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Cache Management: Firefox does not behave as expected when setting cache preferences

  • 7 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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I presently play a game online and override my cache management. I Set in the preferences the following parameters.

browser.cache.disk.max_entry_size = 2000: browser.cache.disk.smart_size.enabled = false

However, when I check the properties of the cache folder it currently shows 2200.

Here is a subset of the problem I am experiencing. There are alot of files stored in cache_001, 002 and 003 which do not get stored on disk. I use mozillacacheview to view the cache. Is there a way to remove these files without deleting the entire cache.

I presently play a game online and override my cache management. I Set in the preferences the following parameters. browser.cache.disk.max_entry_size = 2000: browser.cache.disk.smart_size.enabled = false However, when I check the properties of the cache folder it currently shows 2200. Here is a subset of the problem I am experiencing. There are alot of files stored in cache_001, 002 and 003 which do not get stored on disk. I use mozillacacheview to view the cache. Is there a way to remove these files without deleting the entire cache.

Modified by Infinito

Chosen solution

hello, the "browser.cache.disk.max_entry_size" preference does not set the limit for the number of files in the cache folder but the size limit for individual entries, so in your case only files below 2MB will be cached (the default would be "52000", or 50MB).

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Mozilla_Networking_Preferences#Cache

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All Replies (7)

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Chosen Solution

hello, the "browser.cache.disk.max_entry_size" preference does not set the limit for the number of files in the cache folder but the size limit for individual entries, so in your case only files below 2MB will be cached (the default would be "52000", or 50MB).

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Mozilla_Networking_Preferences#Cache

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Thank-you for your explanation, I had that parameter figured all wrong.

Here is a subset of the problem I am experiencing. There are alot of files stored in cache_001, 002 and 003 which do not get stored on disk. I use mozillacacheview to view the cache. Is there a way to remove these files without deleting the entire cache.

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no problem, i'm not sure if understand your follow-up question correctly. _cache_001_ 002, 003 contain a mix of index files, metadata and data of the cache itself, so it woudn't be safe to delete those whole files in windows when you want to keep the integrity of the cache intact. i don't know if mozillacacheview offers the option to selectively remove files from the cache, but i think this extension does: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/ad.../cacheviewer-continued/

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Thanks for the reply sir, and yes I am aware that you can't delete those files. If I knew the structure of these files, I could write a program myself that would delete the contents and rewrite cache_001, etc.

Not sure if cacheviewer rewrites those files after the contents have been deleted, I'll check it out and report back.

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The answer for cacheviewer is that it does not show the files stored in cache_001 etc unless it has a specific filename stored on disk.

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madperson when you say 52000 is about 50mb this is where I get confused with firefox settings. Is the about:config settings in bytes or Kilobytes? I thought when it said 51200 in disk max entry size that it was in bytes or 50kib. If its in bytes your gonna need 52428800 to get 50mb. Thanks for clearing it up for me if you could.

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Only larger image and media files are stored on disk as individual files.
Small image files and all HTML and CSS and JS files are stored in the container files with the _CACHE_00X_ names, so you won't find these on disk.

See also:

Current Firefox versions also have an image cache (image.cache.size) and a media cache (media.cache_size).