firefox 4 does not release memory when adblock is enabled

[Scott]

Sorry for the confusion. Is there a memory leak issue with FF4 ? I have found there is, but not consistantly, only when viewing certain sites. Is it your plugin causing this? I am not claiming that. I don't know whats causing it. When I search the web for solution, many people with the problem are using ABP. Why I'm here. I read this thread prior to posting and commented that I was able to replicate the problem, and you may find it useful. If I stay away from that site, I have no problems with FF4 and ABP. Disabling ABP on this site does help, but memory use still grows. Complete uninstall of ABP changes the growth some more. So its not really clear to me what it is. ABP effects the speed of the leak, but it leaks regardless. Hope that makes sense.

[Wladimir Palant]

Is there a memory leak issue with FF4 ?

I don't know. There was an Adblock Plus issue that negatively affected memory management in Firefox - that one is fixed in Adblock Plus 1.3.6. Other than that - your guess is as good as mine. There are reports that Firefox 4 fails to release memory on some websites, particularly when Adblock Plus is involved. Nothing that could be verified so far however (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=644876 for example is something I need to look into).

So please update to Adblock Plus 1.3.6 (automatic updates won't work yet, please install from https://adblockplus.org/ if you haven't already) and if your issue is still reproducible - please post your steps to reproduce, would be very appreciated.

[Scott]

There are reports that Firefox 4 fails to release memory on some websites, particularly when Adblock Plus is involved. Nothing that could be verified so far however

Yes this is what I seem to experience.

if you haven't already) and if your issue is still reproducible - please post your steps to reproduce, would be very appreciated.

Turn on task manager to watch firefox. Start Firefox 4 to get an initial reading. Open a tab with this example website called Toyota Nation http://www.toyotanation.com . Loaded with all types of ads. Poke around the forum to a thread, enough to load some memory. Then just watch while idle on Toyota Nation .com. The memory slowly climbs on idle, rather than release. Now bring up another tab. Those other sites appear to release on idle.

This is beyond me, maybe you can figure out..Java and Flash plugins/extensions. I think (can't prove) there's an issue somewhere with FF4 incompatibility. Perhaps that incompatibility is exposed when blocking those thypes of ads...I don't know.

[Guest]

So please update to Adblock Plus 1.3.6 (automatic updates won't work yet, please install from https://adblockplus.org/ if you haven't already) and if your issue is still reproducible - please post your steps to reproduce, would be very appreciated.

I'm Abp 1.3.6.

[LorenzoC]

I cannot confirm. I am on Toyota Nation Forum and after poking around I have got:
Firefox.exe > 105 - 130 (virtual).
plugin-container > 3 - 16.5 (virtual)
It does not increase, on the contrary, I see those values growing and reducing as I poke around the site and I stay idle.

(my config is XP SP4 - FF4 - ABP 1.3.6)

[tipoo]

This happens to me too, without it I never go over 500MB and it stays fast, with it I can hit 1.7GB in hours and it gets incredibly sluggish. I only have three machines to test on, but it only seems to happen on 64 bit Windows.

[Daniel75]

I'm also experiencing exactly this problem with FireFox 4 and AdBlockPlus 1.3.6 on WinXP 32 bit. It's definitely no XP64 issue.

If I turn off AdBlockPlus it's gone. Not sure, but /maybe/ WOT (web of trust) speeds up the memory-eating a little.

Anyway: AdBlockPlus (V1.3.6) alone definitely causes FF4 to eat memory at a rate of 0,5 to 1 MB per *SECOND* so also on my machine memory usage is blown up to >1 GB after few hours. (1 to 4 hours).

My machine keeps responsive since I have disabled the page file (2 GB physical mem), if mem is completely eaten up by FifeFox 4 Win XP say "not enough virtual memory" and immediately kicks/kills Firefox 4. Unfortunately FF4's bug report window will not open, so this very nasty but can't be reported to mozilla team comfortably by everyone.

It's totally independent from the number of open tabs: >80 open tabs do not speed up memory-eating/memory leakage, it also happens at the same rate with only 5..10 tabs open.

