Large Memory Usage in Flash Player 11.3.300.257

[Guest]

Jeromie Clark wrote:

Hi,

You should see two FlashPlayer_11_3_300_257.exe processes.  This is how Protected Mode in Firefox works.  It does *not* double memory usage. 

Having two FlashPlayerPlugin_11_3_300_257.exe processes may not double memory usage but your 'low-integrity heavy-lifter' process definitely has massive memory usage issues that need fixing.

As I type, this process is using 792MB of RAM all by itself.

Before the Flash update, Firefox's own 'plugin-container.exe' only ever used under 200MB at the very most  This is clearly unacceptable memory hogging by your new Flash process.

[jeromiec83223024]

As the issue you're describing is distinct from the problem in the previous discussion, I've branched this into a new discussion so we can discuss it in more detail.

Flash Player will use a percentage of your available memory.  It also has a garbage collection system that kicks in periodically, and we should not make your system crash or swap to disk excessively.

If you've seen a significant increase in memory usage on a particular site between Flash Player 11.2 and Flash Player 11.3, or memory usage that grows indefinitely, that may be indiciative of a problem and we'd definitely want to investigate.

If you can point us to specific links that demonstrate this issue, we'd be happy to take a look.

Thanks!

[Guest]

This is the first page that I noticed racking up the high memory usage. I also experienced freezes (which is what got me looking at the task manager in the first place). Try opening all the different categories (e.g. Crime & Thrillers, Action & Adventure) in separate tabs.

http://www.audible.co.uk/sp/2for1

On a different note, in my opinion hogging a percentage of RAM is fundamentally uncool. Take only what you need. If I'm browsing but also doing something more RAM-heavy in the background, I don't want to be losing hundreds of unecessary MB of RAM to the Flash plugin.

Firefox 13.0.1

Windows 7 64bit

8GB RAM

[Guest]

Just updated to Flash 11.3.300.262

The same issues still occur.

[jeromiec83223024]

In looking into this, what I see is normal operation.  You have 8GB of RAM available on your system, so we're talking about 10% of your available RAM.  Flash Player renders the content that providers write.  Resource usage is entirely dependent on what content authors are doing.  We do have some hard limits where we start trading off performance for memory consumption, but they're well above 10% of your system resources.

When looking at audible.co.uk, what I'm seeing is that they load up 26 copies of their audio player and a couple SWFs for analytics, just on the Action & Adventure page. using about 75MB of RAM.  I also believe that each of those players is pre-caching the audio sample.  I don't see a media request happen after I click, and playback is instantaneous.  This pre-cached content would be stored in RAM.  The important part here is that the RAM is freed, once the tab is closed.  We use the necessary amount of RAM to render the content with good performance, then release it when we're done.  This is how software normally operates.

When you load three tabs of audible content, you'll see that you've got more like 75 copies of their audio player simultaneously loaded, and a dozen SWFs for analytics, consuming about 225MB of RAM.  For grins, I loaded all of the categories, and capped out around 850MB.  RAM decreased proportionally as I unloaded each of the pages, and the Flash Player processes released all of their resources and unloaded when I closed all tabs with Flash content.  Again, this is normal behavior.

By contrast, you can see that something like http://www.homestarrunner.com/intro.html consumes about 16MB of RAM, for a long vector animation with sound.  It's really all about what you're doing on the page, and how you author your content.

We *are* very concerned about memory leaks.  If, for instance, Flash Player never released that memory after you closed the tabs, something would be wrong, and we'd want to fix it right away.  That's not what's happening here.

If you're uncomfortable with the resources used by Flash Player, you could always use a plug-in like NoScript or FlashBlock to make the movies load on demand.  This would probably disrupt some of the typical browser experiences that just work, but you'd have much greater control over the use of your system resources.

[Guest]

I am having the exact same memory issues. Firefox has been performing terrible since the update to 11.3, it freezes a lot. Is there a way to go back to a more stable older version?

