Strange Firefox behaviour

O

oboyco

Gawd
Joined
Apr 11, 2005
Messages
533
I am running Firefox 2.0 and just yesterday, all of a sudden, whenever I hit my back button the previous page automatically refloads. Never before did this. I rebooted my machine and it was fine for a short period of time, and then started reloading pages again.

Am I missing something in the tools/options? I really do not want to reload every page, every time I hit the back button. Maybe this is a good opportunity to upgrade to Firefox 3.
 
So let me get this right: you're hitting the Back button, and when you do the browser is actually loading the previous page you visited - which is exactly what's supposed to happen when you hit the Back button - but perhaps you're having issues with the fact that it's reloading the page...? Is that right? Hmmm...

If I had to guess I'd say some but not all pages won't reside in the memory cache as we'd all like; some pages actually force a reload of fresh content as soon as they start to load. I can't quote a specific example right here in this exact moment, but there are some pages that automagically reload fully over the Internet connection I have have (cable) even though they're stored in the memory cache. I keep my FF3 RAM cache set to 255MB as the default of 76MB most of the time isn't enough.

That would be my suggestion if you're willing: increase the size of your memory cache under the Network options in FF and see what happens. But realize that some pages will force a full reload because of the content on the page.

Not really sure why this would be a "problem" but, to each their own I suppose...
 
Ok, clearing my cache, and setting to 255mb did the trick! Should have known.

The reason I don't like the auto reload, is because some of the forums I visit move at a very high rate of speed. For example if I look at a page and see 2 threads I am interested in, by the time I read one, and hit back, the other threads of interest could already be on page 2, 3, or even 4. Then I have to search every page.

Thanks a bunch Joe.
 
Yah, I've seen that issue on some forums, they're just too damned busy. :)

If I find a topic worth reading I simply wheelclick it and open it in a separate tab and keep the layout of the main listing there where it can update when I hit the subforum link again.

The FF memory cache follows the F.I.L.O. (First In Last Out) policy as new content pushes out the old stuff. On some people's machines, the 76MB default setting fills up fast and these days, some webpages have a lot of content. I can do 76MB of surfing on just a few websites so, as soon as that buffer is filled and content begins to get pushed out it'll be forced to reload content again...
 
Is it possible to take that cache to 1gb or more? I have 8gb system ram, that is nowhere close to being used.
 
Set it for whatever you want, just realize that whatever amount you choose can and will get used at some point. Firefox will just toss every single object, file, image, Javascript, code, etc into that cache... that's one reason Firefox is typically faster than IE - IE still uses a disk-based cache for content whereas Firefox uses actual RAM.

Load it up... ;)
 
When you alter that setting it doesn't automagically consume the given amount of RAM you request for it - meaning if you set it for 1024MB (1GB) it's not going to show Firefox as sucking down 1GB or more of RAM in Task Manager, but over time that RAM will be used as Firefox uses the cache to store more and more data as you surf. You can always just empty the cache with a few clicks anyway and start clean...
 
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