457234 - leaking dom windows

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core :: DOM: Core & HTML, defect, P5)

Description

[jeffrey.johnson]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.2) Gecko/2008091620 Firefox/3.0.2
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.2) Gecko/2008091620 Firefox/3.0.2

I came in to work this morning and FireFox was using 2GB of memory.  It had
crashed and was displaying a "Firefox has encountered an error and needs
to close" dialog.  It was working fine when I left work last night.
I had about 30 tabs open probably (which is about 10 more than normal -- see
the actual list below).

I'm appending some data I collected last week.
...............


I have Firefox 3.0.2
 Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.2)
 Gecko/2008090514 Firefox/3.0.2

It typically gobbles up memory so fast, it reaches 1.8 GB routinely,
and I have to restart it.

                               Virtual Size:    Private Bytes:

Initial (Wednesday)      :     ~  180,000 K     ~   104,000 K
(I didn't write them down, but I remember the Private one was 104)

After running
overnight Wed
(Thursday, 10:25 AM)     :      1,124,248 K       1,024,728 K

After restart
(Thursday, 10:30 AM)     :        178,912 K         106,732 K

Didn't do anything except
let FF3 sit there minimized since
restart, until afternoon
(Thursday, 3:52 PM)      :        387,808 K         317,300 K

FireFox3 seems to be consuming memory at the rate of about 50 K / second !
I can watch it count up in the Process Explorer window;
it's like a digital stopwatch counting upwards.  In the time it's taken me
to type this last sentence or two, the numbers are now:
                                  388,832 K         322,852 K

After running overnight
(Friday, 9:10 AM):              1,042,536 K         945,556 K


(numbers from SysInternals' Process Explorer v11.13)

System Info:
------------
OS Name	Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version	5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer	Microsoft Corporation
System Name	cfdgfdfgd
System Manufacturer	Dell Inc.
System Model	OptiPlex GX620
System Type	X86-based PC
Processor	x86 Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 3 GenuineIntel ~3391 Mhz
Processor	x86 Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 3 GenuineIntel ~3391 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date	Dell Inc. A05, 10/13/2005
SMBIOS Version	2.3
Windows Directory	C:\WINDOWS
System Directory	C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device	\Device\HarddiskVolume2
Locale	United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer	Version = "5.1.2600.2705 (xpsp.050622-1524)"
User Name	XXXXXXX
Time Zone	Central Daylight Time
Total Physical Memory	4,096.00 MB
Available Physical Memory	1.52 GB
Total Virtual Memory	2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory	1.96 GB
Page File Space	3.53 GB
Page File	C:\pagefile.sys


Addons:
-------
Aardvark 2.96
Adblock 0.5.3.043
ColorfulTabs 3.4 (disbled)
CoLT 2.4.1
Copy All Urls 0.8.0
DT Whois
Flashblock 1.5.6  (turned on)
IE View 1.3.7
Linky 2.7.1
Location Navigator 0.6.2 (disabled)
lori (Life-of-request info) 0.2.0.20080521
No-Referer 1.3.1
Page Title Eraser 0.7.6 (disabled)
QuickJava 0.4.2.1
UI Tweaker (Formerly Toolbar Cleanup) 1.7.0



Web Site Tabs:
--------------

My Yahoo!  (logged into my account; lots of news article headers; auto-refresh turned OFF)
http://my.yahoo.com/p/1.html

Henagon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henagon

Genie-Soft Backup Solutions - What product should I use?
http://www.genie-soft.com/differences/us/whatproduct.html

How to add, modify, or delete registry subkeys and values by using a registration entries (.reg) file
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310516/

AXCEL216 / MDGx Registry HACKs
http://www.mdgx.com/reg.htm

thurmond "six week" "extreme makeover" review - Google Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=uSZ&q=thurmond+%22six+week%22+%22extreme+makeover%22+review&btnG=Search

Microsoft Registry Tools
http://www.softpanorama.org/Unixification/Registry/microsoft_registry_tools.shtml

The software I take everywhere. Updated. | Wed 11 Oct 2006 | Blog | CodeStore
http://www.codestore.net/store.nsf/unid/BLOG-20061011/

Aaron Margosis' "Non-Admin" WebLog : Why you shouldn't run as admin...
http://blogs.msdn.com/aaron_margosis/archive/2004/06/17/157962.aspx

Aaron Margosis' "Non-Admin" WebLog : The easiest way to run as non-admin
http://blogs.msdn.com/aaron_margosis/archive/2004/06/17/158806.aspx

Safer Windows 2000/XP User Accounts - Limited User (Revised) « Locksmith / Freelance Computer Guru
http://freelancecomputerguru.wordpress.com/2007/06/22/safer-windows-2000xp-accounts-limited-user/

