Firefox uses all the memory and mint hangs

[mailak]

Firefox uses all the memory and mint hangs every ~2 days.
7.5GB ram, Mint 21.1
How to limit memory usage for firefox?

[Cosmo.]

Some more information is needed, starting with the system specs; at now we know nothing.
Open in the menu -> system report -> system information -> click the copy button; paste in your next post.

[mailak]

System:
Kernel: 5.15.0-56-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.3.0 Desktop: MATE 1.26.0 wm: marco
dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 21.1 Vera base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 23923QG v: ThinkPad T530

What is it needed for?
I think that memory limitation method does not depend either this is Lenovo or not!

[altair4]

Firefox gives you a couple of tools that will at least tell you which tab or process is using the most memory.

Type in the location bar one of these:

Code: Select all

about:performance

Code: Select all

about:processes

And they are dynamic so if you open a new tab for instance it will show up as a new line in the "performance" query.

[zcot]

So, likely you are going through many tabs. And if you go for days, then you can just periodically close firefox, open it again and select settings -> history -> restore previous session. -that will deactivate the tabs although they will be there and will activate when you click them.

[motoryzen]

mailak

What cosmo mean was...

1. Press that start button aka Windows Logo button on your keyboard, type without quotes " system reports"
2. click the "System information" button on the upper left, copy button on bottom right
3. come back and and paste.

This does'nt give any personally identifiable info but gives much more than what you posted. The mods of this site put that how to get help link above for good reason..to save time on speculation. By posting the info requested you speed things up.

I"m not saying you didn't try, but give it another shot

[zcot]

The system info is really not required here. -enough info is available to tailor an answer, or don't answer, it's pretty clear. We can go off on a tangent, sure, or just at least give a good start as a base effort, or don't. -do it for the post count if you want to.

[Petermint]

In a 4 GB machine with Firefox, I shut Firefox and the OS down completely overnight. Masses of Web browsing did not fill 4 GB in a day. The next day started fresh and clean.
* I also added NoScript to block the Javajunk and the OS + Firefox rarely passed 2.6 GB.
* I did not watch big videos in the Web browser.

What sites do you visit? How many tabs open? Any add-ons?

[tenplus1]

Personally I go into about:config and change these settings to help memory use in Firefox:

browser.cache.memory.enable (false)
browser.cache.disk.enable (false)
browser.cache.offline.enable (false)
network.prefetch-next (false)
browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers (0)
browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers (1500000)

[mailak]

tenplus1
What are these settings for?
I made the following changes:
browser.cache.memory.capacity -1 --> 102400
network.prefetch-next true --> false
browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers -1 --> 4
browser.sessionhistory.max_entries 50 --> 5
Pages many different incl. gmail, youtube and facebook

System:
Kernel: 5.15.0-56-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.3.0 Desktop: MATE 1.26.0 wm: marco
dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 21.1 Vera base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 23923QG v: ThinkPad T530 serial: <superuser required>
Chassis: type: 10 serial: <superuser required>
Mobo: LENOVO model: 23923QG serial: <superuser required> UEFI-[Legacy]: LENOVO
v: G4ETA7WW (2.67 ) date: 08/24/2016
...
CPU:
Info: dual core model: Intel Core i5-3210M bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Ivy Bridge rev: 9 cache:
L1: 128 KiB L2: 512 KiB L3: 3 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 2536 high: 2735 min/max: 1200/3100 cores: 1: 2482 2: 2735 3: 2372 4: 2557
bogomips: 19955
Flags: avx ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics vendor: Lenovo driver: i915 v: kernel ports:
active: LVDS-1 empty: DP-1, DP-2, DP-3, HDMI-A-1, HDMI-A-2, HDMI-A-3, VGA-1 bus-ID: 00:02.0
chip-ID: 8086:0166
Device-2: Acer ThinkPad Integrated Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-1.6:5
chip-ID: 5986:02d2
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.3 compositor: marco v: 1.26.0 driver: X:
loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa gpu: i915 display-ID: :0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1600x900 s-dpi: 96
Monitor-1: LVDS-1 model: Lenovo res: 1600x900 dpi: 118 diag: 396mm (15.6")
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 4000 (IVB GT2) v: 4.2 Mesa 22.0.5 compat-v: 3.1
direct render: Yes
...
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 48.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (RPM): fan-1: 1973
Repos:
Packages: apt: 2040
No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
1: deb http: //packages.linuxmint.com vera main upstream import backport
2: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy main restricted universe multiverse
3: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
4: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
5: deb http: //security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-security main restricted universe multiverse
Info:
Processes: 291 Uptime: 6d 34m Memory: 7.47 GiB used: 6.4 GiB (85.7%) Init: systemd v: 249
runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 11.3.0 alt: 11 Client: Unknown python3.10 client inxi: 3.3.13