Maybe it happens in conclusion with pages that actively notify on changes, as the forum http://www.ledhilfe.de does. (haven't verified this)

PS:
Anyone with enough physical RAM for his/hers tasks should deactivate the page file anyway: extremely cheap and impressive speedup! (2 ... 4 GB RAM recommended, if only 1 GB then you can't open much apllications simultaneously)

[LorenzoC]

Tried also ledhilfe.de (with 3 tabs opened).
Firefox.exe -> 90 - 117 (virtual)
Plugin-container -> 10 - 14 (virtual)
No visible increase, for sure not 1M per second. It is strange. Could it be something in different subscription/filters configuration?

[Daniel75]

Addition: AdBlockPlus seems only to trigger the problem much more often. Now having ABP disabled the memory keeps getting eaten up much slower, but STILL GETS EATEN UP! (memory-leak-rate: ca. 50 kB/second)

I guess this is a general issue with FireFox4's Add-on-API having a memory leak somewhere and depending how often an add-on uses the broken API function the memory-leaking-speed is influenced.

I think it's strage to have such a serous bug after so many release candidates and I'm wondereing why mozilla didn't already release a fix. Now that they have finally accepted that firefox HAS memory leaks...

[Hubird]

Now that they have finally accepted that firefox HAS memory leaks.

Where did you read that they have accepted it?

[fanboy]

They're fixing the memory leaks,

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=640457
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=640452

[Daniel75]

I've had FF4 running for ~2 or 3 hours now with ~30 tabs open, ABP still off, WOT (web-of-trust)-add-on re-activated: initial mem usage ~390 MB, after the 2..3 hours: ~800 MB ...

At least ABP and WOT must have something in common that makes FF4 eat up the memory. I guess some buggy API function.

Unfortunately Opera lacks a perfect Ad filter, if there where AdBlockPlus for Opera I would have switched to opera years ago. Opera uses ~ 8 MB of RAM if alle tabs are closed --- even if there have tabs been open before, NOT only if opera freshly started! Something FireFox can't even dream of! The guys at opera seem to know what they're doing with the allocated RAM and how much they've allocated for which purpose and when to free it much, much better than the mozilla guys :-/


- On machines of friends with <256 MB I usually install opera (also if only 56..160 kBit internet connection) because FireFox consumes too much RAM since V1.0. Firefox would be unuseable.
- On machines with 256 MB and up but also such a slow internet connection I install FireFox+AdBlockPlus and tell "do not open more thant 2 or 3 tabs simultaneously". Firefox+ABP+few tabs loads pages faster since the slow connection hasn't to carry the loads of ads. (often 70-95% of page data)
- But if there where AdBlockPlus for firefox I'd install opera on these old machines. The only reason for that is the HUUUUGE memory hunger of FireFox....

Generally I like the firefox GUI better (position of stop/reload in FF4 is nonsense, faaar way from the used position and saves space at a place where space has never been a problem and has become a even lesser problem with wide screens)

[LorenzoC]

Again, I don't see that huge difference in memory consumption between Opera and Firefox.
Right now I have got Opera and Firefox opened on the same pages (2 tabs) and these are the numbers:

Firefox.exe -> 64 - 116 (virtual)
Plugin-container -> 1.5 - 16 (virtual)
versus
Opera.exe -> 81 - 78 (virtual)

Note that I don't have extensions on Opera and plus I have disabled all plugins on it (that feature so embedded objects don't run unless you click over them). I am not sure but I don't think Opera has got a "memory collection" mechanism. So aside bugs FF should be able to free memory when not in use, while Opera should not.

[Scott]

Update from above. When I initially upgraded to FF4, ietab 2 add-on was causing problems so I "removed" it. I became curious what "remove" means vs. the former "uninstall". about:config shows all the ietab 2 entries were still there!!!! Even set to true, as if the add-on was still installed and enabled!!! I reset the entries, restarted and have not seen the memory expansion since. There was even a link to an ietab2.dll somewhere on my machine. WTF is that? Well it has nothing to do with this board or ABP. I say its to early with FF4 to go after add-ons. Overall, its faster, even more with the acceptable default theme.

[fnukyguy]

is this issue fixed in latest version ? can anyone confirm?