But this is only an idea - I'm not sure about this.

(In reply to Alex Ihrig [:Thunderbird_Mail_DE] from comment #3)

(In reply to Santiago José López Borrazás from comment #1)

Didn't they say it shouldn't be beyond 2 GBytes of RAM?

What do you mean by this? We need more information about your system. OS, OS version, 32/64 Bit? Thunderbird version and 32/64 Bit? Which Addons are installed? How much RAM is installed in your system?

64 bits. Linux and Windows. Version 78.4.0. I have 16 GBytes of RAM. I don't have any extension installed.

you get more percentage of memory consumption than the previous version. I don't get it.

There could be multiple reasons. Maybe in the prior version the calendar addon was deactivated, maybe the new version has addons, which use other techniques to continue to work, which could be due to the transition to WebExtensions. But this is only an idea - I'm not sure about this.

I don't use the calendar it brings at all. I don't know the procedure for disabling it, but it's there.

Aps, I also use GnuPG signatures, which I have saved, but not yet used in this version of thunderbird. It's all imported from the GnuPG keys to this one.

So, I've got hair like that.

I don't use cache (disabled by about:config), nor do I cache any caches.

(In reply to Santiago José López Borrazás from comment #4)

I don't use the calendar it brings at all. I don't know the procedure for disabling it, but it's there.

From up 78.* the calendar is fully integrated and can't be completely deactivated. It consumes more or less RAM, but this shouldn't be the reason for your 2-3 GByte consumption. Only for reference: Thunderbird 78 integrates several techniques to support old and new addon APIs until we have a future version, which only will support the new API techniques. This could be one of the reasons to consume more resources.

What happens if you check the 2-3 GByte again after 10-20 minutes? Was the consumption then reduced again by the RAM management.

(...)

What happens if you check the 2-3 GByte again after 10-20 minutes? Was the consumption then reduced again by the RAM management.

No.

15 or 20 minutes reduces memory? I've been like this, for two or three hours, and it doesn't come down, not even kidding.

I'm going to do a test, see what happens, you have to keep in mind, that it shouldn't even exceed beyond 10% continuous RAM. If you follow this like this, it's because there's something the Thunderbird isn't getting off to a good start. Well, it consumes horribly memory. It shouldn't even be beyond 2.0 or 2.3 gigas. But that's all.

I know you want it that way, for performance reasons, but it leaves a lot to be desired with other customers in improvement and capacity for memory usage and stability.

Mozilla for more than 17 years. The best I had was the old versions, which didn't consume that much.

I understand that in the 32 bits, they should not exceed 2 GBytes of memory, but the reason in which it is supposedly done in a 64-bit, should not exceed 10% of the total system memory.

Thanks.

I share your wish for reduced memory consumption. But Thunderbird is in good company with all other software that takes up more space with each version.

30 years ago my first DTP program fit on a floppy disk: Calamus for the Atari ST.

Chrome with 3 open tabs is twice as big as Thunderbird.

What I was to point out is that I don't have the impression
that the devs take care on the mem consumption at all.
Seems no criterion for them.

And second point (although I'm no insider) I don't think
it is necessary to consume so much mem for TB's tasks.
(As stated MS live mail takes just 40 MB).

As far as I remember a few years ago there have been strains
on that for firefox, and by that reduced mem consumption a lot.

Startet Firefox 81.0.2: RAM consumption on my startpage (www.zdf.de) is 380 MByte. I suspect Firefox and Thunderbird will have nearly the same RAM consumption because of their common code base.

(In reply to Santiago José López Borrazás from comment #6)

(...)

What happens if you check the 2-3 GByte again after 10-20 minutes? Was the consumption then reduced again by the RAM management.

No.

15 or 20 minutes reduces memory? I've been like this, for two or three hours, and it doesn't come down, not even kidding.

I'm going to do a test, see what happens, you have to keep in mind, that it shouldn't even exceed beyond 10% continuous RAM. If you follow this like this, it's because there's something the Thunderbird isn't getting off to a good start. Well, it consumes horribly memory. It shouldn't even be beyond 2.0 or 2.3 gigas. But that's all.

I know you want it that way, for performance reasons, but it leaves a lot to be desired with other customers in improvement and capacity for memory usage and stability.

Mozilla for more than 17 years. The best I had was the old versions, which didn't consume that much.

I understand that in the 32 bits, they should not exceed 2 GBytes of memory, but the reason in which it is supposedly done in a 64-bit, should not exceed 10% of the total system memory.

Thanks.

Regarding the consumption of RAM memory, even if a few minutes or hours pass, the RAM memory consumed by the Thunderbird does not decrease.

Sorry, but I think the thing to lower the RAM is completely out of date.

IS that, it is a pity that it increases enough RAM without controlling anything, because, in fact, when you send a lot of emails, that's where the issue begins: increase uncontrolled memory.

It is not a file failure, nor a folder failure, not even a configuration failure, because I have totally tamed the client.

As I have already discussed, it should not increase beyond 10% of system RAM usage.

TB uses 140 MB at its start, and then about 300 MB later on.
As I have already discussed, it should not increase beyond 10% of system RAM usage.

A few observations:

  • 10% is arbitrary (I don't mean that in an offensive way, but I don't have a better word)
  • so far the numbers provided do not indicate RAM is increasing in an uncontrolled way, to an uncontrolled amount
  • it's not terribly useful to compare the memory usage to some other mail application that doesn't have similar capabilities, and certainly comparisons to Firefox are not useful (BTW, Mozilla does not develop Thunderbird)
  • modern applications tend to start with as small a footprint as possible, and increase memory usage over time as more functions are used - such applications will never return to anything close to it's starting memory usageit is not a realistic expectation

In summary, this particular description is not actionable

Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 5 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID
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