265528 - Password Manager Consumes Excessive Memory

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(SeaMonkey :: Passwords & Permissions, defect)

Description

[David E. Ross]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910

My hardware configuration includes 800MHz Pentium III and 128MB memory.  When I
start Mozilla, I still have some 50MB of physical memory unused; the displayed
home page is my bookmarks file.  I have my Mozilla.org Bugzilla user ID and
passworded saved by Password Manager.  

If I have not yet logged-in with my master password, selecting the link to login
at Bugzilla causes my PC to freeze.  Even the throbber stops, and the Stop
button on the browser is ineffective.  My unused memory drops to less than 10KB
(not MB), and my hard drive becomes very busy.  The popup dialog for the master
password very slowly appears.  When I eventually supply my master password and
my PC resumes operation, unused memory stays below 40KB.  Once I am past the
login page, unused memory gradually increases to more reasonable level (e.g.,
greater than 1MB).  

This problem is not peculiar to the Bugzilla login or even to secure sites.  It
happens when I view replies to an article at Mozillazine (for which I also have
a stored ID and password).  It happens any time a login requires a user ID and
password AND I have to supply my master password.  If I previously logged-in to
a site and entered my master password, the problem does NOT happen when an ID
and password are automatically entered to login at another site.  

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Clear cache and log out of Password Manager (if logged-in).  
2.  Launch System Monitor, setup to display unused physical memory and display
"Always On Top".  
3.  Select link to logon to Mozilla.org Bugzilla.  

Actual Results:  
Unused memory goes to zero bytes, recovering to about 40KB after master password
is entered.  PC freezes.  

Expected Results:  
While unused memory should be expected to be consumed, the amount should not be
sufficient to stop the PC.  

If I start an unrelated task while waiting for the logon page to load, my PC
locks to the extent that I cannot reach the popup dialogue to enter my master
password.

Comment 1

[David E. Ross]

Problem was caused by Mozilla becoming corrupted.  An electrical storm caused
several momentary power outages while I was Web surfing.  Contrary to the BIOS
settings I made, my PC rebooted after each "flicker", twice rebooting while in
the middle of rebooting from a previous "flicker".    

After reinstalling Mozilla, the problem seems resolved.  

NOTE WELL:  Mozilla does indeed consume much physical memory while handing a
request for my master password.  However, I am closing this bug report because
my PC no longer freezes.