525694 - A memory leak that occurs when Firefox is left running with 10-15 tabs with Google search results open.

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 510854

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Tadej]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.4) Gecko/20091016 Firefox/3.5.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.4) Gecko/20091016 Firefox/3.5.4

It is a memory leak that happens when leaving Firefox open with approximately 10 tabs with Google search results open. It happened twice already now that I left Firefox running and when I came back to computer and turned-on the monitor I noticed the yellow exclamation icon in system-tray with balloon pop-up saying: Windows - Virtual Memory Minimum Too Low (it's an entry in the Event Viewer with Event Type: "Information", Event Source: "Application Popup", Event ID: "26", Description: "Application popup: Windows - Virtual Memory Minimum Too Low"), and when I checked the memory consumption with Process Explorer: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx program I noticed that it's one of Firefox processes that consumes vast amount of RAM. I could clearly see that it started at normal 50-100 MB of Working Set/Private Bytes and then started to increase in small steps (unfortunately I haven't checked/noted this in more details), and when I checked which profile caused this (also see below under "Additional Information") I saw that it's my "profile2" instance which had only 10-15 tabs open with Google search results displayed. All the other profiles were consuming normal amounts of RAM. It's true though that before leaving it open with these 10-15 tabs open I also watched videos on YouTube, and visited various other websites.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Use Firefox normally as usual (visit some sites with "heavy graphics", watch videos on one of such sites, and also watch a few videos on YouTube), then perform 10-15 Google searches and leave the tabs displaying the results open.
2. Leave your computer for an hour or two.
3. And finally after an hour or two check the memory consumption of respective Firefox process.

Actual Results:  
Firefox starts consuming abnormal (unusually high) amount of memory after some time.


Expected Results:  
Firefox should stay at the same amount of memory used as it was using when I left computer for that hour or two.


I should note that I use/run Firefox with "MOZ_NO_REMOTE" user environment variable so that each profile/instance runs in its own process (that's the same as using the "-no-remote" command-line switch), while secondly, also note that at that time I had "browser.cache.memory.capacity" user-pref in "user.js" file set to 65536, while later I lowered the value to 16384, however, I guess this shouldn't have cause/affect this problem.

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Do you get see the same issue in the Firefox safemode ?
- http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode

Comment 2

[Tadej]

Well, it happened again! The situation was identical to what I've described in the original post, i.e. the abnormal increase in my Firefox "profile2" profile's memory consumption has occurred when I left my computer over night with 11 tabs with Google search results (see the list of them below) open in this profile's/instance's window. And again there was also this icon in the system-tray (yellow exclamation mark/char) with balloon pop-up saying "Virtual Memory Minimum Too Low".

Further, I also checked this particular Firefox process with Process Explorer program (for the link to program's homepage see the original post above) and confirmed that it was its fault (PE was displaying Peak Private Bytes: 1.980.272 KB under "Virtual Memory" section of Performance in Process Properties of said process), while I also checked the pagefile state (with "XP_PageFileMon": http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm application) and noticed that its size was increased from its initial size 1024 MB (set by me) to its maximum size 2048 MB.

I know this is not so important/relevant, but this time I saved all the Google search results (all the tabs that were open when this happened) with "Bookmark All Tabs", and so here below is the list of them:

Naslavljanje v Ethernetu - Google Search: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=NeL&q=Naslavljanje+v+Ethernetu&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

Naslavljanje pri Ethernetu - Google Search: http://www.google.com/search?q=Naslavljanje+pri+Ethernetu&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Naslavljanje pri Ethernetu - Iskanje Google: http://www.google.si/#hl=sl&source=hp&q=Naslavljanje+pri+Ethernetu&btnG=Iskanje+Google&meta=cr%3DcountrySI&aq=f&oq=Naslavljanje+pri+Ethernetu&fp=4c10af798d4fad44

MAC naslov - Iskanje Google: http://www.google.si/#hl=sl&source=hp&q=MAC+naslov&btnG=Iskanje+Google&meta=&aq=f&oq=&fp=4c10af798d4fad44

MAC naslovi - Iskanje Google: http://www.google.si/#hl=sl&source=hp&q=MAC+naslovi&btnG=Iskanje+Google&meta=&aq=f&oq=MAC+naslovi&fp=4c10af798d4fad44

MAC naslavljanje - Iskanje Google: http://www.google.si/#hl=sl&source=hp&q=MAC+naslavljanje&btnG=Iskanje+Google&meta=cr%3DcountrySI&aq=f&oq=MAC+naslavljanje&fp=4c10af798d4fad44

MAC naslavljanje - Google Search: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=MAC+naslavljanje&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi=&oq=MAC+naslavljanje&fp=a50ffc77dda4c0bc

Seminarska naloga Naslavljanje v Ethernetu - Google Search: http://www.google.com/search?q=Seminarska+naloga+Naslavljanje+v+Ethernetu&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Primer Seminarske naloge - Google Search: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=Primer+Seminarske+naloge&btnG=Search

MAC address - Google Search: http://www.google.com/search?q=MAC+address&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Google Translate: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=en&tl=sl&u=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FEthernet

Comment 3

[Ginn Chen]

Dupe of Bug 510854?

I can reproduce the problem with Firefox 3.5.5 visiting search pages of www.google.com.sg on Solaris.
I didn't see it with www.google.com

According to Bug 510854 comment 21, the problem is also on www.google.nl.
The pages you're reporting include www.google.si.

So it might be related to google pages in some countries.

It seems it's not reproducible with Firefox 3.6 and trunk.
I'm still trying.

Comment 4

[Tadej]

Yes you're right Ginn, it actually seems to be a duplicate of the linked Bug 510854.

Comment 5

[Ginn Chen]

The bug is also reproducible with www.google.com.cn.