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Only 1 tab but Task Manager show 5 Firefox processes

  • 7 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 18 views
  • Last reply by philipp

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Hi there, I only open 1 Firefox tab, which is this Firefox Community Support, but there are 6 processes under Firefox using about 370-400 MB of Ram in total. I did removed my only 2 adds-on: AVAST Internet Security and AVAST Price Check and restarted the browser. I tried that because the scrolling is lagging (with smooth scrolling on/off). I just clean installed Windows and Firefox few days ago. My system is Alienware 15 R3 with 32GB of Ram and graphic card GTX 1070. I would like to know why Firefox start slowing down lately. Even typing email is stuttering/delay.

Hi there, I only open 1 Firefox tab, which is this Firefox Community Support, but there are 6 processes under Firefox using about 370-400 MB of Ram in total. I did removed my only 2 adds-on: AVAST Internet Security and AVAST Price Check and restarted the browser. I tried that because the scrolling is lagging (with smooth scrolling on/off). I just clean installed Windows and Firefox few days ago. My system is Alienware 15 R3 with 32GB of Ram and graphic card GTX 1070. I would like to know why Firefox start slowing down lately. Even typing email is stuttering/delay.

All Replies (7)

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hi, firefox is a multi-process application and multiple task will be distributed in different processes (webcontent, the browser ui, interfacing with graphics drivers, service workers, plugins and extensions...) - this shouldn't be the reason for the lags you're observing... https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis

can you check if the same problems are apparent when you launch firefox in safe mode once? if not, maybe it's an issue with one of your recent gpu driver updates... Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems

what might help in better understanding the cause of the lags you're describing is capturing a performance profile while you observe the problem and sharing that with us: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Performance/Reporting_a_Performance_Problem thank you!

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One thing you can do to learn more about individual processes is:

In the Windows 10 Task Manager, switch to the Details tab, and add the "Command Line" column.

That column will show some parameters after firefox.exe indicating whether it is the main process or a child process used for content or something else.

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You can find the current multi-process state on the Troubleshooting Information (about:support) page.

  • "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" -> "Application Basics":
    Multiprocess Windows
    Web Content Processes
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philipp said

hi, firefox is a multi-process application and multiple task will be distributed in different processes (webcontent, the browser ui, interfacing with graphics drivers, service workers, plugins and extensions...) - this shouldn't be the reason for the lags you're observing... https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis can you check if the same problems are apparent when you launch firefox in safe mode once? if not, maybe it's an issue with one of your recent gpu driver updates... Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems what might help in better understanding the cause of the lags you're describing is capturing a performance profile while you observe the problem and sharing that with us: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Performance/Reporting_a_Performance_Problem thank you!

I installed the Gecko extension as you suggested. Here is the link:

https://perfht.ml/2P34aVL

When I Start Firefox in safemode and access the page slickdeals.net, all thumbnails/icon display (almost) instantly and I can quickly scroll down. When I start Firefox normally, looks like only the thumbnails/image/icon, whatever they are called, in the 1st row (Featured Deals) showed up right away. The rest took a few second to display and scrolling then start working after that. I refreshed Firefox to have all extensions removed and browser settings back to default. This helps only a bit. The time gap is less but still an observable delay. This is when I took the Gecko profiling.

Let me know what you think the cause and how can I fix it.

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jscher2000 said

One thing you can do to learn more about individual processes is: In the Windows 10 Task Manager, switch to the Details tab, and add the "Command Line" column. That column will show some parameters after firefox.exe indicating whether it is the main process or a child process used for content or something else.

I am having 2 tabs going on, 1 of which is Gmail, the other is just new tab or my favorite page slickdeals.net. There are 5 processes, of which 3 are child process (childID 1 to 3), 1 is greomni and the last is just firefox.exe

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BnL_Nexus said

I am having 2 tabs going on, 1 of which is Gmail, the other is just new tab or my favorite page slickdeals.net. There are 5 processes, of which 3 are child process (childID 1 to 3), 1 is greomni and the last is just firefox.exe

Okay, that seems reasonable. The main process is always present, and I usually see the greomni process. Firefox may start content processes for each of the first four tabs and then commonly adds additional tabs to those four processes.

Did you want to try modifying that behavior of opening up to four content processes? This article has the steps for that: Firefox's performance settings (from cor-el's reply).

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i would try installing an adblocking addon like https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/