321899 - [MLK] Too much memory used... because JPG files !

Status: VERIFIED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[-jo- (geckozone)]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr-FR; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050919 Firefox/1.0.7
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr-FR; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050919 Firefox/1.0.7

After a lot of tests (as you can see here : http://www.geckozone.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32084) on FF 1.0.7 and 1.5, with or without extensions, With old or new profil, with some others tests as stop use of history and memory cache in "about:config", and a lot of others... We find that, in all cases, FF consumes TOO MUCH memory and NEVER unloads it
We known that a particularity of FF is to be able to manage the memory, and it's a good thing on less powerful PC, but with more powerful PC it's the chaos !! More of 500mb used in my case, and lot of people in the same case of me... When we have 512mb or 1gb of memory, and little of programs running, FF takes all that it can ! But the biggest problem is that from 200mb, FF lags a lot... with your system that is to force FF to unload memory only when Windows or a program need it, so our windows or programs never force FF to unload itself because there is a lot of free memory... We can only see that when FF is more than 200mb used and if we load a big game (that need a lot of ressources) FF unloads itself... but only in this case, and it's not very practical to load a game to have a FF that doesn't lag any more... To close and to re-open it is faster...

After a lot or research we have find a key in "about:config" : config.trim_on_minimize that force FF to unload itself at every minimize... it's already a good thing but if we don't think to minimize it, the used-memory always grown up, grown up, grown up.... and, morevover, FF grows up very very quicklier after a minimize and maximize ( 2 pages visited and FF can already return to 100mb whereas at this first start we need more of 20 pages to arrive at 100mb) so this key isn't so effective....

So we think it's very interesting to add a Key the "about:config" to force FF to unload its non-used memory that it keeps, every 5, 10 minutes (programable in the about:config) or when FF exceeds 60, 80mb of used-memory (for example)... this key should make the same thing that config.trim_on_minimize but automaticaly, at the good time... and not when it's too late!

But we have been surprised to see that FF consumed so memory, and we think finding an other problem : in the "about:cache", after a lot of hours of internet, we all see that the "Storage in use" is higher than the "Maximum storage size" ( I see it three times higher) and even if it isn't activate (that is totally illogical) so we think that this "bug" is one of the principal reason to this memory-consumed....
After a test, we see that when we block JPG (*.jpg in adblock+) the storage in use is never higher the max... so there is also a problem with the JPG .... moreover, the memory-used of FF is much less significant when JPG are blocked... and my "record" (570mb!! ) was doing when I research wallpapers (so a lot of tabs open/close/open with bigs jpg...) 

Sorry to talk about 2 bugs in the same time, but both are lied and make consumed too memory to FF...
We need that you corrige the problem with the JPG but, even if it will be corrected, we need a way to stop FF to keep non-used memory so that FF won't be able to lag....

Thank you to listen us and sorry for the errors (I'm not very good in english) 
I don't find the report of this bug in your database, it appears that you don't consider it as a bug but as a fonctionality.... it's maybe right but in  a lot of case this "fonctionnality" is very bad and we need to stop it... without forget this bug on the jpg...

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.to go on internet a long time
2.to go on another web sites (another web sites have jpg files)
3.FF start to lag...
4.I look at the task manager and FF uses more than 200mb of memory... 570mb for my worse case

and it appears with all more powerfuls PC , with a lot of free memory...

Comment 1

[Jo Hermans]

(In reply to comment #0)
> After a lot of tests (as you can see here :
> http://www.geckozone.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32084) on FF 1.0.7 and 1.5, with
> or without extensions, With old or new profil, with some others tests as stop
> use of history and memory cache in "about:config", and a lot of others... We
> find that, in all cases, FF consumes TOO MUCH memory and NEVER unloads it
> We known that a particularity of FF is to be able to manage the memory, and
> it's a good thing on less powerful PC, but with more powerful PC it's the chaos
> !! More of 500mb used in my case, and lot of people in the same case of me...
> When we have 512mb or 1gb of memory, and little of programs running, FF takes
> all that it can ! But the biggest problem is that from 200mb, FF lags a lot...
> with your system that is to force FF to unload memory only when Windows or a
> program need it, so our windows or programs never force FF to unload itself
> because there is a lot of free memory... We can only see that when FF is more
> than 200mb used and if we load a big game (that need a lot of ressources) FF
> unloads itself... but only in this case, and it's not very practical to load a
> game to have a FF that doesn't lag any more... To close and to re-open it is
> faster...