[khrome23]

I am also having the same problem using sites like last.fm and grooveshark.  And probably others but those are the two I've been using the most since I updated a few days ago.  Even after closing browser tabs that have flash on the pages, the resources are not released.  In fact, one time I closed all browser windows completely, watched the process for like ten minutes and it actually GREW.  o_O

[noavailablescreenname]

I don't think this is new, but maybe it got worse from what I read about the 11.3 so I will stay with the 11.2.202.228.

I did update (actually did it without asking me as a new feature?!) FF 13, but it's was like this in the last few month.

It's not that FF uses 400-600mb memory and then plug-in container right now says 260mb (660mb peak workings set vista), but it does crash and freeze the computer if I don't watch it. ( I have 4gb mem)

I just changed from ad-aware to AVG because of problems and this AVG comes up and tells me to restart FF because it is using too much mem. that's nice, maybe useful.

I did delete Flash memory, java memory, nothing seem to help, but I don't know which of these 3 may be causing it.

[jvanderberg123]

Jeromie - the issue is not "does the flash player release the memory when closed", the question is why does 11.3 have a constant memory leak with some flash applications, a leak that's not present in 11.2.  The fact that the 1GB the flash player leaked is returned to the OS when it crashes doesn't help me much.

What I am seeing is a constant increase in browser memory utilization with time using 11.3.300.257 and 11.3.300.262 on certain flash applications.  Our apps are access controlled, but if you want to replicate, I can give you access if you contact me flashbug (at) vanderberg.fastmail.fm.

I've taken the analysis even further and profiled our app, using the 11.3 version of the debug flash player and Flash builder's profiling tools.  Even though browser memory utilization continually increases with time, the profiler detects no increase in actionscript object counts or actionscript memory utilization - so the leak is in the player, not our app.  This is consistent with the fact that our app behaves just fine in 11.2 flash player, with no increase in browser memory utilization.

[SwoozyQue]

I play games on Facebook using Firefox.

When you start FF there are no Flash processes running. If you play a game on Facebook there are now 3 Flash processes running where there used to only 1.

Also with the Flash 11.2 plug in when you closed the game you were playing on FB the plug in process would close. Now when you close the game with the 11.3 plugin all 3 process continue running.

If you want specific  examples, I see it playing Treasure Island and Hidden Chronicles.

[pwillener]

Can you provide a link to these games?

[SwoozyQue]

Both of the above games are available at Zynga.com, but I play them thru Facebook.

Any link I would give you would take you directly to my game.

[pwillener]

Finally found the links myself: http://www.facebook.com/ztreasureisle & http://www.facebook.com/HiddenChronicles

Yes, I see some increased memory usage in the plugin container, but it disappears as soon as I leave the game.

[SwoozyQue]

Yes, memory useage does release when the game is closed.

I guess the point at least I'm trying to make is why on 11.3.300.262 plugin do we now have 3 processes running for Flash when there used to be 3? And why aren't these process closing when the game is closed, as they used to in 11.2?

[jeromiec83223024]

There are two FlashPlayer_*.exe processes under normal circumstances.  One is a thin broker layer, and the other is the low-privilege process that actually renders the Flash content.  They *should* close after you exit Firefox.  If you're curious about the details on the implementation and the reasoning behind it, this is a great resource: http://blogs.adobe.com/asset/2012/06/inside-flash-player-protected-mode-for-firefox.html

I have observed that in some situatons, you can get into a state where the browser has exited, but we don't shut down.   I've seen that sometimes firefox.exe exits, but plugin-container.exe and FlashPlayer_*.exe are hanging out -- sometimes it's just one or both FlashPlayer_*.exe processes.  Those failure states are probably distinct problems, but the net result is that it's possible to get into a state where we have an orphaned process hanging out. 

One you re-launch the browser, we spin up a new broker and player process, so you see the active ones and the orphaned one.  You should only ever see the two processes under normal operation.