I use mobile internet from a cellular phone.
Could be somehow also max memory used by firefox limited i.e. to ~2-4 GB?
Having ~7.5GB of memory, I would like to have some memory for other processes even if FF uses all allowed.

[billyswong]

If you don't install any ad-blocker or script-blocker extension to Firefox, leaving it open overnight will engulf a lot of RAM easily. Shut it down before sleep then use session restore to pick things back up is necessary to prevent hang if you want to stay generous to advertisement companies and their memory hogging spying code.

[mailak]

Hi,
I use AdBlocker Ultimate

[mailak]

Additionally changed command to:
systemd-run --unit=my-firefox --user --scope -p MemoryHigh=2G -p MemoryMax=3G -p MemorySwapMax=1G firefox %U
Don't know what are parameters: systemd-run --unit=my-firefox --user --scope
The only problem is that firefox doesn't "remember" tabs which were opened.
How to solve it?

[billyswong]

The only problem is that firefox doesn't "remember" tabs which were opened.

Method 1 (once):
≡ > History > Restore Previous Session
Method 2 (always):
≡ > Settings > General > Startup > Open previous windows and tabs

Or do you mean Firefox launched by your command can't restore session?

[mailak]

Method 2 seems to be working. I had this setting chosen previously that's why I didn't check it before.
Method 1 > History > Restore Previous Session didn't work at all

[mailak]

Finally changed Firefox settings to this:
systemd-run --unit=my-firefox --user --scope -p MemoryHigh=2.5G -p MemoryMax=3G -p MemorySwapMax=0.5G firefox %U
But anyways sometimes firefox is not much responsive (which is still much better than laptop hard reset and other applications are working properly).
Maybe Firefox is not the best browser possible.
How to set similar settings to chromium? Are settings like below good and correct? What would you recommend regarding chromium?
chromium --disable-gpu %U
systemd-run --unit=my-chrome --user --scope -p MemoryHigh=2.5G -p MemoryMax=3G -p MemorySwapMax=0.5G chromium %U

[ivar]

If you don't install any ad-blocker or script-blocker extension to Firefox, leaving it open overnight will engulf a lot of RAM easily.

found the same here, enventually both memory and swap fills up and makes things sluggish. Stopping/restarting FF usually clears out the hogged RAM, but I often have to reboot to get if to flush all my swap
Machine: i5 gen4 , 4 GB ram, 6,5 GB swap. uBlock Origin to stop ads

[mailak]

What I found is that firefox is good until it gets problems and hangs.
Chromium (Chrome for Linux) seems to be working much better.
Suggested solution is not to use firefox at all but use Chromium instead!
I start Chromim with parameters as below. Not sure either it makes sense but recently Chromium works well.
systemd-run --unit=my-chrome --user --scope -p MemoryHigh=2.5G -p MemoryMax=3G -p MemorySwapMax=0.5G chromium %U

[mailak]

Update:

Setting for Chromium:
systemd-run --unit=my-chrome --user --scope -p MemoryHigh=3.5G -p MemoryMax=3.5G -p MemorySwapMax=0G chromium %U

Setting for Firerox:
systemd-run --unit=my-firefox --user --scope -p MemoryHigh=2.0G -p MemoryMax=2.0G -p MemorySwapMax=0G firefox %U
Main browser is Chromium.

[stevengarland]

Easy to limit tabs with XTab. I only allow 4 and have no problem.