FireFox memory usage

[Jan Beich]

Pete Wright <pete at nomadlogic.org> writes:

> On 11/04/2017 04:49, Tijl Coosemans wrote:
>> On Wed, 01 Nov 2017 21:10:13 +0100 Jan Beich <jbeich at FreeBSD.org> wrote:
>>> Jan Beich <jbeich at FreeBSD.org> writes:
>>>> Andrea Venturoli <ml at netfence.it> writes:
>>>>> I'm on 10.3/amd64 with firefox-esr 52.3.0.
>>>>>
>>>>> Since a few days my 4GiB desktop is crawling due to swap usage and
>>>>> looking at top, I see FireFox using almost 7GiB of RAM (SIZE column),
>>>>> 2.5 of which are "RES".
>>>> Check about:memory and Devolper Tools -> Memory for clues. For more
>>>> advanced debugging (DMD, Refcount tracing) you'd need a custom build.
>>>>
>>>> Firefox on FreeBSD is known to consume more memory than on other
>>>> platforms because it uses system jemalloc rather than mozjemalloc.
>>>> Mozilla doesn't test memory usage without mozjemalloc. However, porting
>>>> mozjemalloc has stalled[1] unless someone helps.
>>>>
>>>> [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1153683
>>> If one is on Firefox 55+ or FreeBSD 12+ while suboptimal compared to
>>> mozjemalloc the old jemalloc4 optimizations can be restored by
>>>
>>>    $ MALLOC_CONF="narenas:1,tcache:false" firefox ...
>>>
>>> https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-esr52/source/memory/build/jemalloc_config.cpp#35
>> This appears to be such a huge improvement that you should really put
>> this in the port even if it's still not as good as mozjemalloc.
> i can confirm a huge perf improvement by reverting to jemalloc4. would 
> this patch ensure we use this by default until mozjemalloc for FreeBSD 
> is sorted out?
>
> diff --git a/www/firefox/Makefile b/www/firefox/Makefile
> index 7da37422ad82..b9a349e5d217 100644
> --- a/www/firefox/Makefile
> +++ b/www/firefox/Makefile
> @@ -46,7 +46,8 @@ FIREFOX_ICON_SRC= 
> ${PREFIX}/lib/${MOZILLA}/browser/chrome/icons/default/default4
>   MOZ_EXPORT=    BINDGEN_CFLAGS="-isystem${LOCALBASE}/include/nspr \
>                          -isystem${LOCALBASE}/include/pixman-1" # XXX 
> bug 1341234
>   MOZ_OPTIONS=   --enable-application=browser \
> -               --enable-official-branding
> +               --enable-official-branding \
> +        --enable-jemalloc=4

--enable-jemalloc=4 is gone as of Firefox 55.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1363992