328062 - Memory leak is still really bad!

Status: VERIFIED INVALID

(Firefox :: Shell Integration, defect)

Description

[Matthew Smith]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060111 Firefox/1.5.0.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060111 Firefox/1.5.0.1

I'm getting REALLY sick of Firefox crashing MULTIPLE times a day!!!  I'm in it most of the day and end up losing A LOT of information that is sometimes difficult to return to.

The reason for the crashes - Firefox (curr. ver - 1.5.0.1) is not releasing memory and will even continue to eat memory when I'm not doing anything.  Even using a memory manager doesn't help.  

Last night, I closed all but one tab (which had very little on it) and it still said that Firefox was using almost 200MB of memory!!!  When it crashed the last time, it was taking up over 300MB of memory!!!  

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Open Firefox, browse somewhere
2. Open a couple of tabs with links
(check memory in Task Manager)
3. Open a few of the links from those pages (so that some pages stay static while others continue to load)
(check memory in Task Manager)
4. Repeat a couple of times, opening and closing tabs
(check memory in Task Manager)
5. Repeat steps 3-5 for about 3-5 HOURS
(check memory in Task Manager)
6. Close all but one tab
(check memory in Task Manager)

Actual Results:  
Current memory in use by Firefox, with 4 tabs open - 206,516K (fluctuating between 201,180 - 206,800)
---------------------------------------------------------------
Tabs open:
http://jobsearch.monster.com/getjob.asp?JobID=39934793&WT.mc_n=MKT000125
http://www.fastmail.fm/mail/
http://mail.google.com/mail/
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi

Expected Results:  
Making a list/log of the various memory checks, you should find that the memory will sometimes drop, but not significantly.

With only a single tab open, Firefox should eat up very little memory (10MB-50MB), but instead it fails to release the memory.

Comment 1

[Matthew Smith]

Bug will NOT be deemed resolved until I can see that:
* memory does not increase after tabs have been closed
* memory does not remain static (within 5MB) after tabs have been closed
* memory drastically decreases when tabs are closed

I am willing to work with developers via phone, if necessary.

Comment 2

[Ryan Flint [:rflint] (ping via IRC for reviews)]

High memory usage does not necessarily indicate a leak. There are far too many factors involved for the steps you've listed here to be useful in tracking down and fixing leaks. Knowing which actions specifically leak, rather than general usage overtime is far more helpful than repeating steps 3-5 "for about 3-5 HOURS".

Please see the following information on filing memory leak bugs and file a new one if you're able to find a leak using the tools described:
http://dbaron.org/log/2006-01#d20060110
http://www.squarefree.com/2006/01/13/memory-leak-detection-tool/

Comment 3

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

V. INVALID

Comment 4

[Nitin Bodke]

1. Problem is memory leak, and this behaviour exists with all tabbed browser i.e. Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox. My operating system is Windows 2000.
2. When you open multiple tabs in the browser window, browser acquires memory resources from the system.
3. But when you close the tab, memory for that tab is not released back to the operating system.
4. In turn, Netscape unnecessary retains memory, and other applications starve for it. 
5. No need to tell, this is degrading performance.