r/firefox • u/varthias • 9h ago

💻 Help Firefox increased memory usage after new update

I used to hover around 1-2GB with my current windows, but directly after the newest update I hover around 5GB, sometimes the ram usage just climbs indefinitely while I'm not doing anything making firefox freeze till I restart it. How do I fix :'(
Edit: seems to be mostly data decoder randomly climbing in usage over time
I have Auto Tab Discard, Ublock Origin, Winger in terms of extensions

8 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

3

u/AnyPortInAHurricane 9h ago

AI tab is broken

Chatgpt using 4 gig , and i haven't even USED the chat

1

u/varthias 8h ago

I have all the AI stuff disabled so hopefully it's not that

3

u/AnyPortInAHurricane 8h ago

in that case , it isnt

4

u/Designer-Crow-5470 9h ago

browser.cache.memory.enable is set to true by default now. Not like there is a ram price crisis or anything.

2

u/varthias 8h ago

I think that was default before, no?

1

u/Designer-Crow-5470 8h ago

pretty sure this was an option on cachy os

2

u/SuperNonoo 9h ago

Open about:processes while the memory is climbing and check which process keeps growing. If it's a particular tab, close that tab and watch whether memory drops. That gives you something specific to investigate before changing cache settings based on the update timing alone.

1

u/varthias 8h ago

While watching a yt video the data decoder climbs, not always so no idea what could cause it, closing the process does fix it, also a search engine tab was sitting at 1GB as well which they haven't really done before. Is it possible for a profile to be corrupted by an update?

1

u/SuperNonoo 8h ago

An update can expose a profile issue, though rising memory alone doesn't establish corruption. You can test with a fresh profile from about:profiles without deleting your current one. Leave sync and extensions off, then play the same video and watch the data decoder. If it keeps growing there too, you've reproduced it with a clean profile. Killing the decoder releases its memory, so that drop doesn't identify what's causing the growth.

2

u/SnillyWead 8h ago

Auto Tab Discard or right click on a tab once you're done using to unload it.

2

u/varthias 8h ago

Yeah I love auto tab discard, the amount of shit I have open for research makes it impossible to use without it. I had it both before and after update though and my ram usage seems unusual, since it's not a bunch of tabs building up usage but the data encoder

1

u/SnillyWead 8h ago

I have 18 tabs open. It uses 5.28G at the moment.

2

u/Ok-Variation-2549 8h ago

Que raro que te pase eso , lo unico que te recomiendaria es desintalar y volver a instalar Firefox o esperar unos dias hasta que "magicamente" se arregle

1

u/Virtual-Increase-829 8h ago edited 8h ago

I have like fifty tabs open across two windows, and memory's at a whopping 734.0 MB

wait, what's a 'firefox GPU helper' and 999 'isolated web contents'

1

u/Forsaken_Ad6018 4h ago

Try the same tabs in Firefox’s Troubleshoot Mode and watch whether Data Decoder still grows in about:processes; this temporarily disables extensions and hardware acceleration for comparison. If it still happens, close tabs with audio/video one at a time to check whether a particular page triggers the growth.