I don't have a consistent set of reproduction steps for this problem.  If anyone does, I'd definitely like to hear about them.

I've filed the following bug to see if we can implement some proactive mitigations for this in the short-term:

https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=3265588 -  FlashPlayer_*.exe Processes can be orphaned after Firefox.exe process exits

[Eastcrab]

I have the same the same problem, but in my case the version is 11.3.300.262,

I observed that everytime i navigate through a video the memory usage increases by 5MB or more, every click on the navigation bar of the flash player causes memory to increase the plugin crashes.

The max memory that i have seen it using is about 900MB, but most of time it stops at around 700MB to 800MB

My computer has a 1.7 core 2 duo processor with 4gb of memory on a Windows 7 32-bit system, the explorer i use is FIrefox 13.0.

Hope this can help to identify the problem.

[jeromiec83223024]

Unless the memory is not released when you close your browser, this sounds like normal operation.  All software on your computer consumes memory when in operation.

I'm unclear on what you mean by "the navigation bar of Flash Player". 

[SwoozyQue]

The memory is releasing when you close the browser.

I went back to plugin 11.2 in Firefox. If I play a flash based game the plugin container process opens, when I stop playing the game, plugin container process closes.

This is not happening using 11.3 plugin on FF.

[adobe_user875]

Hello,

I seem to have this problem too.  I didn't know it was flash causing it untill recently. Whenever i'm watching something in flash, it starts to hog up all my computers memory (up to 2.5 GB) . I've tried using IE, Firefox, WaterFox and Chrome and every time the behaviour is the same.  I've uninstalled all Adobe products and reinstalled just Flash and getting the same problem.   Please help.... only way I can surf the web right now is without flash enabled.

Appreciate you help.

[jeromiec83223024]

This behavior is mostly likely content specific. 

Can you point me to the URLs that exhibit this behavior? 

Also, are you browsing the web with a single tab, or lots of simultaneous tabs?  Each tab consumes resources. 

[adobe_user875]

example sites are : http://www.secondgeargames.com/word-bubbles-for-kids  and anything on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3ZrLDm_cXc&feature=g-vrec) 

I don't think it's content related, because my work laptop (32 bit Windows XP) doesn't have this problem. It happens on my home computer which is 64bit.

I'm browsing in single tab when it happens.

[chris.campbell]

I gave both of these sites (individually and at the same time) a try on IE9 on Win7x64 and my memory usage was around 200MB.

[jeromiec83223024]

I saw the same thing in Firefox 17 with Flash Player 11.5.502.110 yesterday.  I ran performance monitor with 30-second samples for a couple hours and did not see any net gain in memory over time.

I'd make two recommendations:

1.) Upgrade to the latest available Flash Player, which you can get from here: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer

2.) Upgrade to the latest available version of your browser.

If you continue to see this behavior, please let us know.  Be specific about the player, browser and OS versions you're using.  If this is a problem, we definitely want to address it; however, we need enough information to reproduce it.

Thanks!

[Wheresmyseme]

Hi,

Sorry for restarting this but I am seeing spikes in excess of 1million K for one of the flashplayer plugins when I am on duelingnetwork.com, this is a recent issue on the most recent flash player 11.5.something and I am on Firefox 17.0, using windows 7 64-bit.

On google chrome one of the google chrome proccesses climbs up steadily until it reaches around the million mark and it crashes (Flashplayer, google chrome insists). Is this a flash player problem or the problem of the website, once again though this is a recent issue.

Please and thank you

P.s In the time taken to write this post (wth dueling network idle in the background) flashplayer has climed from 93000k to 211000k

[SwoozyQue]

I'm seeing the same issue on Google Chrome with the latest Flash.

Even if you are multitasking on another brower and Chrome is sitting there idle, you go back to Chrome and it's frozen.

You close Chrome and as you do you see the Flash crash screen in the background.