Something going wrong with Firefox 116.0.2
I was using Firefox and suddenly there was something wrong with it: I can't switch the tabs. I found that Firefox has taken over 2GB of memory, while I've just opened three tabs (A circuit simulator, a local file, and a music website and none of it could take such memory)! I rebooted, but the problem is still there. It was okay at the beginning , but when I was trying to switch the tabs, the monitor showed that the memory suddenly grew from 269MB to 1.8GB. (versions: Mozilla Firefox 116.0.2, Latest Arch Linux 6.4.10 on x86-64 laptop) Omg, while I was writing this post I didn't close Firefox and now it takes 7.4GB of memory, and STILL GROWING!! Now 11.1GB Of course there's a memory leak. -- Ruiyang Peng
Le 14/08/2023 à 15:50, Ruiyang Peng a écrit :
I was using Firefox and suddenly there was something wrong with it: I can't switch the tabs.
I found that Firefox has taken over 2GB of memory, while I've just opened three tabs (A circuit
simulator, a local file, and a music website and none of it could take such memory)!
I rebooted, but the problem is still there. It was okay at the beginning , but when I
was trying to switch the tabs, the monitor showed that the memory suddenly grew from 269MB
to 1.8GB.
(versions: Mozilla Firefox 116.0.2, Latest Arch Linux 6.4.10 on x86-64 laptop)
Omg, while I was writing this post I didn't close Firefox and now it takes 7.4GB of memory, and
STILL GROWING!! Now 11.1GB
Of course there's a memory leak.
Hi Ruiyang, The most effective way to report such issues and having them addressed is to raise them in our bugtracker [1]. Can you open a ticket there (with all the possible details) please? Thanks in advance :) [1] https://bugs.archlinux.org/ -- Regards, Robin Candau / Antiz
On 8/14/23 15:50, Ruiyang Peng wrote:
I was using Firefox and suddenly there was something wrong with it: I can't switch the tabs.
I found that Firefox has taken over 2GB of memory, while I've just opened three tabs (A circuit
simulator, a local file, and a music website and none of it could take such memory)!
I rebooted, but the problem is still there. It was okay at the beginning , but when I
was trying to switch the tabs, the monitor showed that the memory suddenly grew from 269MB
to 1.8GB.
(versions: Mozilla Firefox 116.0.2, Latest Arch Linux 6.4.10 on x86-64 laptop)
Omg, while I was writing this post I didn't close Firefox and now it takes 7.4GB of memory, and
STILL GROWING!! Now 11.1GB
Of course there's a memory leak.
FWIW I don't see that happening using Firefox 116.0.2 with Arch Linux 6.4.10 also on a x86-64 laptop. Having 8 firefox tabs open free reports a total used memory of 2.5GB. ps -ef reports 34 firefox processes. How do you see that firefox uses al that memory ? Regards ~Z
Although it's impossible, I can't catch the problem again now 🙁 But that problem hasn't only appeared for twice but many times. I'm now trying to make it reappear. On 8/14/23 22:15, Zerro wrote:
FWIW I don't see that happening using Firefox 116.0.2 with Arch Linux 6.4.10 also on a x86-64 laptop. -- ps -ef reports 34 firefox processes.