Applying the Principle of Least Privilege to User Accounts on Windows XP
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb456992.aspx

Windows Client Application Compatibility
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/aa905066.aspx

Download details: Windows Vista Application Development Requirements for User Account Control Compatibility
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=BA73B169-A648-49AF-BC5E-A2EEBB74C16B&displaylang=en

Windows Vista Application Development Requirements for User Account Control (UAC)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa905330.aspx

How to use the Program Compatibility Wizard in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q301911/

Download details: Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=24da89e9-b581-47b0-b45e-492dd6da2971&displaylang=en

Download details: ACT 5 Step by Step Guides
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=BC931BFD-D279-4060-B370-08FA52F97A8D&displaylang=en

Download details: Application Verifier
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=D2DD7EE0-AAA2-402A-821D-43795D6CF139&displaylang=en

Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/aa905102.aspx

Firefox 3 is Still a Memory Hog — The NeoSmart Files
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/firefox-3-is-still-a-memory-hog/

Firefox 3 Hogs Memory Like Crazy | PCMech
http://www.pcmech.com/article/firefox-3-hogs-memory-like-crazy/


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Load FF3
2. Load the mentioned extensions
3. Bring up the mentioned tabs
4. Wait
Actual Results:  
See the initial description.  Typically I see 20K/sec to 50K/sec gobbled up.

Expected Results:  
Right now, I must restart Firefox3 every morning, and reload my tabs.  This is bogus.

Comment 1

[jeffrey.johnson]

Attachment: screenshot showing 2GB memory use after sitting idle overnight

Comment 2

[Jesper Hansen]

Could you try and disable one addon at a time or try safemode to see if its one of the site scripts that goes bogus?

Comment 3

[Mardeg]

A couple of extensions have emerged to help diagnose memory usage:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7055 and
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2490

I hope installing them doesn't make the problem automatically disappeat, and they are found useful in some way.

Comment 4

[jeffrey.johnson]

Attachment: Started FF3.02 Friday afternoon; no addons enabled; 26 tabs; Monday morning, 2GB mem in use, and it crashed

I restarted FF 3.02 Friday afternoon; with no addons enabled.  I left it sitting with 26 tabs Friday evening; came back in to work Monday morning, and it had crashed with 2GB memory in use.  So I don't think the memory leak is with the addons.  Please fix this.  I'll be glad to load a debug whatever if someone sends it to me.  I have MSVC++ 2008 loaded, if that helps.

Comment 5

[Jesper Hansen]

Please try these things so we can narrow the possible bug down
Test one:
Create a new profile. Help on the subject is here http://support.mozilla.com/da/kb/Managing+profiles and here http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager - rerun the tabs.

Test two: 
When the above has crashed then test with the new profile without Java and Flash.

Test Three: 
If test two crashes it as well, disable javascript in the new profile along with the plugins in test two. See about:config => javascript.enabled

Comment 6

[jeffrey.johnson]

Attachment: Leak Monitor 0.4.2 output

Comment 7

[jeffrey.johnson]

I must restart firefox every morning, because when I leave it running overnight with about 20 tabs open, but with the application minimized, it'll be using 1.5GB or more (or have already crashed) when I come in.  

Here are 3 external pages currently discussing this same issue.  I'm not the only one having this problem:

http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/firefox-3-is-still-a-memory-hog/#comment-254420

http://www.pcmech.com/article/firefox-3-hogs-memory-like-crazy/

http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=2002

Comment 8

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

i will check this memory leak report

Comment 9

[jeffrey.johnson]

I downloaded and installed a Windows XP update that fixes a GDI memory leak:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9b5edfc8-a4bb-4080-9063-6518166e2dab&displayLang=en

and after that, FF3 memory has been very stable. I’ve been running this about 3 or 4 days now, and FF3 memory use is OK. So maybe that will fix the problem. I would like to hear feedback from others.

Comment 10

[jeffrey.johnson]

I think this problem is the same as bug 464648.

Comment 11

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

so far i was not able to reproduce this Memory Leak.
Do you see this memory Leak also with a new Profile ?

Comment 12

[ann_thrope]

I see a similar problem here. Starting with a new profile without add-ons, as soon as I open an MSDN page, memory increases constantly. Interestingly, the OP's list of open tabs also conatins an MSDN page.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.4) Gecko/2008102920 Firefox/3.0.4

Comment 13

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1472046

Move all DOM bugs that haven’t been updated in more than 3 years and has no one currently assigned to P5.

If you have questions, please contact :mdaly.

Comment 14

[Hsin-Yi Tsai (she/her) | away [:hsinyi]]

The code has changed a lot since the bug was reported. Please file a new bug if you see a leaking issue. Attaching about:memory log along would be a huge help.