Hello,

I am not trying to provide boiler-plate response here and definitely want to help in narrowing down as to what is possibly causing the issue of the memory bloat in this case. I run Firefox for days without shutting down on a Windows 7 machhine and haven't seen issues. I do see the memory growth being on the higher side (than Opera), but not the slugishness that you have mentioned.

To narrow down the problem, can you try running Firefox in a vanilla state. The process for running in safe mode is provided below. If this doesn't give good results then we can check the memory consumption from within Firefox to see what could be the issue.

Try Firefox Safe Mode to see if the problem goes away. Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode, which disables most add-ons.

(If you're not using it, switch to the Default theme.)

• On Windows you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the Shift key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
• On Mac you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the option key while starting Firefox.
• On Linux you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by quitting Firefox and then going to your Terminal and running: firefox -safe-mode (you may need to specify the Firefox installation path e.g. /usr/lib/firefox)
• Or open the Help menu and click on the Restart with Add-ons Disabled... menu item while Firefox is running.

Once you get the pop-up, just select "'Start in Safe Mode"

If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode, your problem is probably caused by an extension, and you need to figure out which one. Please follow the Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems article for that.

To exit the Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.

When you figure out what's causing your issues, please let us know. It might help other users who have the same problem.

Thank you.

Although this is usually the common response to stuff like this i guess its the only possible solution :/ so far i guess the context menu being slow is because of an addon called "Fun Characters" mainly because of the 50 or so special characters that ive added to it. But ill keep testing just to make sure, i really dont want to disable that addon because i use it quite alot :/

How much RAM does firefox use typically anyways? i remember on a netbook that had 1GB in total it used around 600MB with 10 tabs open while it was on Firefox 21 (previous versions around v14 had horrible mem usage and would cause out of memory errors for me)

precisely how much would it use with 20 simple facebook pages? not heavy with pics or anything just average threads

Typically the memory consumption I have seen is around 600MB to 1GB in extreme cases. You can check the average memory consumption on Firefox's memory growth testing page [1]. If you are ok with it, can you please install the Addons-Memory plugin to check the memory consumed by each of the addon. You can create a separate profile with just the 'fun characters' plugin and the addons-memory plugin to see the memory growth. That could give you an estimate of the cause for the memory growth.

Once you have narrowed it down, then providing the details of the memory usage of the browser, using about:memory will help narrowing down the issue

1. Firefox memory consumption stats
2. Addons Memory consumption plugin

Hope that helps.

Weird.... that addon says firefox is using a total of 103MB in total (along with other addons that is) However the Task Manager in Windows reports firefox is using around 620MB of RAM, even clicking that button that says reduce memory usage didnt seem to do much D:

The even weirder thing is the "Fun Characters" addon is using only 9.5KB in total.... but Adblock Plus is using around 30MB.. Ok now i have no idea whats causing it anymore

The about:memory page however says that each tab is using around 30MB, how is that even possible?

As much as i dislike Chrome i really wish Mozilla would invest some time to create a Firefox Task Manager like the one chrome has so that each thing in the browser can be identified to know how much resources its doing instead of making it so darn hard >.<

There is already an enhancement request raised for the task manager in Firefox. You can upvote this for pushing this enhancement. That will help the product management team in Mozilla to prioritize this enhancement

1. Implement task manager for Firefox

And coming to the original problem you are facing, can you please provide the following details to help troubleshoot

1. about:memory details saved and added to the ticket
2. Snapshot of the task manager with the resident memory and the total memory

That way, we can investigate why the browser is consuming so much memory. Also, please confirm if you are hibernating the machine and restarting it when you see these issues.

Thank you

Thank you for helping me out here and being patient with me man :')

Heres the screenshots of task manager

http://vvcap.net/db/4RwSLdoR3zqOQEmWndfY.htp

http://vvcap.net/db/hb00hcDJicx5q4KpCOtZ.htp

and ofcourse the report itself: https://app.box.com/s/0kk6y9gqp7k33zaaau0c

i honestly dont know whats causing this, its as if firefox takes RAM but never releases it back once its done with it like any other app

Now its jumped to almost 2.5 gb and its going slow as a snail and freezing up at random times, this feels like the windows 98 days where if you didnt turn off the OS itd end up using all the RAM because its memory management was horrible, Firefox is the windows 98 of the present

I am sorry I couldn't get to this yet. Got a bit busy at work. Will take a look at the memory reports you sent and will let you know if I see something out of the ordinary.

