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Frequent crashes - using 900,00k + memory, many tabs open - is memory usage an issue?

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I am having frequent crashing of firefox, several times a day.

I do have many tabs open, 100+, and memory usage is around 900,000 and up.

I am wondering if the memory usage is causing the crashing, or something else I can fix?

My task manager says I am using 67% of available memory.

Total: 2941

Cached:1202

Free: 74

Total: 207

Paged: 153

NonPaged: 53

Page File 2981M / 6116M

Here are the id's of the last 10 crash reports:

bp-c79bc97e-d502-4319-a49e-7bc0b2130917 9/16/201311:38 PM bp-19f60b05-f268-4693-b622-066f42130917 9/16/20139:59 PM bp-f43d9597-9023-487a-90d4-994d32130916 9/16/20137:15 PM bp-b552cdc4-6920-4eed-bff7-cb7cf2130916 9/16/20136:04 PM bp-b62272cb-f4ef-4f30-acc9-4a1752130916 9/16/20135:02PM bp-f4bebdd3-20f9-4444-8245-520c42130916 9/16/20133:08 PM bp-bad99992-5b2b-4ac1-96bc-e03812130915 9/14/201311:31 PM 962c451e-dc19-4707-9def-b2dd5cd4caed 9/14/201310:07 PM bp-8de4bc69-0f86-417a-9727-e88622130914 9/14/20132:29 AM bp-6ae9815f-1472-492d-8738-1cd842130914 9/14/20131:01 AM

I am having frequent crashing of firefox, several times a day. I do have many tabs open, 100+, and memory usage is around 900,000 and up. I am wondering if the memory usage is causing the crashing, or something else I can fix? My task manager says I am using 67% of available memory. Total: 2941 Cached:1202 Free: 74 Total: 207 Paged: 153 NonPaged: 53 Page File 2981M / 6116M Here are the id's of the last 10 crash reports: bp-c79bc97e-d502-4319-a49e-7bc0b2130917 9/16/201311:38 PM bp-19f60b05-f268-4693-b622-066f42130917 9/16/20139:59 PM bp-f43d9597-9023-487a-90d4-994d32130916 9/16/20137:15 PM bp-b552cdc4-6920-4eed-bff7-cb7cf2130916 9/16/20136:04 PM bp-b62272cb-f4ef-4f30-acc9-4a1752130916 9/16/20135:02PM bp-f4bebdd3-20f9-4444-8245-520c42130916 9/16/20133:08 PM bp-bad99992-5b2b-4ac1-96bc-e03812130915 9/14/201311:31 PM 962c451e-dc19-4707-9def-b2dd5cd4caed 9/14/201310:07 PM bp-8de4bc69-0f86-417a-9727-e88622130914 9/14/20132:29 AM bp-6ae9815f-1472-492d-8738-1cd842130914 9/14/20131:01 AM

Modified by mnalep

Chosen solution

Where do I set the dom.ipc.plugins.* preferences? ( I do not see any plugins or extensions from Tools-Addons that look like dom.ipc.plugins?)

Extensions I have are:

Addblock

Browsing protection

Troubleshooter

YesScript


PLugins:

Java

Shockwave


Would you point me to where in the mozilla crash reports I would find the number of tabs open, and the memory as the crash cause? (just so I can check out after I try resetting that plugin.exe to begin running again I can take a look and see if memory usage is better - or should I be looking at task manager for that information also)?

I did notice the crash reason in the report was 'EXCEPTION_BREAKPOINT', I suppose that is an error exception reason due to many different causes?

I also noticed one crash report listed:

Total Virtual Memory: 2147352576

Available Virtual Memory: 533061632

System Memory Use Percentage: 72

Available Page File: 3324129280

Available Physical Memory: 852447232

Is that the indication for out of memory you are seeing?

Are these 'bad' (too high of usage) memory values?

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (5)

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These crash reports can be hard to interpret, but at least the six from 9/16 seem to be "out of memory" (OOM) errors. Assuming that is the case, the question is what might be done about that.

This support article has a range of suggestions, including not having more than 100 tabs open and possibly useful add-ons. Firefox uses too much memory or CPU resources - How to fix. In a bug report, I also saw an extension that displays the usage on the add-on bar, which might help in keeping an eye on it.

I noticed you have several dom.ipc.plugins.* preferences set to False, which may force some plugins to run in firefox.exe rather than plugin-container.exe. The design of the process isolation feature is that plugin crashes will take down plugin-container.exe rather than firefox.exe. It may also be that overriding process isolation is ballooning the memory usage by firefox.exe rather than more evenly distributing it between the two processes. You may want to restore those settings to their defaults and see whether that helps.

Finally, to reduce the size of your sessionrestore.js file you could omit personal data (e.g., cookies, form data), but this will make it a bit harder after a crash to get back to where you were.

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Chosen Solution

Where do I set the dom.ipc.plugins.* preferences? ( I do not see any plugins or extensions from Tools-Addons that look like dom.ipc.plugins?)

Extensions I have are:

Addblock

Browsing protection

Troubleshooter

YesScript


PLugins:

Java

Shockwave


Would you point me to where in the mozilla crash reports I would find the number of tabs open, and the memory as the crash cause? (just so I can check out after I try resetting that plugin.exe to begin running again I can take a look and see if memory usage is better - or should I be looking at task manager for that information also)?

I did notice the crash reason in the report was 'EXCEPTION_BREAKPOINT', I suppose that is an error exception reason due to many different causes?

I also noticed one crash report listed:

Total Virtual Memory: 2147352576

Available Virtual Memory: 533061632

System Memory Use Percentage: 72

Available Page File: 3324129280

Available Physical Memory: 852447232

Is that the indication for out of memory you are seeing?

Are these 'bad' (too high of usage) memory values?

Modified by mnalep

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On the first page of the crash report, after the table of data, is a link to the bug tracking system (Bugzilla) with discussion of that particular crash signature.

You can adjust your dom.ipc settings using the about:config preferences editor:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste ipc and pause while the list is filtered

To reset non-default values to default, you can right-click a preference and choose Reset from the context menu. These changes seem likely to take effect after your next restart.

Edit: Please ignore that extraneous paragraph about new tabs, that related to a different thread.

Modified by jscher2000 - Support Volunteer

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OK, I found that, I have 5 preferences set to FALSE with .ipc. in the name:

dom.ipc.plugins.enabled

dom.ipc.plugins.flash.subprocess.crashreporter.enabled

dom.ipc.plugins.reportCrashURL

dom.ipc.plugins.java.enabled

network.disable.ipc.security

Are you suggesting all of these, some of these?

Are any of these preferences related in such a way that they are dependant on another one? (I was wondering if the wrong changes could crash FF, or use the pulgin.exe, or something els, incorrectly

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Hi mnalep, this is my understanding:

dom.ipc.plugins.enabled -- this is the "master" preference that should be true

dom.ipc.plugins.flash.subprocess.crashreporter.enabled -- if true, increases detail in crash reporting (probably doesn't affect stability)

dom.ipc.plugins.reportCrashURL -- if true, increases detail in crash reporting (probably doesn't affect stability)

dom.ipc.plugins.java.enabled -- the default appears to be false

network.disable.ipc.security -- not sure ipc means the same thing here, probably unrelated