699489 - High memory usage from Hotmail tab in Firefox

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: JavaScript Engine, defect)

Description

[rokeefe1]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:7.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/7.0.1
Build ID: 20110928134238

Steps to reproduce:

I have Hotmail pinned as an app tab.  I leave it open for several days.  When I go into about:memory I see that it is consuming a large amount of memory.  It uses more memory than any other process.


Actual results:

Memory usage in Firefox for Hotmail and processes used by it is very high.

321,451,941 B (19.65%) -- compartment(https://secure.shared.live.com/_D/F$Live.SiteContent.Messenger/4.3.1349/LocalStorage.html#domain=by146w.bay146.mail.live.com

103,434,339 B (06.32%) -- compartment(https://secure.shared.live.com/_D/F$Live.SiteContent.Messenger/4.3.1349/LocalStorage.html#domain=by146w.bay146.mail.live.com


Expected results:

Firefox should consume far less memory for Hotmail.  Garbage collection should be running on the Hotmail processes.  When I run a manual Garbage collection via about:memory the processes about go to:

4,557,750 B (00.34%) -- compartment(http://secure.shared.live.com/_D/F$Live.SiteContent.Messenger/4.3.1349/Messenger.html#domain=by146w.bay146.mail.live.com

3,672,425 B (00.28%) -- compartment(https://secure.shared.live.com/_D/F$Live.SiteContent.Messenger/4.3.1349/LocalStorage.html#domain=by146w.bay146.mail.live.com

Oddly enough, overall memory usage of Firefox reported in the task manager still does not go down after running GC.

Comment 1

[Nathan Froyd [:froydnj]]

Attachment: about:memory showing 1.2GB memory usage for live.com

Here's an about:memory dump from a friend of mine who's been complaining about excessive Firefox memory usage.  He's running 8.0 on a Windows PC.  The pertinent lines are:

├──1,400,976,807 B (81.04%) -- js
│  ├────865,203,710 B (50.04%) -- compartment(https://secure.shared.live.com/_D/F$Live.SiteContent.Messenger/4.3.1349/LocalStorage.html#domain=sn108w.snt108.mail.live.com&loaderPath=https://secure.wlxrs.com/N4AGNrfi3Dhv9tELZE8B9Q/loader.cxp.js&channelNames=DefaultLocalStorageChannel;MessengerStorageChannel&cs:direction=ltr&cb:httpsApplication=true&cb:compatibility.microsoftAjaxPropertyNames=false&cs:messenger.loaderName=loader.cxp.js&cb:messenger.sameDomainEndpointsAsLocalEnabled=true&cs:market=en-us&cs:messenger.loaderPath=https%3A%2F%2Fsecure.wlxrs.com%2FN4AGNrfi3Dhv9tELZE8B9Q%2F&cs:compatibility.version=current&)
│  │    ├──382,267,392 B (22.11%) -- gc-heap
│  │    │  ├──351,531,488 B (20.33%) -- objects
│  │    │  ├───27,026,928 B (01.56%) -- strings
│  │    │  ├────1,493,232 B (00.09%) -- arena-headers
│  │    │  ├────1,450,704 B (00.08%) -- arena-padding
│  │    │  ├──────492,160 B (00.03%) -- arena-unused
│  │    │  └──────272,880 B (00.02%) -- shapes
│  │    ├──355,363,402 B (20.55%) -- string-chars
│  │    ├──125,466,736 B (07.26%) -- object-slots
│  │    ├──────786,432 B (00.05%) -- mjit-code
│  │    ├──────563,488 B (00.03%) -- tjit-data
│  │    │      ├──370,592 B (00.02%) -- allocators-main
│  │    │      ├──118,896 B (00.01%) -- trace-monitor
│  │    │      └───74,000 B (00.00%) -- allocators-reserve
│  │    ├──────390,120 B (00.02%) -- scripts
│  │    ├──────131,072 B (00.01%) -- tjit-code
│  │    ├──────125,376 B (00.01%) -- mjit-data
│  │    └──────109,692 B (00.01%) -- property-tables
│  ├────319,733,621 B (18.49%) -- compartment(http://secure.shared.live.com/_D/F$Live.SiteContent.Messenger/4.3.1349/Messenger.html#domain=sn108w.snt108.mail.live.com&loaderPath=https://secure.wlxrs.com/N4AGNrfi3Dhv9tELZE8B9Q/loader.cxp.js&cs:direction=ltr&cb:httpsApplication=true&cb:compatibility.microsoftAjaxPropertyNames=false&cs:messenger.loaderName=loader.cxp.js&cb:messenger.sameDomainEndpointsAsLocalEnabled=true&cs:market=en-us&cs:messenger.loaderPath=https%3A%2F%2Fsecure.wlxrs.com%2FN4AGNrfi3Dhv9tELZE8B9Q%2F&cs:compatibility.version=current&)
│  │    ├──174,391,296 B (10.09%) -- gc-heap
│  │    │  ├──159,260,960 B (09.21%) -- objects
│  │    │  ├───12,369,376 B (00.72%) -- strings
│  │    │  ├──────837,112 B (00.05%) -- arena-unused
│  │    │  ├──────681,216 B (00.04%) -- arena-headers
│  │    │  ├──────668,112 B (00.04%) -- arena-padding
│  │    │  └──────574,520 B (00.03%) -- shapes
│  │    ├───84,575,336 B (04.89%) -- string-chars
│  │    ├───57,826,120 B (03.34%) -- object-slots
│  │    ├────1,376,256 B (00.08%) -- mjit-code
│  │    ├──────865,341 B (00.05%) -- scripts
│  │    ├──────249,092 B (00.01%) -- property-tables
│  │    ├──────228,052 B (00.01%) -- mjit-data
│  │    └──────222,128 B (00.01%) -- tjit-data
│  │           ├──118,896 B (00.01%) -- trace-monitor
│  │           ├───74,000 B (00.00%) -- allocators-reserve
│  │           └───29,232 B (00.00%) -- allocators-main
│  ├─────67,675,900 B (03.91%) -- gc-heap-chunk-dirty-unused

