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Your system has run out of application memory - Mac

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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running Catalina, I've stopped using FireFox because it seems to have a memory leak. I now get messages saying "your system has run out of application memory", and Firefox is using 5 times as much memory as chrome, while I only have one window open in firefox. I stop getting the message when I shut down Firefox. I'm not sure how I'll know if this is fixed. Sorry Firefox, I like your privacy and security and Duck Duck Go, but taking down my system is not ok.

running Catalina, I've stopped using FireFox because it seems to have a memory leak. I now get messages saying "your system has run out of application memory", and Firefox is using 5 times as much memory as chrome, while I only have one window open in firefox. I stop getting the message when I shut down Firefox. I'm not sure how I'll know if this is fixed. Sorry Firefox, I like your privacy and security and Duck Duck Go, but taking down my system is not ok.
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Chosen solution

What is the size of the profile folder in both locations ?

Location used for the main profile that keeps your personal data (Root Directory on about:profiles).

  • ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/<profile>/

Location used for the disk cache and other temporary files (Local Directory on about:profiles).

  • ~/Library/Caches/Firefox/Profiles/<profile>/
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All Replies (8)

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700 MB isn't exceptionally high memory usage for Firefox.

How much physical memory do you have installed on your computer ?

Your Mac OS should also be able to swap unused memory to the hard drive for extra virtual memory. I don't know how this works on Mac, Windows has a page file and Linux has a special swap partition and I assume that Mac functions the same as Linux.

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Thanks for the reply. I agree it isn't a lot and I have 16 Gb of memory, and strangely my activity monitor never shows any pressure at the time and shows 4-6 Gb of free memory, but I usually have the message after not using the computer for a while, so I don't actually see it pop up, but it's there when I go give password and start working again. It does seem like a lot of memory for 1 window with 1 tab in FireFox, and as I said, no messages since quitting use of Firefox. I'll post if it comes back when Firefox not running and start bumping up the number of windows I run in Chrome to see if I can get any change in response. At first I suspected something like Malwarebytes running in the background. Yes, the Mac will use the hard drive for extra virtual memory and I checked to see if it was full, but only about half used. So far Firefox is a likely suspect. I guess I could quit Chrome and only run Firefox and see what happens.

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Is this message coming from the Mac OS or from Firefox as the latter might have other causes like exceeding your DOM storage quota ?

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Chosen Solution

What is the size of the profile folder in both locations ?

Location used for the main profile that keeps your personal data (Root Directory on about:profiles).

  • ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/<profile>/

Location used for the disk cache and other temporary files (Local Directory on about:profiles).

  • ~/Library/Caches/Firefox/Profiles/<profile>/
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It's from the OS. I didn't find any Firefox directory in either of those paths.

Thanks for the trouble shooting. I think I'll try my plan to run just Firefox and see if I still get the problem.

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Note that in Mac OS X v10.7 and later, the "~/Library" folder in the Home directory is a hidden folder.

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The Application support one is 538 Mb The Cache one is 398 Mb

I already had the hidden folders as viewable, I just went down to root to try to follow the path.

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You can find a button on the about:profiles page to go to each profile folder.