Firefox on Mac M1 now using ungodly amount of RAM
Firefox RAM usage on M1 Mac has dramatically increased. Unfortunately, b/c the memory usage is in firefox parent process, I can't simply terminate a process corresponding to a "tab", meaning I have no choice but to restart Firefox (closing & reopening all tabs) every hour or so of usage.
This is a new issue from a long-time firefox user (on multiple operating systems). It happened after I upgraded the Mac to "Monterey", which may or may not be coincidence.
Chosen solution
Okay the latest update to Firefox 94 seems to have fixed the problem for me!
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I have this same problem on a 2018 (purchased new this year) Mac Mini Intel Core i3. Firefox is currently using 9GB of RAM but it will continue to climb as it has a few times now and I will receive the same error which I have never seen. It just started when I updated to Monterey.
Thanks JustinRez. Looks like it's not specific to the M1 chip, but is instead related to the Monterey upgrade.
I end up having to restart Firefox about every hour or so of usage. Just restarted it now b/c memory consumption of the parent process was at 50GB (!), on a machine w/ 16GB of RAM.
Pretty bad memory leak, it seems. It's not clear to me if this is Apple's problem to fix or Firefox's.
Another screenshot of the ridiculous RAM usage issue (likely a serious memory leak). Again note that I can't just kill child processes ("tabs") b/c the ostensible memory leak is in the parent process.
Ugh!
Chosen Solution
Okay the latest update to Firefox 94 seems to have fixed the problem for me!