He says this happens consistently after having Hotmail open for a week or so.  He also says he's not browsing much else; youtube and a few webforums or the like.  I did not ask what happens after he manually GCs.

Comment 2

[Nathan Froyd [:froydnj]]

Flagging for the JS engine folks to look at and the MemShrink folks as well.

Comment 3

[Nathan Froyd [:froydnj]]

FWIW, the memory does not get released when either:

1) The hotmail tab is closed; or
2) A GC is triggered manually from about:memory

The gc-heap-chunk-dirty-unused number goes up, but nothing else is affected.

Also marking as confirmed, since we have two reports on this, and I think rjesup said he had seen something like this as well.

Comment 4

[Terrence Cole [:terrence]]

Thanks for moving this to the JS component.  This should be solved with bug 670596 and followups: in particular 699279.  The last is waiting for review, but the others are in nightlys already.  The original report is against FF7, what version did you test with, Nathan?

Comment 5

[Bill McCloskey [inactive unless it's an emergency] (:billm)]

I agree that some of the stuff reported here will be fixed by bug 670596 (namely the problem that memory usage doesn't drop after a GC). However, the original report described a situation where memory usage goes up very high but then is fixed by a user-triggered GC. That sounds like an additional bug. Can we get confirmation that that is indeed happening?

Comment 6

[rokeefe1]

billm - When I submitted this ticket I saw the memory usage for Hotmail go down after running a GC.  However, this doesn't always happen.  The last time I saw that the memory usage was very high from Hotmail and ran a GC the memory usage stayed the same.

Comment 7

[Nathan Froyd [:froydnj]]

(In reply to Terrence Cole [:terrence] from comment #4)
> The original report is against FF7, what version did you test with, Nathan?

FF8.  I'll see about testing with a more recent version when the fix goes in.

The fixes look plausible, but I'm wondering why the memory usage gets so high in the first place.  Going to CC rjesup, maybe he can comment on the problems he's seeing directly.

Comment 8

[Terrence Cole [:terrence]]

Nathan, you are quite right.  There are two issues here: the GC not freeing memory and the high memory usage.  I suppose I am a bit odd to see an 800MB compartment and think: "Gee, he must have a lot of messages." :-)

I'm looking forward to seeing memory results from a Nightly, but someone more knowledgeable will have to help triage the high memory usage.

