Mozilla 41.0.1 running slow - Lots of disk activity

Hello.

Has anyone noticed this?

After launching Mozilla hard disk activity seems to be permanently on, as if Mozilla where reindexing or something. It takes a long time (10-20 minutes) to stop and it makes browsing a very jerking experience. Of course I did a clean install to rule out some corrupted installation but no dice.

Any ideas? Launching Resource Monitor shows that all disk activity is being done by Mozilla FF and Windows Defender (Firefox being the first candidate).

Hi:

Most Firefox performance issues originate in the user's profile, so reinstalling the program may not fix the issue.

This KB article explains standard diagnostics:
Standard Diagnostic - Firefox

And this support page at Mozilla explains similar troubleshooting steps:
Fix slowness, crashing, error messages and other problems

And it's always a good idea to backup one's profile (see here and here) before making any major changes or embarking on serious troubleshooting, to avoid burning bridges.

Hope this helps,

MM

I already did that. I backup my profile and reinstalled with a clean one. No big difference.

eLPuSHeR said:

I already did that. I backup my profile and reinstalled with a clean one. No big difference.

Bummer.

As mentioned, reinstalling Firefox itself probably won't fix the matter, unless the actual program is corrupt, which is rare.

But if a new, clean profile with NO extensions does not improve the matter, then the next step would be to look at your global plug-ins, your security set-up (especially a large, custom hosts file & web-filtering features of your AV) and your hardware/networking.

EDIT:
If it's a laptop, what happens when you take it somewhere else (another network)?
If it's a desktop, do other computer users experience the same slow down on their computers on your network?

Thanks,

MM

Thank you very much for your replies so far.
I am trying to pinpoint this issue. It seems to be a cache/memory related one, because the more tabs I open the more noticeable is.
With one or two tabs is mostly ok. Trying to open more than two makes the hard disk activity go crazy, even if they are in cache.

And I am running on an i7 5960-x with 8GB of DDR4 (desktop).

Weird. By looking at the about:memory tab, it shows that memory compsumption doesn't decrease when closing tabs (well, a little to be honest). Just this tab opened and 277 MB of used memory. Not bad but not good either.

600 MB+ with 9 tabs opened. And now I have the annoying hard disk activity again, making difficult to type this sentence (everything turns so jerky). Memory usage keeps increasing without doing anything fancy (700 MB now).

So it seems it could be a memory leak somewhere.

Your internal hardware seems plenty robust.
You don't mention how you connect to the internet?
Have you tried another browser for comparison?

What is the Firefox cache setting (Options > Advanced > Networking)?

I would look at your global plug-ins, your security set-up (especially a large, custom hosts file & web-filtering features of your AV & firewall).

Thanks,

eLPuSHeR said:

Weird. By looking at the about:memory tab, it shows that memory compsumption doesn't decrease when closing tabs (well, a little to be honest). Just this tab opened and 277 MB of used memory. Not bad but not good either.

Firefox will use available memory to optimize performance.
On graphics- and content-intensive web pages, 277 MB would not be unusual, or excessive, especially if you have 8 GB.

I have editted my previous post. Why it's doing so much disk activity?

I have to go to work. I will reinstall again later, keeping it to minimum to check.

eLPuSHeR said:

I have editted my previous post. Why it's doing so much disk activity?

I have to go to work. I will reinstall again later, keeping it to minimum to check.

Again, Firefox will use available memory to optimize browsing experience. That is normal.

If you only uninstall the program without removing user data (i.e. the user profile), then the new program installation will find and re-use the same profile.

If, as usual, the problem lies in the user profile, then simply reinstalling the program will not fix it.

I suggest backing up your bookmarks (and little else, so that you don't later import broken stuff back into a new profile), uninstalling Firefox, removing the user data and then reinstalling clean, with NO extensions to start, as explained HERE. You can then import your bookmarks into the new profile, once everything is working.

However, if the actual problem lies outside Firefox (e.g. a global plug-in, such as Adobe Flash Player; or your security application(s); or a large, custom hosts file), then this likely won't fix the issue.

Good luck!

Let us know how it goes,

MM