Client Memory Usage

[jwilso2]

Has anyone else seen this problem? I leave Firefox 1.5.0.3 open with Zimbra logged in to my mail account. After several hours Firefox's memory usage climbs over 200MB. Closing the tab with Zimbra open doesn't seem to release the memory. I have to quit Firefox and restart it.

Is there a memory leak in Firefox that the Zimbra client is causing?

[KevinH]

AJAX apps in general use lots of memory. IE is a bit worse but Firefox also shows this behavior over time. In general any growth should effect performance. If you find a use case that cause significant memory growth please report it.

[DavLud2]

Is there a known "memory leakage" or "failure to release memory" problem with the Zimbra Web Client? (I could find no bugzilla report.)

I have noticed that using either IE or FF under Windows XP, I see tremendous growth in browser memory consumption while using the Zimbra Web Client.

If I log out of Zimbra and close its tab, only a fraction of its used memory is released.

As I compose new emails in a separate window, large chunks of memory, varying from 3-5MB in FF and up to 15MB in IE are consumed by each new email, but when I cancel, close, or complete the email composition, only a small fraction of the memory is released, if any at all. After several hours of composing email, FF or IE memory usage has grown to hundreds of megabytes.

What can I do about this?

Thanks.

[KevinH]

IE6 was recently patched to help with this leak. There are no known leaks in our code but JavaScript engines do leak. An app as large at Zimbra just makes this noticeable at times. In our experience it is the worst with IE6.

[DavLud2]

Kevin,

Thanks for the response. I admit that I can't demonstrate that there is any memory leak (in the traditional sense) with Zimbra, so I will put that aside. But what about the failure to release memory when a Zimbra window closes? The compose new email is an easily repeatable example. For every new email I create, memory is consumed and not released once the email is completed and sent. Also, when I close the Firefox tab that Zimbra is running in, Firefox does not release the memory as it does when I close tabs displaying other websites.

What am I doing wrong? What can I do to avoid this?

Thanks again,
Dave

[Klug]

It's firefox itself.

Take a look here : Debunking Another Myth: Firefox’s Memory Leak Bug
And here : Adblock Plus and (a little) more: Java and Firefox memory usage

[DavLud2]

Before my first post here, I had spent several hours searching the web for Firefox memory problems and had stumbled across both of the links you supplied (amongst many others), but your posting of these links here caused me to go back and reread those two in their entirety. Thank you for the direction.

As I read those posts and others, it becomes very clear that the existence of "Firefox memory leakage problems" is a highly debatable point with many people concluding that the only thing you can blame Firefox for is its failure to clean up after poorly implemented extensions and java applications, plus Firefox's decision to cache-to-memory a limited number of recently visited web pages (a so called feature).

I knew that Firefox extensions and plug-ins were not my problem as I had installed none. I had not previously been a Firefox user, so this was a fresh install of the latest version from firefox.com. The only Firefox extension that I have recently started experimenting with is dragdropupload, but that experimentation began well after my observations of massive Firefox memory growth while using Zimbra.

I had previously tried the Firefox configuration changes suggested by the posters on various blogs and forums to disable or restrict the cache-to-memory "feature" of Firefox, and although I could definitely see that these changes had an impact on Firefox memory consumption when browsing common web pages, I found that there was no improvement of the problem I am witnessing when using Zimbra.

I continue to see uncontrolled growth of Firefox memory usage with every new Zimbra email I compose in a separate window (and with each instance of Zimbra that I launch and subsequently close); memory is never fully released. Plus the problem is only worse when I tried using the latest version of IE6, where composing each new Zimbra email causes about 15MB of memory to be consumed and never released after the new email window closes.

Of all of the comments I have read in the blogs and forums, this is the one that I now find the most interesting: “Most memory leaks in Firefox are caused by developers of extensions and developers that use JavaScript in web pages. The main cause of this is not cleaning up event handlers on unload.”

Again, I am not using any Firefox extensions and I would like to think that Java itself is not the problem, so that continues to leave me wondering if Zimbra is failing to clean up after itself when a "compose new email" window closes or an instance of Zimbra running in a Firefox Tab is closed.

So I guess I need some specific direction on how to eliminate this uncontrolled Firefox memory growth when using Zimbra. Nothing I have found posted on the web has helped me to solve the problem, except the Firefox configuration change of adding "config.trim_on_minimize" does help on PCs only, but unfortunately we use mostly Macs here.

Should I dump Firefox? What Browser would you suggest?

Can anyone else confirm my observations while using Zimbra within Firefox and IE6?

Has Zimbra confirmed that the problem is not a "not cleaning up event handlers on unload" problem as some have suggested?

Thanks again for listening.
Dave

[DavLud2]

I have confirmed that Zimbra ALSO fails to release memory when using IE7. It is clear to me that this is NOT a Firefox problem. Memory consumption will grow to hundreds of megabytes.

[phoenix]

If you really think this is a Zimbra problem then I suggest you file an entry in bugzilla with as much supporting evidence as you can gather. FWIW, I don't see this behaviour on FF2. I have three copies of FF open with 90 tabs in total (inc 4 zimbra web clients) and 10 add-ons installed, I usually leave the browser open permanently and don't have any problems with it. The memory consumption is about 300MB and stays around there, I have also made the 'memory tuning' changes listed in many of the articles about FF and it's memory problems.

[DavLud2]

Hello Phoenix,

Thank you...that was exactly the type of feedback that I was looking for...but just to confirm that we are "comparing oranges to oranges"...

Are you using the option to "Always Compose in a New Window? And do you find that this does not cause uncontrolled memory growth with each new email you compose?

And if you were to close one of those tabs running a Zimbra Web Client, do you find that FF2 releases the memory that that instance of Zimbra was using?

Thanks,
Dave