see bug 296538

> 
> After a lot or research we have find a key in "about:config" :
> config.trim_on_minimize that force FF to unload itself at every minimize...
> it's already a good thing but if we don't think to minimize it, the used-memory
> always grown up, grown up, grown up.... and, morevover, FF grows up very very
> quicklier after a minimize and maximize ( 2 pages visited and FF can already
> return to 100mb whereas at this first start we need more of 20 pages to arrive
> at 100mb) so this key isn't so effective....
> 
> So we think it's very interesting to add a Key the "about:config" to force FF
> to unload its non-used memory that it keeps, every 5, 10 minutes (programable
> in the about:config) or when FF exceeds 60, 80mb of used-memory (for
> example)... this key should make the same thing that config.trim_on_minimize
> but automaticaly, at the good time... and not when it's too late!
> 

Actually, no. This is a hint to the OS that we're prepared to be swapped out when we're minimized. That's a rather dirty trick from Microsoft, but one which is mostly correct (you're interacting with a minimized app, so it's at least a good candidate to swap out). But we had to change the default since it was sometimes very slow to swap back in. This means that the OS will be less likly to swap out Firefox (but still possible) when it's minimized. But it is of no use when the app is in normal or maximized state.

Note that this only *seems* to shrink the memory in Task Manager, but that's not really true. If you want to see how memory your app is using, you should be looking at the "VM Size" column, not the memory usage. And that will not shrink.

> But we have been surprised to see that FF consumed so memory, and we think
> finding an other problem : in the "about:cache", after a lot of hours of
> internet, we all see that the "Storage in use" is higher than the "Maximum
> storage size" ( I see it three times higher) and even if it isn't activate
> (that is totally illogical) so we think that this "bug" is one of the principal
> reason to this memory-consumed....

From my experience, this is often caused by exentions like Adblock. If you're running Adblock, try removing it (not disabling, that doesn't help).

It's also possible that the "Storage in Use" is temporarily higher than the actual memory cache, when a page has a lot of images visible (they can't be removed, since they're already displayed).

Comment 2

[-jo- (geckozone)]

(In reply to comment #1)
> > After a lot or research we have find a key in "about:config" :
> > config.trim_on_minimize that force FF to unload itself at every minimize...
> > it's already a good thing but if we don't think to minimize it, the used-memory
> > always grown up, grown up, grown up.... and, morevover, FF grows up very very
> > quicklier after a minimize and maximize ( 2 pages visited and FF can already
> > return to 100mb whereas at this first start we need more of 20 pages to arrive
> > at 100mb) so this key isn't so effective....
> > 
> > So we think it's very interesting to add a Key the "about:config" to force FF
> > to unload its non-used memory that it keeps, every 5, 10 minutes (programable
> > in the about:config) or when FF exceeds 60, 80mb of used-memory (for
> > example)... this key should make the same thing that config.trim_on_minimize
> > but automaticaly, at the good time... and not when it's too late!
> > 
> 
> Actually, no. This is a hint to the OS that we're prepared to be swapped out
> when we're minimized. That's a rather dirty trick from Microsoft, but one which
> is mostly correct (you're interacting with a minimized app, so it's at least a
> good candidate to swap out). But we had to change the default since it was
> sometimes very slow to swap back in. This means that the OS will be less likly
> to swap out Firefox (but still possible) when it's minimized. But it is of no
> use when the app is in normal or maximized state.
> 
> Note that this only *seems* to shrink the memory in Task Manager, but that's
> not really true. If you want to see how memory your app is using, you should be
> looking at the "VM Size" column, not the memory usage. And that will not
> shrink.
> 

It's right, it's only a bandage, waiting for something of better... the key config.trim_on_minimize only moves used-memory to virtual memory...