Comment 9

[Nicholas Nethercote [:njn] (On Long Service Leave)]

rokeefe1, Nathan:  do either of you (or your friend) have any extensions installed?

Comment 10

[Randell Jesup [:jesup] (needinfo me)]

My friend's wife might have some; I don't know.  Her high memory used seemed linked to live.com (>250MB in 3 compartments).

Comment 11

[rokeefe1]

Yes, I have extensions installed.  They are as follows:

about:telemetry
ColorZilla
Firebug
FireFTP
Flashblock
GreaseMonkey
Poster
Remove Cookies For Site
Session Manager
Tab Counter
Test Pilot
TooMany Tabs
Web Developer
Awesome Screenshot (disabled)
Html Validator

Comment 12

[Nathan Froyd [:froydnj]]

I asked, and he said there was nothing extra installed.

Comment 13

[Nicholas Nethercote [:njn] (On Long Service Leave)]

Our experience recently is that excessive memory usage like this is usually caused by add-ons, especially when there are lots installed (see comment 11).  Firebug in particular is known to cause zombie compartments (bug 669730).

For this bug to go anywhere, we'll need to know if an add-on is at fault.  rokeefe1, are you able to temporarliy disable some or all add-ons as a debugging step, and see if the problem still occurs?  (Restarting in safe mode is an easy way to disable all add-ons temporarily.)

Comment 14

[Randell Jesup [:jesup] (needinfo me)]

If nfroyd's report is correct, then this wouldn't be extensions.  I'll try to check with my friend on this.

Comment 15

[Andrew McCreight [:mccr8]]

Have people continued to experience these problems?  How is Hotmail working for them?

Comment 16

[Danial Horton]

no increase over a period of a day, but we shall see.

Comment 17

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to rokeefe1 from comment #0
> I have Hotmail pinned as an app tab.  I leave it open for several days. 
> When I go into about:memory I see that it is consuming a large amount of
> memory.  It uses more memory than any other process.

were you able to reproduce without addons?

---

FWIW hotmail in Internet Explorer is a huge pig in my experience, such that IE is no longer used here to access hotmail. So perhaps not surprising if someone sees bad perf in firefox.

Comment 18

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Danial Horton from comment #16)
> no increase over a period of a day, but we shall see.

Danial, how is it performing for you?

Comment 19

[Danial Horton]

For the week or so I was using hotmail to access live messenger, i didn't experience any sudden memory increases that i couldn't attribute to junk in other tabs (Facebook as a prime offender).

From my standpoint the issue is fixed.

Comment 20

[Danial Horton]

gah, i thought that tickbox was for me. sorry, I'm not well slept.

Comment 21

[rokeefe1]

I ran some tests... I probably should have grabbed the about:memory info too.

With Addons enabled here are the memory results:
569,832KB/584,000KB - Fresh start of FF with several tabs restored
746,620KB/581,544KB - Memory results after leaving the computer running for 24 hours with virtually no use of Firefox during that time (just tabs like the hotmail tab updating the inbox)

Safe mode
486,000KB/504,728KB - Fresh start of FF with several tabs restored
577,832KB/475,036KB - Memory results after leaving the computer running for 24 hours with virtually no use of Firefox during that time (just tabs like the hotmail tab updating the inbox)

I've been trying to pay attention to how Firefox is consuming memory after several of the FF memshrink enhancements were added.  From my perspective I can't definitely say that Hotmail itself is the culprit.  

I do think that there are still some memory leaks in FF, but Firebug could be contributing to this.  I have noticed that memory usage in FF goes up after I've activated it for the first time and it doesn't seem to fully recover it even though there were several memory enhancements put into place for plugins.  I do web development at work and keep several tabs (including hotmail) open for days.  I'm also using Firebug all day.  I have to restart Firefox about every 2-5 days due to high memory usage.  I just checked that computer.  It's sitting at about 1GB of memory usage, but according to about:memory Hotmail is fine.

I think this ticket can probably be closed now.

Comment 22

[Nicholas Nethercote [:njn] (On Long Service Leave)]

> I think this ticket can probably be closed now.

Thanks for the further investigation!