Firefox consuming all CPU

Hi all, I had a problem with FireFox basically consuming all CPU and most of main memory. It also becomes unresponsive, like some thread is thrashing around and not allowing FF to respond to user clicks. Other programs are working fine while this is going on, so I know it's not the system.

This annoyed me enough to install Chrome. Firefox is out. This post was intended as an "exit interview" for the Mozilla folks. But their help forum goes here, not to their site, so I guess they're not interested in receiving feedback and fixing problems.

I still have the set of pages that cause the problem. They're just regular pages that I visit all the time, like the NY Times. So I think it's something that FF has messed up internally.

If anyone is interested and want me to produce some sort of diagnostic dump, let me know and tell me how to do it. Otherwise, C'est la vie.

 

FireFox has been known to be troublesome on some systems for long & there has been no resolution till date, though the things have improved quite a bit.

The latest stable release 3.6.x brings crash protection for plugins which further complicates things & can sometimes **** all the juice out of computer.

 

I'm running 3.6.6. Previously, I've noticed that when the system thrashes my hard drive, the Task Manager Monitor tool shows me it's SQLite furiously reading/writing some cache/database files in the Mozilla directory.

This is different. No disc activity. Just 100% CPU (on one CPU, I have two), and steadily increasing memory consumption. FF quickly becomes completely unresponsive and has to shut down with the task manager.

 

On a page containing flash & videos, the CPU usage can go wild. On other pages it should be in single digit as broni said.

 

Mine goes to around 60% when flash is playing & comes down to 1% when flash page is closed.

 

I agree with rsinfo. My system running FF 3.6.8 XP Home goes to 70-80% CPU and drops back to 1-2% viewing BBS. Could be Addons causing high usage. Neil.

 

I've had this issue happen as well on a fairly consistent basis. For example, right now, the usage is going back and forth between 25 and 45% and has 31 threads going. It is also using just under 500MB.

I'm running FF 4 beta 5, but the issue persisted on 3.6.8 as well. While I barely have any add-on's running, I do have 25-30 tabs open at any given time.

I don't use IE but I do use Chrome and Safari. Right now, I have at least 20 tabs open in Safari as well, and I also run very few add-on's at the moment.

By contrast, it's only using between 5 and 10% of the CPU with only 14 threads but at the same time, it is also using almost twice the amount of RAM that FireFox does at just under 1GB! Interesting stuff.

I'd be interested in finding out as to why the percentage of the resources being used fluctuates so dramatically in the case of Firefox.

 

The most often asked questions are why is FF eating up a lot of memory or cpu. The most often replies are because of a bad plugin, such as flash. Another is because of a bad addon. There are many. But the one that people don't know about is . . .

Bingo, you've hit the nail right on the head. The sqlite problem is one that very few people know about. The sqlite database is horrible because its constantly updating itself. Even if you're not using it, like downloads, its still thrashing around to updating itself, which in turn makes your computer run like mad, and use up a lot of resourses And yet, the mozilla devs think the sqlite database is the best thing that happened to firefox since they came out with firefox. The old method -- the .rdf text format, was a lot simpler, and provided less thrashing around. The sqlite has been a problem since day one. Just about everything is in the sqlite format. There's your cookies. There's your passwords. Then there's forms, bookmarks, history, downloads, and a few others. Even some addons, like stylish, have switched to the sqlite database. Its a sad, sad firefox world we live in.

And now they've come out with this plugin-container.exe. Yikes!!!!

 

I had noticed that the newer versions of Firefox take up a lot of resources, but where is this sqlite, in the Task Manager? I know that .sqlite is the format used by Firefox, but how is one supposed to infer that it causes havoc.
But, I am sure that it does for people who insist in having 20-40 tabs open. The memory usage of my Firefox, having only this website open goes up, but the the CPU barely budges.

 

AFOM - Memory Recovery & Retention For Firefox Only :: Add-ons for Firefox, works great for me.