> > But we have been surprised to see that FF consumed so memory, and we think
> > finding an other problem : in the "about:cache", after a lot of hours of
> > internet, we all see that the "Storage in use" is higher than the "Maximum
> > storage size" ( I see it three times higher) and even if it isn't activate
> > (that is totally illogical) so we think that this "bug" is one of the principal
> > reason to this memory-consumed....
> 
> From my experience, this is often caused by exentions like Adblock. If you're
> running Adblock, try removing it (not disabling, that doesn't help).
> 
> It's also possible that the "Storage in Use" is temporarily higher than the
> actual memory cache, when a page has a lot of images visible (they can't be
> removed, since they're already displayed).
> 

It's right too, after a test without extensions i never see the "storage in use" higher than the max... BUT even if there is only 30mb of cache used, FF can take  more of 100mb ... so 70mb to decode HTML files ? it's not too much ? I can't understand why THIS nigavator needs so much memory whereas any others uses less than 50mb ? WHY so many people have got this problem whereas others haven't it?
Why FF uses so much memory if it's not the fault of cache memory or JPG files?
We search since a long time and we don't understand....


> > After a lot of tests (as you can see here :
> > http://www.geckozone.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32084) on FF 1.0.7 and 1.5, with
> > or without extensions, With old or new profil, with some others tests as stop
> > use of history and memory cache in "about:config", and a lot of others... We
> > find that, in all cases, FF consumes TOO MUCH memory and NEVER unloads it
> > We known that a particularity of FF is to be able to manage the memory, and
> > it's a good thing on less powerful PC, but with more powerful PC it's the chaos
> > !! More of 500mb used in my case, and lot of people in the same case of me...
> > When we have 512mb or 1gb of memory, and little of programs running, FF takes
> > all that it can ! But the biggest problem is that from 200mb, FF lags a lot...
> > with your system that is to force FF to unload memory only when Windows or a
> > program need it, so our windows or programs never force FF to unload itself
> > because there is a lot of free memory... We can only see that when FF is more
> > than 200mb used and if we load a big game (that need a lot of ressources) FF
> > unloads itself... but only in this case, and it's not very practical to load a
> > game to have a FF that doesn't lag any more... To close and to re-open it is
> > faster...
> 
> see bug 296538


Any changes... I test to put to 4mb on cache memory (instead of 32mb put automaticaly by FF) or disable it but it seems that the "too much used-memory" haven't bond with the cache... as I can see, here, in this moment , 120mb of memory used for 30mb of cache used... It's anormal! and it's not the fault of any extensions or others things, this bug could arrived with a new profil, and a FF well installed
So why?

Comment 3

[-jo- (geckozone)]

More than one week without answers.... :(
I test since yesterday the 1.5.0.1 (20060109)... 
Yesterday, with new profil, after one hour of internet "normal", 150mb... so no corrections for the moment I think...
Since this morning, I put my profil in this FF and I make the filter *.jpg in adblock.... result? 40mb !!!! Yes, ff never growns up

So i persit to say that FF MANAGES JPG VERY BADLY !

Comment 4

[-jo- (geckozone)]

Why does nobody answer?  Would I be right too?

Comment 5

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Please read thru Bug 320915, and see dependency tree of it.
Can you find similar to(or same as) bug of your problem?

By the way, bugzilla.mozilla.org is not customer support forum, not customer support center, not user's forum.
If memory leak is suspectable, see Bug 320915 Comment #28 and check whether large leak of objects exists or not, using "leak-gauge", first. 

Comment 6

[J.Wilkes]

While I understand the links that have been given in reply to the bug report, I can confirm the description of the phenomenon. Especially the "Storage in use" being much higher than "Maximum Storage", going up to almost 600 MB on my machine (1 GB overall RAM).
I cannot relate the problem to JPEG pictures though; but then, I haven't tried that.

Since I cannot confirm the summary of the bug, I'll not change the status.

Comment 7

[Cees T.]

Sounds like a duplicate of bug 213391 - Necko/Gecko needs to enforce a maximum for total size of image/memory cache.

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #6)
> While I understand the links that have been given in reply to the bug report, I
> can confirm the description of the phenomenon. Especially the "Storage in use"
> being much higher than "Maximum Storage", going up to almost 600 MB on my
> machine (1 GB overall RAM).

Isn't that a bug that already exists?

No response to comment 5, so closing 
=> incomplete