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Re: Setting a content process limit in 56.0.2 doesn't limit processes - crash trouble
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Mark12547
Oct 30, 2017, 5:02:19 PM10/30/17
to mozilla-sup...@lists.mozilla.org
In article <mailman.1685.1509389449.16832.support-
fir...@lists.mozilla.org>, hart...@hotmail.com says...
> I can see the processes in "Task manager." Firefox always runs in 4-5
> processes no matter what I set the "content process limit" to.
>
>
There are more processes that Firefox runs than just content processes.
When running Electrolysis (a.k.a., e10s), you also have:
- The main/UI process
- The gpu process ("hardware acceleration"), unless the driver is
incompatible or "Use hardware acceleration when available" is UN-
checked.
- Depending on version of Firefox and presence of some WebExtensions
extensions, I know Mozilla has been considering an Extensions Process
(to "sandbox" the extensions and keep them separate from the main/UI or
content processes. I don't recall where they stand on this today.
- Flash Container. If Flash is running, it is kept in a separate
container so Flash crashes don't crash the browser.
- One or more content processes. These are what interpret the web pages
and pass the results on to the main/UI process to display. Generally,
the number of content processes shouldn't be more than either the
"Content process limit" (a.k.a., the about:config setting of
dom.ipc.processCount) or the number of tabs currently open or the peak
number opened in this Firefox session. However: Mozilla has been
considering one more process than number of open tabs so that opening a
new tab won't be delayed by having to wait for a new process to open;
and I recall reading where such a stand-by content process may be
created even after "Content process limit" had been reached. (I don't
know if that problem had been fixed yet.)
Unfortunately, one needs additional tools to tell which process is doing
what, such as the Process Explorer one can download from the Microsoft
Website as part of the Sysinternals package, and examining the
parameters passed to each "Firefox" process. In Nightly, the parameters
passed to a content process end with "tab", the parameters passed to the
gpu process end with "gpu", and the main/UI process has just the command
line without any fancy (and unreadable) parameters.
fir...@lists.mozilla.org>, hart...@hotmail.com says...
> I can see the processes in "Task manager." Firefox always runs in 4-5
> processes no matter what I set the "content process limit" to.
>
>
There are more processes that Firefox runs than just content processes.
When running Electrolysis (a.k.a., e10s), you also have:
- The main/UI process
- The gpu process ("hardware acceleration"), unless the driver is
incompatible or "Use hardware acceleration when available" is UN-
checked.
- Depending on version of Firefox and presence of some WebExtensions
extensions, I know Mozilla has been considering an Extensions Process
(to "sandbox" the extensions and keep them separate from the main/UI or
content processes. I don't recall where they stand on this today.
- Flash Container. If Flash is running, it is kept in a separate
container so Flash crashes don't crash the browser.
- One or more content processes. These are what interpret the web pages
and pass the results on to the main/UI process to display. Generally,
the number of content processes shouldn't be more than either the
"Content process limit" (a.k.a., the about:config setting of
dom.ipc.processCount) or the number of tabs currently open or the peak
number opened in this Firefox session. However: Mozilla has been
considering one more process than number of open tabs so that opening a
new tab won't be delayed by having to wait for a new process to open;
and I recall reading where such a stand-by content process may be
created even after "Content process limit" had been reached. (I don't
know if that problem had been fixed yet.)
Unfortunately, one needs additional tools to tell which process is doing
what, such as the Process Explorer one can download from the Microsoft
Website as part of the Sysinternals package, and examining the
parameters passed to each "Firefox" process. In Nightly, the parameters
passed to a content process end with "tab", the parameters passed to the
gpu process end with "gpu", and the main/UI process has just the command
line without any fancy (and unreadable) parameters.
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