Its okay :) take your time!

i uploaded a current one now, i hope its of help to finally figure out whats causing this https://app.box.com/s/gn85u6qo46lce51ex3rf firefox just became very unstable right now and froze for about a minute

74 extensions - 40 active - 34 inactive (if I counted correctly)
Like looking for a needle in a stack for troubleshooting purposes.

How old is that Profile? Have you considered creating a new Profile. with only the extensions that you really need?

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles#w_creating-a-profile
DO NOT remove the existing Profile, you'll need to migrate certain data files to the new Profile.

 Extensions

    about:addons-memory 7
    Adblock Plus 2.4
    BugMeNot 2.2
    bypassRDTO 2.4
    Download Panel Tweaker 0.1.0
    DownThemAll! 2.0.16
    DownThemAll! AntiContainer 1.2.3
    Flagfox 4.2.14
    Flash and Video Download 1.42
    FlashGot 1.5.5.94
    Fun Characters 1.0
    Google Reverse Image Search 1.0
    Google Similar Images 0.5
    Google Translator for Firefox 2.1.0.3
    Google/Yandex search link fix 1.4.1
    Greasemonkey 1.12
    gTranslate 0.9
    gTranslator 1.0.4
    HTTPS-Everywhere 3.4.2
    LastPass 2.5.0
    Lazarus: Form Recovery 2.3
    Moment 1.1.0
    Mozilla Archive Format 3.0.0
    NetVideoHunter 1.13
    Omnibar 0.7.19.20130418
    Omnibar Plus 1.0.11
    PDF Viewer 0.8.298
    RAMBack 1.0
    RightToClick 2.9.5
    Session Manager 0.8.0.8
    SkipScreen 0.7.2
    SmartVideo For YouTube 0.978
    Stylish 1.3.3
    Tab Scope 1.5
    TinEye Reverse Image Search 1.1
    Troubleshooter 1.1a
    Undo Close Tab Replacement 7
    UnMHT 6.4.5
    WOT 20131030
    Xmarks 4.2.1
    1-Click YouTube Video Downloader 2.1.7 (Inactive)
    Classic Compact Options 24.0.2 (Inactive)
    Classic Opera 1.1 (Inactive)
    Download Manager Tweak 0.9.8 (Inactive)
    Download Statusbar 0.9.10 (Inactive)
    DownloadHelper 4.9.21 (Inactive)
    DVDVideoSoft YouTube MP3 and Video Download 4.3.3.15 (Inactive)
    Exif Viewer 2.00 (Inactive)
    Extended Statusbar 1.5.8 (Inactive)
    Facebook Notification 1.0.1 (Inactive)
    FEBE 7.3.0.1 (Inactive)
    Firebug 1.12.4 (Inactive)
    FireTube 1.4.4 (Inactive)
    Flash Video Downloader 4.0.5 (Inactive)
    Flashblock 1.5.17 (Inactive)
    FoxTab 1.4.9 (Inactive)
    Google Image Help 3.1 (Inactive)
    IE Tab 2 (FF 3.6+) 4.12.22.2 (Inactive)
    ImgLikeOpera 0.6.23 (Inactive)
    Imgur Uploader 1.0.6 (Inactive)
    InstantFox 2.8.3 (Inactive)
    Menu Editor 1.2.7 (Inactive)
    Movable Firefox Button 1.4 (Inactive)
    NoScript 2.6.8.4 (Inactive)
    PDF Download 3.0.0.2 (Inactive)
    Personas Plus 1.7.3 (Inactive)
    ReminderFox 2.1.2 (Inactive)
    Save Text To File 2.0.4 (Inactive)
    Scribd PDF Downloader 1.0 (Inactive)
    SeenBlock 1.0.9 (Inactive)
    Skype Click to Call 6.12.0.13601 (Inactive)
    Stratiform 3.0.1 (Inactive)
    Tab Mix Plus 0.4.1.2.02 (Inactive)
    Translate This! 3.0.1 (Inactive)
    Tube Enhancer Plus 2.5 (Inactive)
    UnPlug 2.054 (Inactive)
    Utopia FFSE White Options 5.0.3 (Inactive)
    Video Resumer 1.1.2 (Inactive)
    X-notifier 3.3.9 (Inactive)
    Youtube Downloader - Media Downloader 1.0.8 (Inactive)
    YouTube Smart Pause 0.2 (Inactive)
 

I havent modified anything profile related since i got this computer in July and if im not mistaken at the time i was using Firefox 21, is it meant to get slow and RAM intensive after a while you mean??