How do you see that firefox uses al that memory ? The gnome system monitor and free(1) -- Ruiyang Peng
Hello, As a quick note, since the UX update, Firefox has become one of the heaviest browsers, overtaking chromium/google chrome. Yes expect each tab to take anywhere between 500mb to 1gb of memory, this is not a bug this is literally how heavy (bloated, if you want to say it) firefox has become. If you dislike the resource use, along with the sluggishness of the Firefox UX improvements (and the ever increasing resource requirements each update) move to chromium (or ungoogled chromium). Unfortunately I am seeing the same issues with the most recent update to thunderbird which improved its UX, its now become very sluggish and the animations slow down your workflow. It is safe to say Mozilla is trying to suit the demands of the average internet user, having flashy, fancy browser, instead of the lightweight, open source, versatile browser of the past. Mozilla has not been trustworthy for over a year now, with the integration of tracking such as pocket (saving your personal data to mozilla cloud) along with the Mozilla VPN they keep trying to urge you to use to track even more of your data, and even the Firefox android app which has vast amounts of proprietary blobs in it, the question is not "How do we fix this", it is "What do we move to?". The web is currently on fire, and I am not going to spark a debate on "Use Brave" or "Use chromium", or the upcoming potential implementation of vast internet DRM which would also knock out most open source browsers. For now I have found that chromium is still a compelling choice, and if you want it even more private use ungoogled chromium. Personally I am continuing to use Thunderbird and Firefox because it is what I am used to using, but since the UI change of Thunderbird I have wanted to jump ship, and since they did it to Firefox I wanted to jump ship too, but to where? It seems we are backed into a corner yet again, and the companies we put our faith and donations into are letting us down. As of this moment, I am running "Mozilla Firefox 116.0.2" with 5 browser tabs open, at about 1-2GB of memory use. I can not reproduce the same level of memory use, are you sure it is not the websites you had open? Take care, -- Polarian GPG signature: 0770E5312238C760 Website: https://polarian.dev JID/XMPP: polarian@icebound.dev
On Mon, 14 Aug 2023 16:01:58 +0100
Polarian
Personally I am continuing to use Thunderbird and Firefox because it is what I am used to using, but since the UI change of Thunderbird I have wanted to jump ship, and since they did it to Firefox I wanted to jump ship too, but to where?
Hi, [sharing personal preferences below] As my mail client, I have been using claws-mail for several years now and it is mainly OK. I have numerous mail accounts configured, numerous GPG keys and use encryption often - claws-mail sometimes needed some special-care (using xkill to close when unresponsive, manual GPG adding...) but brings additional features which are missing in Thunderbird : - doesn't still my GPG keys - I can disable graphics and images that cause me mental overload, html is shown as just text - much more logical layout of menus, didn't change over years - my data is my data - relatively lightweight If you want, claws-mail allows you automating a lot of actions (such as attaching your GPG key, etc), so if you feel like investing time in initial set-up, your experience may be smoother than mine. Cheers,
On 8/14/23 17:01, Polarian wrote:
Yes expect each tab to take anywhere between 500mb to 1gb of memory, this is not a bug this is literally how heavy (bloated, if you want to say it) firefox has become.
That's not how memory works. I routinely have tens of tabs active (and literal hundreds inactive), and my Firefox currently sits at a resident set size right around 500M. Counting memory use is surprisingly difficult (libraries are shared between processes, to name just one thing) and I won't claim to fully understand it myself, but it is simply not true that browsers consume gigabytes of memory per open tab.
Mozilla has not been trustworthy for over a year now, with the integration of tracking such as pocket (saving your personal data to mozilla cloud)
Then don't use Pocket if you don't want to save personal data in Mozilla's cloud?
along with the Mozilla VPN they keep trying to urge you to use to track even more of your data,
Mozilla VPN is a partnership with the VPN service operated by the very well regarded Swedish VPN provider Mullvad [1], which does not track or even store customer data [2]. I can't speak for what, if any, data Mozilla collects via their own front-end to it, though. [1]: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2019/12/3/mullvad-partnerships-page-has-been-upd... [2]: https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy/ /Emil
What are browsers even using that much memory for these days? Are websites
really half a gig or more now or what are the browsers loading to use up
that much?
On Mon, Aug 14, 2023 at 8:40 PM Emil Lundberg
On 8/14/23 17:01, Polarian wrote:
Yes expect each tab to take anywhere between 500mb to 1gb of memory, this is not a bug this is literally how heavy (bloated, if you want to say it) firefox has become.
That's not how memory works. I routinely have tens of tabs active (and literal hundreds inactive), and my Firefox currently sits at a resident set size right around 500M. Counting memory use is surprisingly difficult (libraries are shared between processes, to name just one thing) and I won't claim to fully understand it myself, but it is simply not true that browsers consume gigabytes of memory per open tab.
Mozilla has not been trustworthy for over a year now, with the integration of tracking such as pocket (saving your personal data to mozilla cloud)
Then don't use Pocket if you don't want to save personal data in Mozilla's cloud?
along with the Mozilla VPN they keep trying to urge you to use to track even more of your data,
Mozilla VPN is a partnership with the VPN service operated by the very well regarded Swedish VPN provider Mullvad [1], which does not track or even store customer data [2]. I can't speak for what, if any, data Mozilla collects via their own front-end to it, though.
