Firefox 3 RC1 High CPU and Memory Use? Try This Fix.
Posted by Kirk M on 22 May 2008 | Tagged as: Just Thinkin
This post is out of date: Please see the updated post on my new tech site–Green Mountain Geek
In testing out Firefox 3 RC1 I realized that when loading up a page in a foreground tab when two or more tabs were present, my single core CPU maxed out and loading slowed to a crawl making the browser unresponsive until I switched the tab into the background to let it finish loading. At that point, CPU usage returned to normal. As long as the tab that was loading remained in the background, the CPU never rose above an average of 20% max not counting the occasional spike or two from flash and script content.
Other folks were having these problems also which included high initial memory use for some as well so after much troubleshooting and constructive cursing I finally found the culprit that was causing this high CPU/memory use problem and I’m passing it on.
The fix is actually pretty simple and involves changing the state of “browser.cache.memory.enable” in Firefox’s “about:config“. Just follow the simple instructions under the image below:
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Type “about:config” into the FIrefox 3 RC1 location bar and tell it you’ll be careful (you’ll see what I mean).
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When the list of configuration options shows up, type “cache” without the quotes into the search bar as shown above. A list of all entries will appear with the word “cache” in them.
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Change the state of the “browser.cache.memory.enable” entry to “false” by double clicking on the entry itself. Make sure the state has indeed changed to “false”.
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Restart the browser and you’re done.
Firefox RC1 should now run right along nice and fast no matter what tab is loading in the foreground and without the high CPU use as I saw before the change and apparently the memory problem is also fixed. Performance in RC1 does not seem to be degraded at all by this change and speeds things up nicely.
If this fix helps anyone running Firefox RC1, please leave a comment and let me know as I’m really curious if this works for others as well.
Possibly Related Matter
26 Comments »
on 03 Jun 2008 at 3:20 pm 1.Greg said …
It fixed my Firefox RC1 100% cpu usage.
Thanks for the help
on 03 Jun 2008 at 10:29 pm 2.Kirk M said …
@Greg:
Glad I could help and BTW, I’m seeing the same problem in RC2 (I knew where to scarf the latest build of RC2 off of Mozilla’s FTP server, mwua-ha-ha-ha!). The same fix works for that build also. Thanks for commenting!
I’ll have to update the post with the links to the forum thread I started and the bug report I filed. Can’t believe I didn’t do that in the first place. Must be gettin’ old or something.
on 19 Jun 2008 at 7:25 pm 3.Marcus said …
I upgraded from FF 2 to FF 3 and was immediately faced with FF running very slow and CPU maxed. Your fix has speed things up dramatically. The CPU still spikes to max, but only for a fleeting moment. Before it was staying there like 5 to 10 secs!
on 21 Jun 2008 at 9:39 am 4.Kirk M said …
Marcus, (welcome!)
Glad it worked out for you. This seems to be working for a lot of folks out there which tells me the problem is indeed wide spread. I have 2 links on the updated post mentioned at the beginning of this post. One links to the Mozillazine forum thread on this and the second the the bug report I filed. Could you possibly leave this info and your system info on one of them? It would help immensely.
on 26 Jun 2008 at 10:28 am 5.SilverWave said …
My problem looked similar but turned out to be caused be a bug with LiveBookMarks loading:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=329534
Bug 329534 – Live bookmarks load way too aggressive (lock up/hang/freeze browser)
Still open from 2006-03-06 :
on 27 Jun 2008 at 8:33 am 6.Kirk M said …
SilverWave, (welcome!)
I believe this problem is fixed in Firefox 3.01 which is due early to mid July. It’s a stability release and fixes a ton of problems that have been found since the release of 3.0.
on 05 Jul 2008 at 12:13 pm 7.Cipherheus said …
I have noticed that the cpu and memory increase
when I minimize my tabs and do other non-resource intensive (read pdf, have txt file open ect..) all of a sudden I hear my hard drive crunching constantly as if I were doing a search or defraging (win xp, working on switching to linux :-)). When I look at the process running it is firefox. It seems that every time I have firefox open and minimized (or am not using firefox and it is still loaded or idle for a few minutes), it becomes very active and consumes cpu and memory. The last time this happend I did a google search, had the list of results minimized, the page and was reading a txt file, then the HDD and memory consumption spiked.
I have noticed this in both firefox 2 and the current 3 RC1 which I am using now.
I used this fix back when I had version 2 and it seemed to help.
Thanx Cipherheus
on 05 Jul 2008 at 3:15 pm 8.Kirk M said …
Hi Cipherheus,
Here’s a couple of suggestions that I’m sure will help.
First and foremost, the problem with your HDD crunching away like that is most likely due to Firefox populating the anti-phishing SQLite database (urlclassifier3.sqlite) with updated information and in Firefox 3 RC1 there’s a major bug with that along with several others. I strongly suggest updating to the final version of Firefox 3.0 asap. That should cure your problem.
On the off chance the problem still exists then you may have a corrupted profile. In this case it’s best to jot down a list of your extensions, backup your Bookmarks and uninstall Firefox completely. Once that’s done do a fresh install of Firefox, import (restore) your bookmarks and install your extensions.
By the way, Firefox does not give up any memory when it’s minimized as other programs do so you’ll definitely get some benefit from this Firefox tweak post I’ve written up on my other site. I use this tweak myself and it works great.
