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[Bug 1499138] Re: Firefox versions since 28.0 need too much memory

 

Well, I installed Lubuntu 15.10, and Firefox is now up to 42.

I read somewhere that the ad-blocking plugin uBlock Origin used much less memory than Adblock Plus, and 
decided to try that.
I am now able to use the latest Firefox.  At last.

Something in Firefox versions AFTER 28 uses considerably more memory than version 28,
as all versions since crash upon attempting to load all my windows/tabs.

It might be worth it to find out exactly what that is, as I cannot imagine that I am the only person
who has had problems like I described, and if FF can be made more efficient with memory usage, it would help
everybody.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1499138

Title:
  Firefox versions since 28.0 need too much memory

Status in firefox package in Ubuntu:
  Incomplete

Bug description:
  I use Firefox 28, because on every single version since then, it crashes after trying to load up my windows/tabs.
  It seems very slow to even display the windows, then it sits there for a while, then everything disappears and the "Firefox has crashed" window comes up.

  The most recent version of FF available to me is now 39.

  Just today, I thought of invoking FF from a terminal, to see if any useful messages would be displayed.
  (Yes, I should have thought of it long before!)

  In fact, there was: twice, "out of memory:" was displayed, with a different number of "bytes requested"
  (once with "0x0000000000165159" (1462617), the other time with "0x000000000023FFE3" (2359267) )

  The last time, 
  "Assertion failure: [unhandlable oom] Failed to allocate object while tenuring., at /build/firefox-D3pzHr/firefox-39.0+build5/js/src/jscntxt.cpp:1195"
  was printed.
  "Failed to allocate object" smacks of not enough memory, also...(although I have no idea what the rest of the message means...)

  I used htop to try to track memory usage as FF was being loaded, after all windows were started 
  (trying to do it before is useless, as it just displays them on top of htop and I cannot see it).

  I have 4GB of memory.

  Anyway, htop shows about 650MB in use before FF 28, then as it loads, it goes up to ~1800MB, then drops back to ~1400MB.
  with FF39, it is over 3000MB when FF crashes, then of course drops back down.

  This is with the exact same number of windows (8) and tabs (many).

  Why would FF 39 need ~2350MB, when FF 28 only needs ~1150MB.  This is
  about double the usage!

  -Scott Jacobs
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------
  scott@scott-ASUS-M2N68-AM-PLUS:~$ uname -a
  Linux scott-ASUS-M2N68-AM-PLUS 3.16.0-44-generic #59-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jul 7 02:14:37 UTC 2015 i686 athlon i686 GNU/Linux
  scott@scott-ASUS-M2N68-AM-PLUS:~$ lsb_release -dsc
  Ubuntu 14.10
  utopic
  scott@scott-ASUS-M2N68-AM-PLUS:~$ echo $DESKTOP_SESSION
  Lubuntu
  Firefox versions:
  Installed version: 28.0+build2-0ubuntu2
  Available version: 39.0+build5-0ubuntu0.14.10.1

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