Firefox 38.0.1 a memory-gobbling abomination?

25 May 2015

I've been a loyal FF user for more than a decade, liking or disliking this or that feature with each new release, but pretty seamlessly going with the flow.

But in the week or two I've had 38.0.1, I've had numerous problems at home and at work.

At work, google maps will lock the browser up and I have to force-quit it, even if it's the only tab I have open and launch it from a fresh boot of Windows.

At home, I'll notice the browser eventually lag over the course of a day, and then look in the task manager and the memory usage keeps climbing, 1 gig of memory and ever higher. I have 8 gigs of memory on the home computer, and I don't check this type of thing much, but the browser performance is so obviously compromised that I checked and noticed this.

Even turning off hw acceleration, a popularly-suggested fix for this type of problem, hasn't helped at home.

Have others here noticed something similar? And are there known fixes for the browser declining performance I see at home, or the google maps lockup I see at work?

MoxieMomma · 25 May 2015

Hi:

Most Fx problems originate in the user's profile (extensions, temp files, corruption, security software conflict, etc.), not in the program itself.

I have not personally noticed any sort of memory leak or problems with Google Maps, but each computer is unique.

Here are some links with helpful advice for standard troubleshooting and diagnostics:

Mozilla Safe Mode
Firefox - Standard Diagnostic
Firefox - Fix slowness, crashing and other problems

Hope this helps,

RolandJS · 25 May 2015

I rolled my FF back to 33, now 36. Rollback might be the answer. Question: which earlier version of FF gave you no problems?

25 May 2015

RolandJS said:

I rolled my FF back to 33, now 36. Rollback might be the answer. Question: which earlier version of FF gave you no problems?

There have been a version or two here or there that gave me headaches - and from google it was easy to tell that they gave most of the free world user community the same headaches.

But pretty much, ever FF version I've had, that has worked fine for others, has worked fine for me too.

I'm sorry for a stupid question here, but (1) where do I find the rollback version I want (38 or 37.x would have been fine), and (2) how do I then prevent FF from automatically re-installing 38.0.1 back over it?

MoxieMomma · 25 May 2015

Hi:

I respectfully disagree with that approach.
Rolling back to an older, outdated program version is probably not a good idea, at least for most users.

There are 2 major problems with that approach:

First and foremost: Security
Doing so is likely to further "break" one's profile, perhaps creating new issues with stability and performance

A safer approach would be to conduct a bit of basic troubleshooting

Mozilla Safe Mode
Firefox - Standard Diagnostic
Firefox - Fix slowness, crashing and other problems

With the increasing complexity of all software these days -- including browsers and their plug-ins and extensions and other add-ons -- a bit of care and feeding is a good investment of time.
From time to time, a profile cleanup or even a new, fresh profile will restore that fast, fresh feeling.:)

If you really want to rollback to an older version and prevent future upgrades, then you'd go to "Options" > "Advanced" > "Update" and disable the auto-updates (not recommended) -- see screenshot. But doing so is "at your own risk".

Just my humble opinion as a long-time home user, not a geek.

Cheers,

RolandJS · 25 May 2015

MoxieMomma's correct, so I add: make sure your security programs are top-notch, smart-set, updated often. oldapps.com and oldversion.com are the only two places I normally go to get a copy of an older FF.
Guess what - I'm at FF 37 :)

Addendum: MoxieMomma's later post reminded me that although many programs and utilities are on oldapps & oldversion sites, the best FF collection is where she said it was: mozilla.org

MoxieMomma · 25 May 2015

RolandJS said:

oldapps.com and oldversion.com are the only two places I normally go to get a copy of an older FF.

For the record, there is an official web site hosted and maintained by Mozilla.org for older versions.
So there's no need to go to third-party sites.
(I am leery of such third-party software sources. But that is my personal opinion.)

The link embedded in my previous reply will take the user to a link for that official Mozilla website to obtain the older versions.

Cheers,

smiths22 · 25 May 2015

450125 said:

Have others here noticed something similar?

Mate i'm checking my firefox process just in case right now and it says: 455 812 KB WTF?

Avast Internet Security 2015 is next with 10 500 KB

Callender · 25 May 2015

That does seem high. Here's my Cyberfox 38.0.1 (64bit) memory usage - one tab. (I don't use FF)

Each new tab adds a little more memory usage.
00

Firefox 38.0.1 a memory-gobbling abomination?-process-hacker.jpg

smiths22 · 25 May 2015

Right now i restarted the broswer and after 10 minutes i'm on 270 000 KB. IMO still high but i don't know for sure.

update: after a few more minutes i'm on 333 000 KB and going up...