Hi,

Has any of you noticed that firefox usage of RAM continues to climb when one of it's tabs is gmail? is it possible that this is true for all google services (youtube, gmail ...) ?

I noticed this even with the newest version of firefox (50.1.0) and the newest version of Debian 8.6 and gnome.

I have 4 GB RAM and about 7GB SWAP on thinkpad laptop .

At the time of posting this the usage of firefox while with only two tabs, gmail and youtube was as follows :

firefox: Virtual MEM = 1.9GB , Resident MEM = 1GB , Memory 950MB .

Any thoughts or help would be greatly appreciated .

Thanks,

Well, gmail does not creep up here when it's just sitting there; I have GKrellM running -- it monitors all kinds of stuff going on -- and the entire system is just sitting there mumbling to itself at 1% or less most of the time (things do start up, run for a while then go away). You probably have GKRellM on your system, it's kind of handy for seeing what's going on.

Started YouTube, same thing, sudden peak, few seconds later back to idle.

This is Slackware 64 14.2, Firefox ESR 45.6.0 (Slackware supports the ESR version rather than the constant updates), kernel 4.4.38. The only two extensions in Firefox are Adblock Plus and No Script.

Do have a plethora of Firefox extensions by any chance?

I don't normally using Gmail with Firefox, I prefer Thunderbird. I do not notice any creep with both Firefox and Thunderbird running (24-7, by the way, I rarely stop either of them).

So, I don't know what may be happening, I just know it does not happen here.

Hope this helps some.

Hi,

Thanks for your reply, I use the 'top' tool and the gnome system monitor and not GKrellM !

can you tell me how you launch firefox? from terminal or the menu? does it make any difference ?

Anyway, Gnome is not supported under slackware so I don't think the problem is relevant to your system, initially I thought that gnome-shell leaks memory, but then I noticed that firefox consumption of RAM continues to rise if Gmail is opened and also when using youtube, specially when viewing a live channel on it, do you think that it stores the downloaded data on RAM ?

Can you tell me how much RAM does your firefox use with youtube running?

BTW, Adblock plus uses a lot of RAM there are other ad blocking tools which are lighter and as efficient as Adblock Plus.

I have only too extensions, ad blocker which uses few Mega Bytes only and addons-memory.

Thanks ,

I use the Xfce window manager and launch Firefox (and other applications) from an icon on the desktop. Xfce is (much) lighter than KDE for example. I gave up on GNOME years ago when Slackware removed it from the standard distribution because of bloat and too much maintenance. Just for grins I stopped Firefox and launched from a terminal and let it run for a while but did not see any difference.

This is what top reports:
if that helps any.

There is 8 G RAM in the box, a Dell Optiplex 780.

I also started up my laptop, a Dell Inspiron 1750 (with 8 G RAM in it), let it run for while and kept an eye on GKrellM, same thing as above, hit while starting, settles down to less than 2%.

Both machines are configured identically, Maria DB is running, PostgreSQL is running, neither is doing much of anything until a query happens and both are Xfce.

I would note that neither machine swaps much (at least not that I notice).

One other thing that top reports is
Basically, the box is just mumbling to itself with occasional burps when my two data base servers (headless boxes) wake up and transmit back and forth to the second drive on the Optiplex.

So, I dunno. Maybe GNOME is a heavy hitter but I can't see any ramping up of Firefox, Thunderbird, Xfce or anything else. BTW, I see the same usage when Seamonky is running, both cores at 1% or 2% (or 0%, too). I do fiddle with Seamonky every so often, I still miss Netscape and need a fix.

Hope this helps some.

Hi again,

What is the advantages of thunderbird/icedove compared to opening gmail using firefox?
I found that it needs a lot of configurations and addons.

When you play a live streaming channel on youtube, do you notice that the RAM usage continues to rise ? can you test this for me?

I like Gnome since it is very fast and every thing can be done using shortcuts on the keyboard in addition to it's theme and functionality .

Thanks,

Thunderbird, in which I have never found any reason for add extensions, just sits there, wakes up every so often and checks for new mail. One advantage of GMAIL is that they filter out all the crap for you (without any extensions) except for the occasional need for going to the web page and marking one or two annoying spam as spam and then Google takes care of it. I haven't found a need for doing that for about a year-and-a-half, though.

I do configure GMAIL with the pop server (so mail downloads) and it works just fine -- I get the mail, a copy stays on the Google server and I'm happy. BTW, the configuration is, pretty much, automagic, just be sure to select POP.

No, I do not notice that RAM use does anything much. Watching a YouTube video doesn't load enough to be of concern (I ran the history of linux video on LQ, no problems, no fuss, no muss.

Hey, Linux is all about choice -- browser, window manager, you name it. I us Xfce because it is light, has everything I want to work with (no eye candy thankfully). Other folks like KDE (I don't, so I don't use it), still others prefer GNOME. Essentially, you get to do whatever floats your boat and it's free!

So, I don't seem to have problems with mail or video.

Hope this helps some.

Hi,

Do think that the problem is that I am using a version of firefox beyond the one supported by Debian 8.6?
I do not use iceweasel but the newest version of firefox (50.1.0) instead, could this be the problem?
BTW, firefox-esr (45.6.0) is supported by debian 8.6 .

Thanks,

I doubt it. I assume you downloaded and installed the version you're using directly from Mozilla? I occasionally go rogue and uninstall the ESR version and download and install the current release version (the RPM one that I use the rpm2tgz utility provided with Slackware to install RPMs as Slackware packages). I usually leave it there for a day or two just to see what's what and then remove and replace it with the Slackware ESR version.

It seems pretty typical that the "official" releases from Mozilla are stable and do work properly, at least that's been my experience. There are all kinds of hinky versions of Firefox and Thunderbird offered "free" by companies that load up their "free" version with all kinds of crap (more for Windows than Linux but still crap), you really have to look hard at the URL that you're downloading and make sure it's coming directly from Mozilla.

Slackware releases software that is un-fooled-around-with (as much as is possible), what you get is what the developers intended, no branding, no advertising, no crap. It looks, feel and works the way it's intended to. Pat won't embed the Slackware logo in any software and you have to edit the general.useragent.override parameter to get the logo to appear in LQ posts.

About your creeping RAM problem I do not know -- as I've said, I don't have the problem with Firefox or Firefox and YouTube together and I don't know what to tell you... well, maybe -- try setting up a test user running, say, Xfce (instead of GNOME) and see what happens?

Hope this helps some.

I download the firefox from mozilla site.

I think the problem is that when I run youtube it stores the downloaded data on the RAM, I do not know whether this is the normal behavior however.

When I watch the same live streaming from youtube but using livestreamer and mplayer, the RAM usage remains steady.

gnome-shell usage of RAM does increase a little over time, restarting gnome using (Alt F2, r, Enter) does free significant amount of RAM, does any one of you gnome users encounter this?

For Gnome users, how much RAM does your gnome-shell consumes ?

Thanks,

Don't have any Gnome users.

Gave up on Gnome quite a few years ago.

Hi tronayne,

I meant Gnome users on this forum, not you specifically !

thanks any way for your help,