170762 - Memory not reclaimed when browsers shut down

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 130157

(SeaMonkey :: General, defect)

Description

[Rob Hughes]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020826
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020826

I frequently open about 5-7 Mozilla windows and view 3-4 tabs worth of Web pages
in each. As well, I leave my PC on 24-7. I frequently run into this sloppy scenario:

Mozilla uses 130 MB + of memory. (at the moment it's up to 134,168K in Windows
Task Manager). I have 256MB of memory on my system and Mozilla eats up all the
usable memory. Closing browser windows does almost nothing. That 134,168K stays
the same. To make any dent in it, I have to close ALL of the browser windows,
and Mail. I just closed mail separately and it got me back 1MB. Closing a second
Mozilla window netted about 600K. yay.

Right now I have 1 browser window open. So, for some reason, this one Mozilla
browser window needs 133MB of memory to stay open. The memory is not being
reclaimed as I shut down single Mozilla Windows.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Open about 15-20 web pages using tabs and about 5-7 mozilla windows
2.Leave system on for a few days utilizing the browser windows
3.Shut down all but 1 browser window and tab



Actual Results:  
You are left with Mozilla thinking it needs over 100MB of memory when it surely
doesn't to leave 1 window open.

Expected Results:  
As you close browser tabs / windows, mozilla intelligently gives up all that
memory it is eating on your system. Leaving a single browser instance with a
single tab should leave 20-30MB of process on your PC - enough for some
breathing room, I suppose.

Not everyone is like me. I believe in having 20 windows open at once, use the
Web feverishly for development and business, and don't shut my computer down
every night. I've moved over to Mozilla entirely and this is one of the biggest
problems I'm facing with it. That's just too much memory. Paying for 512MB of
memory would probably help my situation, but that won't fix Mozilla.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Probably bug 130157 (a bug in the C library -- mozilla releases the memory, but
the allocator can't).

Comment 2

[Rob Hughes]

Sometimes, just minimizing the windows seems to make a huge change in the memory
used. Here's an excerpt from someone that commented on my mention of the Mozilla
memory strangeness:

"I'm using Mozilla 1.1 in Windows 2000/SP3, and the memory usage varies a lot,
but seems okay.

  I had the e-mail window, and the browser window open with 4 tabs, and the
memory usage was 66.Meg, then I minimized the browser and the mail windows, and
the memory usage dropped to 1.6 Meg, then I re-expanded both windows, and now
the memory usage is at 33.Meg. "


In my own testing right now, Mozilla mail + 1 browser window takes up 36MB. When
I minimize both, things shrink down to 1.6MB of memory used, and then maximizing
the browser window ups it to 14MB. Maximizing the e-mail grabs memory slowly
until you get back to 19MB. 

Previously, I had left all my windows maximized. Now I know I can minimize them
to cut down on the memory used.

Comment 3

[Frankie]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 130157 ***