Hope this helps.
on 06 Jul 2008 at 3:20 pm 9.JoseF said …
It worked very fine for me too. Thanks from Brazil.
on 07 Jul 2008 at 9:21 am 10.Kirk M said …
JoseF
You’re welcome, from Vermont.
on 08 Jul 2008 at 4:05 am 11.Mess Zack said …
Thanks a lot mate, the tweak does look like its working. CPU now is 00 rather than 99% when firefox is idle. Me from Malaysia.
on 09 Jul 2008 at 1:00 pm 12.Kirk M said …
Zack,
Glad it worked to you. Interesting it’s working for so many Firefox 3 users.
on 12 Jul 2008 at 5:27 am 13.KM said …
Hey thanks very much for this tip, what puzzles me is that while you talk about RC1 solution appears to work as well for the present/latest release.
All the same, your post solved my problems on the spot! Cheers!
on 13 Jul 2008 at 9:55 pm 14.Kirk M said …
KM,
(welcome)
Indeed it does work on the final release and I have an updated post that’s located on a new site just for that reason. You can find the updated article by clicking the link at the top of this page.
Glad it worked for you.
on 17 Jul 2008 at 3:41 pm 15.eric said …
thanks a million this advice got me going again
on 17 Aug 2008 at 1:18 pm 16.vergo said …
Thanks a lot, it look like its working cpu usage went down
on 28 Aug 2008 at 9:40 pm 17.frank said …
I tried this fix on my FF ver 3, but everytime I go into Gametrailers.com to watch the game video’s I still get 100% cpu usage. I thought at first my 20mb was slow but I checked that and was getting 17mb at the time.
on 02 Sep 2008 at 2:03 am 18.ray said …
you can’t imagine how i hoped it would have worked for me. everytime i try to run youtube videos it goes to 100% and stays. even when i close the tab it still stays at 100%.
any more suggestions would be greatly accepted.
ray
on 02 Sep 2008 at 10:13 am 19.Kirk M said …
Hi ray,
This fix was only for those experiencing high CPU usage when loading/reloading a tab in the foreground in a multi-tab situation. The problem only affects some and not others. The Flash problem relates to the poor quality of Adobe’s Flash plugin for Firefox/Opera and not really a function or problem with Firefox.
I’m finding in my troubleshooting that a combination of CPU and certain video cards/drivers will increase or decrease the severity of the problem but I haven’t narrowed it down to specific combination(s) yet. I can tell you that running “on-board” video or a poor quality video card can make the problem significantly worse (these two types tend to use the CPU to power some or all of the video on your PC thereby increasing the problem).
on 02 Sep 2008 at 4:39 pm 20.Ray said …
I was able to fix my problem with the following instructions from the Roboform website. Believe me before this I had done everything I could find. Most likely I have a more efficient computer now but I also have a working FireFox using the latest Flash upgrade. I hope this helps some others that just could find a solution.
Reinstall Firefox if Browser Profile is Damaged.
Due to a number of reasons your browser profile may become damaged and corrupted.
Symptoms: old RF adapter cannot be uninstalled, skins are corrupted, etc.
The only way to fix a problem is to do a complete reinstall of Firefox and Mozilla:
* Close all Firefox and Mozilla windows and its taskbar icon.
* Uninstall Firefox from “Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs”.
* Uninstall Mozilla from “Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs”.
* Delete folder C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Mozilla.
* Delete folder C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox.
* Delete folder C:\Program Files\mozilla.org.
* Delete folder C:\Program Files\Common Files\mozilla.org.
* Search for all folders that contain “Firefox” or “Mozilla” in their name and delete them.
* Install Firefox (or Mozilla) again.
* Install RoboForm Adapter/Extension as described above.
Similar instructions apply to Netscape.
on 22 Sep 2008 at 5:12 am 21.Sandor said …
My version 3.0.1 and I had the same problem. Thanks for publishing the fix it works perfectly now.
Regards from Budapest, Hungary
on 27 Sep 2008 at 12:32 am 22.Aleem said …
Worked great…thanks man…
Great fix
on 06 Oct 2008 at 1:13 am 23.Steven said …
I just downloaded Firefox 3.0.3 the other day and this problem started. Your fix worked.
Here’s a tip for another problem in Firefox that works:
For those of you out there using one of the real browsers (among others, I am pointing at Firefox), you might find that version 3 of Firefox, while being a brilliant browser for the rest, built-in virusscan on completed downloads is a bit annoying. In my case, it always freezes for about two seconds while initiating the scan. Plus, having a good virusscanner already active, I don’t really see the point.
You can disable this feature by typing about:config in the address bar, and then filtering on browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone. Double click this line to set the value to false.
Problem solved.
on 06 Oct 2008 at 1:14 am 24.Steven said …
I just downloaded Firefox 3.0.3 the other day and this problem started. Your fix worked.
Here’s a tip for another problem in Firefox that works:
from
http://fluppe.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/firefox-disabling-automatic-virus-scan-on-downloaded-files/
Firefox 3: Disabling Automatic Virus Scan on Completed Downloads
For those of you out there using one of the real browsers (among others, I am pointing at Firefox), you might find that version 3 of Firefox, while being a brilliant browser for the rest, built-in virusscan on completed downloads is a bit annoying. In my case, it always freezes for about two seconds while initiating the scan. Plus, having a good virusscanner already active, I don’t really see the point.
You can disable this feature by typing about:config in the address bar, and then filtering on browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone. Double click this line to set the value to false.
Problem solved.
on 24 Oct 2008 at 8:03 pm 25.alibaba said …
Man you guys rock…. I have 3.0.3 and it’s been killing me trying to do anything. This fix worked perfect and fixed everything.
Thanks again
on 21 Nov 2008 at 7:33 am 26.Ben said …
Awesome fix. Was struggling with FF 3.0.4 and even before.
Thanks heaps