Firefox is going crazy!

munkle

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Jan 16, 2005
Messages
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With only one web page open firefox is using 50% cpu and 111mb of ram. Firefox is fully updated, along with my whole system. Whats going?

Heres a pic.

50651320hj9.jpg
 
Probably one of the extensions going haywire. This "issue" has been tied to extensions, addons, plugins, Java, and a host of other things in my experience, and still they haven't really nailed it down yet. FF3 doesn't look like it's going to be all that either, unfortunately.

I keep Firefox 2 around with some extensions I prefer, but these days I use IE7Pro as my primary browser. Fast as hell, relatively secure (backed up by Windows Defender and of course, NOD32) so I'm happy with it so far. Once Avant moves on to being Gecko powered, I might switch over depending on that actually becoming a reality.

Also you should change your Task Manager to show more relevant info to look like this:

taskmanagermh3.png


The basic default info is relatively useless because although a program can be using <x> amount of actual physical RAM (as your pic shows), what's going on behind the scenes is what really matters the most and the VM usage can spike ridiculously high - if that happens, your pagefile gets slammed more often and system performance suffers. Also, XP has a "handle limit" of about 10,000 handles for most purposes. If that number jumps up over 10K because some program is coded poorly, you get that dreaded slowdown of the entire system as it chokes and bogs down - yet Task Manager will say you have RAM and nothing is using CPU time. It's the number of handles choking the system, and there's a way to increase it over the defaults also.

Hope this helps, somewhat...
 
My guess is its flash since that is only thing else used on the hard forum (unless I'm missing something?). It hasn't done this before though on flash sites until the newest firefox update.

I didn't even know you could change the task manager, thats a sweet bit of info.

I'd use IE7 if I didn't hate the controls layout.
 
the new firefox precaches almost as aggresivly as vista.

It predicts what links your going to click on and then starts loading the page.

+ faster load times
- much much MUCH more memory used.

if you leave the same thing running for a few days without touching it on a website with a big database I've seen firefox take up as much as 700mb
 
the new firefox precaches almost as aggresivly as vista.

It predicts what links your going to click on and then starts loading the page.

+ faster load times
- much much MUCH more memory used.

if you leave the same thing running for a few days without touching it on a website with a big database I've seen firefox take up as much as 700mb

I don't see how its any faster when it's slow as molasses and lags just scrolling down the page?
 
Firefox 1.x and 2.x with the FasterFox extension does that also: it's called (curiously enough) Prefetching, and realistically it creates a lot more bandwidth on servers than required. It's going to go start downloading all the data from links already on a page, the so-called "read ahead" feature. In the long run it means your connection is busy most all the time (most people could care less) but what's really bad is it means the servers you're connecting to are forced to give up data regardless of whether you intended to vist the page or not.

Great way to spread stuff around fast, ain't it? :D

I don't use it myself because a lot of ISPs will actually complain if you do - when you go to enable that specific feature of the FasterFox extension you actually get a warning that it's not recommended, but at that point most people probably turn it on anyway.
 
*snip*
Also you should change your Task Manager to show more relevant info to look like this:

taskmanagermh3.png


The basic default info is relatively useless because although a program can be using <x> amount of actual physical RAM (as your pic shows), what's going on behind the scenes is what really matters the most and the VM usage can spike ridiculously high - if that happens, your pagefile gets slammed more often and system performance suffers. Also, XP has a "handle limit" of about 10,000 handles for most purposes. If that number jumps up over 10K because some program is coded poorly, you get that dreaded slowdown of the entire system as it chokes and bogs down - yet Task Manager will say you have RAM and nothing is using CPU time. It's the number of handles choking the system, and there's a way to increase it over the defaults also.

Hope this helps, somewhat...

Is that Vista? I'm not seeing the VM option in Home Premium 32-bit. :confused:
 
Vista does things a bit differently and calls such settings the "working set." I'm not 100% sure which specific "working set" reading is the equivalent of the same setting in XP (VM Size), so... just add a few of the working set columns and you'll figure it out. :)

If I figure it out myself (not running Vista currently, sorry) I'll update this post...
 
Tried the Working Sets. No go, but thanks for the reply. I am surprised you're not running Vista ;)
 
I do audio production work that requires the hardware to work and the software to work and that means I can't use Vista. It's not Vista's fault specifically; it's the fault of Microsoft for ripping out DirectSound, and the fault of the hardware makers for not writing the damned drivers to work correctly with the new audio subsystem, as well as the fault of the software makers not writing software that then works with the new audio subsystem either. :)

I have it installed in a dual boot (Vista Business) because I do testing, troubleshooting, and near constant tech support across like 27 forums on the Internet and in other ways, but... until the audio issues are resolved that I have with Vista - again, not because of Vista, just happening with Vista - I'll pass on it as my day to day OS of choice.

XP x64 handles that just damned fine. :)
 
I'm having the same issue in XP, with no problems before they updated FF, as I just posted in response to another post elsewhere.

It's intermittent for me right now, but depending on what sites are open in a few different tabs (no particular sites seems to do it, hence I cant pinpoint any other culprit; just happens when it "feels like" doing it), it's used upwards of 124MB of mem (roughly the same in VM) and upwards of 50-60% CPU which has never happened to me before the update.

Interesting you do audio production work. I'm a musician of twenty years myself and do the same, and also can not use Vista for that (and other) reason as well.
 
It predicts what links your going to click on and then starts loading the page.

Unless FF has telepathic powers I really don't see how that is possible and don't believe it either. Or is your post missing a winky?
 
I HAVE THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM :(
Win XP, ever since the last update...

After I use it a while, it starts lagging a crapload, especially like if I try to scroll down a page. I have to "restart" firefox every 10 minutes if I don't want it to completely freeze up.
 
I think we can safely dismiss pre-caching as NOT being the source of the problem...

so what is it? ionno firefox has been a wee bit of a pain in the ass for me (which is annoying since I liked to believe Mozilla was one of those software groups that got good rock solid software down to a science).
 
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