Isnt there a way atleast to pinpoint the mischievous addon? all those addons are used from time to time, hence why they are enabled, the ones that i have no use for (or rarely if ever used) are disabled, i mean why would i have them enabled if they have no purpose

I just created a new profile, but its basically firefox from scratch? nothing, not my history or bookmarks where even in it, i thought id see something like a migrate addons and etc wizard atleast...

Firefox stands out from the crowd because of its addons and their ability to truly have control over the content you see, but if its addons can cause such horrible problems for firefox itself from them then how does this pass? shouldnt such addons be banned from ever being at addons.mozilla.org in the first place?

I did another test and disabled most of my addons and enabled them one by one, so far ive come down to possibly two addons being the ones making firefox never release back RAM

Tabscope (not so likely but possible) and HTTPS Everywhere (likely)

HTTPS Everywhere did give me some issues playing a facebook game once and while both it and Tabscope have been disabled firefox has been releasing its RAM apparently, thats good i guess, but it takes its time at it (about 5 minutes, before it did it almost instantly when Firefox was still OK)

So far Firefox is being stable at around 600 MB after i opened about 30 tabs and closed all but one, usually my RAM issues happen when Firefox has been opened for hours so i cant be decisive about the results here or too excited about them since its only been open for around 30 minutes now :( ill report back if i get anything else, i just hope maybe someone would find out whats caused it by then :/

Sorry for the bother and thank you for bearing with me.

I did another test and disabled most of my addons and enabled them one by one, so far ive come down to possibly two addons being the ones making firefox never release back RAM

Tabscope (not so likely but possible) and HTTPS Everywhere (likely)

HTTPS Everywhere did give me some issues playing a facebook game once and while both it and Tabscope have been disabled firefox has been releasing its RAM apparently, thats good i guess, but it takes its time at it (about 5 minutes, before it did it almost instantly when Firefox was still OK)

So far Firefox is being stable at around 600 MB after i opened about 30 tabs and closed all but one, usually my RAM issues happen when Firefox has been opened for hours so i cant be decisive about the results here or too excited about them since its only been open for around 30 minutes now :( ill report back if i get anything else, i just hope maybe someone would find out whats caused it by then :/

Sorry for the bother and thank you for bearing with me.

However in doing so and trying to fix this issue its caused firefox to have an odd bug where if i write in a text box (like i am right now) it will hang for just a few seconds (no memory spike though, but a noticeable CPU usage climb) and then come back to normal, its quite irritating to say the least >.<

^^sorry for the double post there, internet died a bit.

Did you try a new Profile with fewer extensions?

I wouldn't expect a Profile to "go sour" in 4 months, but with that many extensions installed (activated or deactivated) and how many more that were tried, found unsuitable, and then uninstalled, who can figure out what went wrong and why?
Extensions don't uninstall cleanly, most or all the preferences created are left behind after the extension is uninstalled. That can or will "clog up" the prefs.js file and may affect other extensions. With the problems that I personally have had in the past, I backup the Profile before installing an extension that I haven't used before or want to try out. If that "new" extension doesn't meet my needs or causes problems with existing extensions, I don't waste my time uninstalling that "new" extension, and then find that maybe I "got more fixin to do"; I just delete that Profile I just broke and slide the backup of that Profile in place!

As far as the overall number of extensions, I use multiple Profiles which all have my "basic 28 extensions" and then install the appropriate extensions for what I use each of those Profile for on the internet.
1. Banking - security type extensions AND I set automatic clearing of Firefox data upon closing the browser (35 extensions total) = launched by a keyboard command created using WinKey, so that no one else using my PC will even know that Profile is on this PC
2. "default" Profile - used for links calling for the default browser - just the basic 28 extensions
3. General surfing - total of 55 extensions 4. Support - used on support forum and discussion websites - total of 49 extensions
5. Web Development - used for viewing websites from the perspective of trying to figure out why a website "doesn't work correctly in Firefox, but does in Chrome / IE / Safari - total of 45 extensions

See my next posting for more "tips", I'll probably max out this "answer" as far as allowed characters.

Ed

Edit, I have marked this as the thread solution. The actual solution by the OP is in a follow on thread /questions/979200. Apparently just disabling two of the very many addons resolved the issue. ~J99