Firefox stuttering randomly

Question

When I'm randomly scrolling through websites or using tab groups, I can see some stuttering. At start up it's really small and passable, but it gets progressively worse until the window randomly turns black and crashes.
I've also noticed that around the time the browser is about to crash, add-ons that are working in the background return a "denied access" entry.
I think it might have something to do with the memory, I usually have 100+ tabs open, but I've the "Don't load tabs until selected" option enabled.
Once Firefox hits over 1-1.5 GB it starts stuttering considerably worse.
I've also gotten a "out of memory" message before which is why I believe it might be a memory issue.
Anyway, memory usage never gets over 80% of my 8 GB of RAM and I've noticed stuttering on just 50% usage.
Any replies are welcome.

Answer 1

Nothing jumping out at me, as a solution, from the crash reports, although most will probably relate to memory issues.
As I mentioned in the last post something worth doing is '''turning on telemetry''' it generates real life data demonstrating Firefox performance
* annonymised aggregated data is available publicly and to Mozilla engineers
* local copies of your own full data is kept in your profile and may be useful evidence of problems
* see [[Send performance data to Mozilla to help improve Firefox]]
If you are interested in getting to the bottom of the issue you are probably going to need to start testing in Firefox's safemode with all plugins disabled and less than 30 open tabs.
Possibly the problem only really happens with many tabs open especially with high graphic content
Quite likely '''stopping memory usage exceeding 1GB''' or whatever will improve things and I can think of three ways to attempt to reign that in and hopefully prevent the stuttering
# Reduce the number of open tabs in use (Maybe use bookmarks more frequently instead of leaving tabs open)
# Use about:memory that not only reports on memory it also has a button to reduce memory use.
# It could be worth checking out this addon it may help,
#* '' Prevent Out Of Virtual Memory Crashes 1.0.3 '' <br /> https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/prevent-out-of-virtual-memo/
#*but it might be just as easy to manually restart Firefox once stuttering becomes apparent if you no longer get crashes.
For forum cross referencing purposes
* Reports for your Crash IDs
*# bp-82b851f7-c1ad-4f8f-a1e5-fbb7e2140725
*# bp-e727a1b9-9acf-4d9b-90f0-197ff2140724 {Memory 73%)
*# bp-ed9932ed-5507-49da-9d93-57daf2140723 {Memory 73%)
*# bp-5b2fe9f5-f48e-4dd6-a5e3-58ad22140723 {OOM but Memory 66%)
*Crash Signatures:
*# js::RemapWrapper(JSContext*, JSObject*, JSObject*)
*# JSC::Yarr::YarrGenerator<int>::opCompileAlternative(JSC::Yarr::PatternAlternative*)
*# mozilla::layers::PlanarYCbCrImage::GetAsSourceSurface()
*# OOM | large | mozalloc_abort(char const* const) | mozalloc_handle_oom(unsigned int) | moz_xmalloc | gfxAlphaBoxBlur::Init(gfxRect const&, nsIntSize const&, nsIntSize const&, gfxRect const*, gfxRect
*Related bugs {with my comments)
*# Bug 856670 - Firefox crash [@ js::RemapWrapper] <br />{Possibly runnning out of stack no STR)
*# Bug814954 -> Bug 976446 - Replace YARR with irregexp <br />{ ?Out Of Memory. Fx 32 unaffected)
*# no related bugs listed
*# Bug 986502 - Large OOM in gfxAlphaBoxBlur::Init {I added bug comment -- please let me know '''if you notice this signature in Firefox 31''')
Memory issues are not easy to troubleshoot. Stuttering at 50% memory with many addons is going to be impossible to troubleshoot, but '''''5 second+ lags''''' in normal use is unacceptable. However if that is whilst opening and closing masses of tabs each with their own History and many Iframes and images it my be normal and expected behaviour. (Cacheing, or not; & connection speeds; could be other confounding factors )
If the problem exists in safemode and no plugins enabled it can be followed up and if necessary bugs filed. I am not saying always use Firefox like that just that it is necessary for comparison and troubleshooting to test that. On the other hand If the problem is solved in that configuration you should be able to fairly quickly narrow down the cause.
Using multiple profiles may be useful in testing and I can explain that if it helps. There are '''tools''' that may help if you try troubleshooting. I already mentioned ''about:memory''. There is also built a in ''profiler'' that will identify what is happening in 5+ second hangs, or a ''profiler addon'' that will specifically track and log jank where Firefox stops responding.
'''Summary''' I can not guarantee getting to the bottom of your issues but
*I can at least make suggestions for troubleshooting
*Problems caused by Firefox rather than by addons will be investigated,
**and if necessary I am sure the professional HelpDesk staff will be able to lend a hand.
* Using many addons and hundreds of tabs problems are not unexpected
**(I hate to say this but on Windows it may be worth trying a 64 bit browser for comparison.
** However I seem to have noticed; so far unreproducible; issues with High memory usage on recent 64bit Firefox Releases )