firefox shutting browser windows

calleyw

I have a problem with firefox on version 1.0.6 and 1.0.7 it keeps shutting browser windows down.

I might have 5/6 browser windows open swap from one to another and then all but the one I am looking at is left on the windows tool bar. When looking for the others one or two of them have shut down.

It is not a one off as my husband has the problem some times. But I am getting the problem a lot. And have no idea why.

I do have a laptop that is about 4 years old and I am running XP sp 1. I am light on memory and will upgrade in a few months time when I can afford it. But can't see why I am having this problem. Never use to have problems like this when running IE.

Does anyone else suffer with this?

Yours

Calley

irnbru_2

calleyw wrote:

I might have 5/6 browser windows open swap from one to another and then all but the one I am looking at is left on the windows tool bar. When looking for the others one or two of them have shut down.

Tabbed browsing?

Instead of opening browser windows use the tabbing feature ... File -> New Tab

alanrowell

Firefox is a memory hog so it could be that you are running out of memory, use tabs instead BUT close the window every hour or so to reduce the memory used

calleyw

Yes I am well aware of the tab thingy and do have a few brain cells left to realise it exists and do use it sometimes. My brain and the tab thing. But I use a couple of websites which have lots of links that open in new windows. I suppose I could right mouse click and tell it to open in a new tab. But I am lazy moo and that seems like to much hard work for me

But even sometimes with just two windows open it does it. And it really gets on my wick as it always will I am in the middle of a really longe article.

Mind you I am so use to having many windows open I forget about sites that I have on the tabs. lol!!!!!!!!!!!

I will try two browser windows and using lots of tabs and see what happens. I thought it might have been my manky laptop as it is getting on a bit and needs some more memory in it.

Yours


Calley

squeaky

I've got firefox open with just thrree tabs, two other moderate usage progs open and am taking up 295MB. That's quite a lot, considering.

wolfman

You can restrict the amount of memory Firefox can cache or use up. It's set quite high by default I think, near 60mb.

Firefox too, isn't built for tabbed browsing. It was adapted but isn't a truly tabbed application. Opera is a good example of an MDI (Multiple Document Interface) which means it uses much less memory when opening multiple tabs in the same window. Whereas Firefox is more of an adaption, not a true MDI, so it'll use up more memory when doing the equivalent.

jdavtz

The memory cache for firefox is nothing to do with its use of system memory. There is a pref for firefox's use of RAM for caching pages, which you can set by editing user.js, but that won't significantly affect the amount of memory it uses *to run itself*.

You might find some help on the Firefox support forums at http://forums.mozillazine.org

IT sounds like it's an XP problem though; it's the job of the operating system to keep all your open windows available.

Your description isn't 100% clear, but are you sure it's not the XP 'feature' where it can group all the windows for an application together in the taskbar, giving the impression that open windows have vanished?

wolfman

jdavtz wrote:

The memory cache for firefox is nothing to do with its use of system memory.

I thought it did. I'm not talking in terms of cached pages, but in terms of the amount of memory Firefox is allowed to cache itself. Firefox should (or I think is designed) to use up a dynamic (as much free memory as you have available) amount of memory for caching. If you check the about:config I think it's undefined, or set to -1. That's why people sometimes report over 100mb of system resources being used. Setting the size of the memory cache to something smaller, like 16mb, will help reduce the overall system resource usage of firefox.

Firefox isn't the best browser in terms of memory, in fact it can be quite a hog and there have been known memory leak issues. Depending upon how much memory you actually have it may be an idea to switch to a lighter browser.

wolfman

Ah, it's set to -1 to allow Firefox to manage caching itself. If you have less than 512mb ram this should be a predefined figure. Setting the "browser.cache.memory.capacity" to something like 16384 is recommended for machines we 128mb or thereabouts. This can be done by typing "about:config" in the address bar.