1847832 - after update 4 days ago firefox thread uses over 4GB vastly slowing computer: only 2 tabs open, yahoo.com/finance and jabberwocking.com - deleting thread removed bottleneck

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Core :: Audio/Video: Playback, defect)

Description

[hfalk87]

Attachment: taskmgr.jpg

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/115.0

Steps to reproduce:

4 days ago allowed firefox to be updated
used firefox for about 1 hours

Actual results:

Computer became very slow
Eventually could open Task Manager and saw 1 firefox thread had over 4 GB
Finally rebooted computer and continued with another browser (Tor)
Next day same thing happened after some time with 1 of 14 threads (!!) consuming 3.870,55..K bytes.
Killed the roque thread and was able to continue
It happened again this morning with over 3GB used by 1 thread. Killed the thread but this time firefox died.

Expected results:

That firefox would perform as a normal browser.
Why some many threads, particularly when it is in background mode.

Comment 1

[hfalk87]

Too hard to find bug report mechanism!

Comment 2

[hfalk87]

The image is from the 2nd day's problem when I killed the thread and firefox remained stable - none of the tabs I had open were affected.
All tabs open when this problem occurred are news related websites which I have visited for years.
I hate automatic updates and I hate being daily hounded to make an update. Because of that last point I had automatic updates activated for a couple of months. I reverted to the hassle mode.

Comment 3

[Ina Popescu, Desktop QA]

Could you please check if your issue persists in the latest Firefox 116.0.3 version?
If the issue persists, please capture a profile with http://profiler.firefox.com/, upload it and share the link here.

Comment 4

[hfalk87]

I neglected to inform you that my Firefox version is 115.1.oesr (64 bit) running on WIn 7.
The bug is definitely related to yahoo.com/finance. I have in parallel used Internet Explorer (Ugh) albeit 32 bit on the same web site and no memory accretion occurred for at least 1 hour.
Any time this web site is loaded, independent of how many tabs are open the thread associated with yaho.com/finance continually grows its memory allocation. I believe the problem is associated with the automatic video that runs on this page, though the memory increase still grows if the video is paused.
While I used to keep this tab open all day, I now close it as soon as I determine it surpasses 2 GB, which is essentially all the time (once the video didn't load (wait rotating circle) and the memory did not accumulate).

Comment 5

[Ina Popescu, Desktop QA]

I didn't experience any particular slowness when accessing https://finance.yahoo.com/ in Firefox 115.1.oesr on Windows 7.
Setting the component and waiting for the developer's opinion about it.
If this is not the correct component, please feel free to change it to a more appropriate one.

Comment 6

[hfalk87]

After receiving your email yesterday I went to do a Firefox profile but then noticed no Firefox thread was increasing in memory allocation even though one tab was opened to yahoo.com/finance and so did not do a profile. Today however, one thread took off so I started the profiler and and finally killed the thread as it approached 4 GB in memory. I tried stopping the profiler but couldn't until the memory was freed. I then uploaded the profile obtained.

Another point that I didn't think about before is that my page at yahoo/finance has a market profile running which is watching stocks that I am interested in. It could also be running in background mode whereas I wouldn't expect videos to do so. I should add that I have been using this page on Firefox including market watch for more than 5 years but it never caused problems before.

Comment 7

[hfalk87]

After killing a run-away thread this morning, doing a profile during that ran-away, killing the thread and then uploading the profile I have re-opened a tab at yahoo/finance and for the last hour it has been behaving properly, consuming about 300K of memory. I can't install Firefox 116 because it is not offered as an update.
It seems this 'bug' appears immediately at thread start or it does not develop.

Comment 8

[hfalk87]

I just looked at the profile #jhfpyt but it seems empty so I'll have repeat it when this problem re-occurs (probably tomorrow) !

Comment 9

[hfalk87]

I did a refresh of the above mentioned well-behaving thread and the 'bug' was awakened so I launched the profiler and uploaded the more than 8 min recording (the thread had grown to over 1500K). Killing the thread closed Firefox which I didn't expect since the profile was open in another tab. The link to the profile is
https://share.firefox.dev/47JKorz

Comment 10

[hfalk87]

More information concerning this memory problem.
I am confident now that the source of the problem is the live ticker feature of the 'My profile' box on the yahoo/finance page. I follow about 250 stocks which are occasionally updated when the site is connected. This problem ceases if the internet connection is severed and then a while later re-connected: only after a 'refresh' does the ticker restart. On the week-end or after the stock market is closed the problem also disappears. This all points to the stock ticker as being the problem source. By the way, a firefox update has been made to 115.2.0esr without a difference to this problem.
I'm guessing the each updated line in the ticker box (the list of stocks; 1 per line) is allocating new memory without releasing the old for that entry and so the memory requirements grow. While each lines might have a different length the updated line is never going to change by more than a few characters and so could easily be overwritten if the original allocation allowed for it.
This stock list is also supposed to show on my yahoo homepage but since it often doesn't connect and display: even after multiple refreshes I am forced to use the 'finance' page. However, when it does appear on the home page it does not run the ticker but simply provides a snapshot at the time of the refresh. I have never used the ticker feature (i.e. I do not stop and watch the changes, hence why I used to leave it in a background tab). I always refresh before examining the list. Unfortunately, I cannot turn off the animation.

Comment 11

[hfalk87]

The day after my last comment (Sept 5) the problem vanished so I presumed Yahoo/finance had made a script change since no new Firefox version had been downloaded. However, after almost 2 days of monitoring the web page the problem reappeared; on Thursday Sept 7 the memory did not grow until late afternoon.

Comment 12

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:jimm, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 13

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

When you see this again, could you open up about:memory, click 'measure', and then see if you can identify where the memory is being held? You can also download all that data and post it here for us to look at if you prefer.

Comment 14

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

Please set an needinfo to me when you have more information. Thanks.

Comment 15

[hfalk87]

On Friday, Sept. 22 I received a request to measure memory when this problem occurs. 'Unfortunately' (from a debugging point of view) this event has not repeated itself for the 4th day in a row. I have taken measure on these good days so that a comparison can be made when the problem is again detected. I have held off installing a new update until I could do such a comparison but I shall now allow the update to happen.

Comment 19

[hfalk87]

The problem appears to have solved since I have never experienced it since my last comment; either Yahoo or Mozilla solved it. Therefore, I request/suggest the file be closed.