[1]: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2019/12/3/mullvad-partnerships-page-has-been-upd...
[2]: https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy/
/Emil
-- Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Timo Prömer
Although it's impossible, I can't catch the problem again now 🙁
But that problem hasn't only appeared for twice but many times. I'm now trying to make it reappear. Hello,
While reporting, please make sure you’re reporting the right value. “Memory usage” is pretty vague and it becomes even more complicated with multi-process programs like Firefox. A good idea may be using extra/htop⁽¹⁾ or something similar. Whatever you use, tell what the tool was used and how *exactly* were named fields you used. Also provide the output of `free -h`. Reproducing the issue without any add-ons enabled would be the best, if possible. If it’s htop and you did not use it in the past, then with the default view you get after running it: 1) Press F5 to switch to the tree view mode. 2) Find the firefox process. 3) Sum the cyan⁽²⁾ values from RES column for each firefox entry appearing in white (not green). An example available at, with the values to sum marked with red: https://0x0.st/HLov.png (156 + 41 + 81 = 278 MB) Even better would be, if the PSS column is summed instead of RES. For this go to setup (F2), with arrows move to “Screens”, with arrows move to “Available Columns”, select M_PSS, add (F5) and confirm (F10). You may also disable seeing userland threads in “Display options” to avoid visually filtering them out. ____ ⁽¹⁾ https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/htop/ ⁽²⁾ Or green-cyan, if these appear.
I forgot to add: Firefox has a built-in memory profiler. Just go to “about:memory” in the address bar and press “Measure”. This is separate from the measurement outlined in the other email.
Hi, IMO the output of htop is confusing, not only because it does use a different colour theme on my machine. I'm also confused by the output of about:memory. I don't know if the output of about:processes is correct or complete, but this output does look human readable to me. FWIW I'm neither using claws-mail, nor KDE, but the memory usage shown by about:processes is less than 0.5 GiB, with an about:processes tab + a Google tab + a dict.cc tab, using a Firefox theme and a few extensions. I suspect that if I would use claws-mail and KDE, the output of Firefox about:processes would be almost or exactly the same. I could recommend another Browser, window manager without a DE and MUA, but this isn't probably much helpful. I would start with --safe-mode, then probably use a complete fresh profile and/or add a new user with a virginal $HOME for testing purpose. I don't want to participate in recommendations, but I make an exception related to a browser wouldn't touch with a barge pole. A pro for Firefox: Brendan Eich left Mozilla A con for Brave: Brendan Eich owns Brave I wouldn't use Brave, even if it would be the best browser available, I even wouldn't use it, if it would be the only browser available. Regards, Ralf
On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 05:08:46PM +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
A pro for Firefox: Brendan Eich left Mozilla A con for Brave: Brendan Eich owns Brave I wouldn't use Brave, even if it would be the best browser available, I even wouldn't use it, if it would be the only browser available.
What is your problem with Brendan Eich ? -- FA
Le 15/08/2023 à 22:49, Fons Adriaensen a écrit :
On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 05:08:46PM +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
A pro for Firefox: Brendan Eich left Mozilla A con for Brave: Brendan Eich owns Brave I wouldn't use Brave, even if it would be the best browser available, I even wouldn't use it, if it would be the only browser available.
What is your problem with Brendan Eich ?
I think this discussion has gone way too far off the initial topic. Also, as per the Arch Linux CoC, controversial topics should be avoided [1]. Let's either drop it or focus on the potential Firefox issue initially stated please. [1] https://terms.archlinux.org/docs/code-of-conduct/?rdfrom=https%3A%2F%2Fwiki.... -- Regards, Robin Candau / Antiz
On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 11:12:08PM +0200, Robin Candau wrote:
Let's either drop it or focus on the potential Firefox issue initially stated please.
Agreed. I had no idea that this was something 'controversial', hence my question. Ciao, -- FA
participants (10)
-
Emil Lundberg
-
Fons Adriaensen
-
mirto＠riseup.net
-
mpan
-
Polarian
-
Ralf Mardorf
-
Robin Candau
-
Ruiyang Peng
-
Timoyoungster
-
Zerro