Thunderbird uses all my memory

[CU]

Thunderbird just started using up all my memory including swap today. Even if I start it with -safe-mode and disable all plugins it still uses it all (6Gigs of ram and 3Gigs of swap). Anybody every seen this before? I am running 1:31.2.0+build2-0ubuntu0.14.04.1 and nothing has changed since yesterday as far as I know.

 

[Jodell88]

That's a major memory leak.

 

[CU]

Yeah tell me about it. When I launch it, I can watch the memory go up in top and free. I have to kill it before it even finishes loading because my system becomes so unresponsive. It is using imap to an old exchange server, 2003 maybe.

 

[mikeymikec]

Is it when you access a particular folder?

I haven't used TB on *nix very much, I've been using it for about 10 years or more on win32.

 

[Jodell88]

Perhaps updating? The lastest version of Thunderbird is 31.5, you have 31.2

 

[mikeymikec]

Another possibility is the global indexer in TB has sprung a leak. I haven't experienced this myself as I disabled it from day one.

 

[CU]

The GUI never loads before I have to kill it. So it isn't when I click on a specific folder.

Running 1:31.5.0+build1-0ubuntu0.14.04.1 now and no change.

 

[CU]

Another possibility is the global indexer in TB has sprung a leak. I haven't experienced this myself as I disabled it from day one.

I think I disabled that awhile back trying to speed things up. You don't happen to know what config file and what the setting would be called do you, so I could check.

 

[mikeymikec]

I think I disabled that awhile back trying to speed things up. You don't happen to know what config file and what the setting would be called do you, so I could check.

Nope, I tend to do it through the UI.

However, it looks like the option is:

mailnews.database.global.indexer.enabled

 

[CU]

It is set to false.

13kl21hs.default/prefs.js:user_pref("mailnews.database.global.indexer.enabled", false);

 

[Fallen Kell]

I have Thunderbird 31.5 installed and it uses around 1.4GB memory give or take, just for reference. No plugins installed except for FoxClocks.

 

[CU]

When it worked, I think it used about 1.5 - 2 gigs. May just have to delete my .thunderbird directory and start over. Or, use outlook on a terminal server. That is what I did today. Thunderbird has always seem a little slow and liked ram.

 

[ninaholic37]

1.5-2GB of RAM sounds insane! How is that even possible? When I open hotmail in a new tab in Firefox 36, it takes 50MB of RAM... and even that is a bloated mess! Maybe there is more to Thunderbird than meets the eye :hmm: :awe:

 

[mikeymikec]

TB on win32 uses about 100MB RAM by the look of it. One scenario where I've seen its memory usage go up is if I search a whole folder structure for something in message bodies, but I don't think I've ever seen it use more than a gig.

 

[CU]

It has always used over a gig or ram on linux for me. Maybe it just works better on windows. This is work email, so it is a lot, but I have always thought it used to much.

 

[mikeymikec]

It has always used over a gig or ram on linux for me. Maybe it just works better on windows. This is work email, so it is a lot, but I have always thought it used to much.

I don't think the volume of e-mail makes much difference (unless possibly if it's in the inbox) - IIRC one of my e-mail folders contains 34k e-mails. My TB e-mail archive isn't the biggest I've encountered (about 1.2GB), some of my customers have TB profiles of a few gigs in size without it affecting overall memory usage.

What's Firefox like on *nix in terms of memory usage? Just curious.

 

[CU]

My Thunderbird profile is 6G.

Firefox for me uses about 500meg for the 12 tabs I have open right now.

 

[mikeymikec]

Firefox for me uses about 500meg for the 12 tabs I have open right now.

That sounds similar to what I'd expect on Windows. I wonder what's with TB's memory usage on *nix then.

Back to the topic, yes, you could try a separate profile and steadily transplant what you need back in to it.