How do you fix a memory leak?

And is there any way to clean out a memory leak without restarting my PC?

Hi Cloud!
 
Updating Flash should be pretty easy, even if you had an update blocked.  Just go to Adobe's webpage and down towards the bottom they have links to the downloads for Reader, Flash, etc etc.
 
As for the memory leak, it probably is not something you can fix as it would be a problem with the software itself, in this case FireFox.  Don't worry about it too much.  A few months ago, several of us all posted our results from the system analyzer and quite a few of us reported memory leaks in our browsers.  As I recall IE, Opera and FireFox were all listed by various members here.
 
Memory leak problems are what were one of the big reasons that users of Windows 95 or 98 had to commonly reboot the computer every few hours of heavy useage.  For the most part software and Windows both are a lot better about managing memory now than the "good old days", but it is still an issue.  The only way I know of to deal with it is you can try closing the offending program, sometimes this will allow the memory to be released, but other than that a reboot might be in order.

Yea there isn't anything that can be done as the Apps are showing the leaks maybe report the leak to Mozilla http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/749465
 
HTH,
 
TH

Thanks TH!  Looks like I am not the only one with insomnia tonight 🙂

Just a quick post before going to bed! :D
 
Daniel

The problem is that the leak has gotten bad enough that I have to reboot pretty often to stop it and still be able to use my browser. And some websites seem slow to load for no reason while others work just fine. This happens sometimes. Others the browser doesn't work at all.

The only thing you can do is send a bug report to the leaking programs to there support, and here you can Update to the latest Flash to see if that helps? http://community.webroot.com/t5/Security-Industry-News/Adobe-Flash-Player-11-7-700-202/td-p/39172#.UbTEhpywWas
 
Daniel

You might check a couple things.  We all know there is a lot of PUA stuff out there.  (Potentially Unwanted Applications)
 
Discussion
KB Article
 
I would go over your system and all installed browser toolbars and plugins with a fine tooth comb looking for any of these that you do not need or want and remove them.  The more of them that are active the worse the problem will affect you.
 
Another thing to check is your system resources.  I am not sure if the Task Manager is in the same location on your version of Windows as it is on Windows Vista, but here is the shortcut I use to turn it on: C:WindowsSystem32 askmgr.exe  You can also do CTRL+ALT+DEL and choose Task Manager from the options, I personally prefer to use a shortcut to get there so I don't accidentally 'click' it twice and cause a reboot or shutdown.  (Old habit from Win95 days...)
 
Once the Task Manager is open, click on the Performance tab.  Check the CPU and Memory use levels.  Is it possible that you are pushing the edge of your installed RAM causing the slowdowns and problems to occur faster after a reboot than what would normall be expected?

Good one David I know that Firefox uses allot of memory but it is not an issue for me as I have 16GB of Ram but still lt uses quite enough.
 

 

 
 

I am still learning about Webroot, and while I am overall pretty good with software in general and a little bit behind the times in new hardware my past 10 years ago as a custom PC bulder and repair type I tended to be better with hardware than software.

I'm using less than a quarter of my memory. And it never comes close to being fully used. I will look at my programs.

I also had that prob of analyzer showing FF to be having memory leaks. I tried to resolve here in the community and with Mozilla support. But to no avail. I cleaned out my Firefox and installed a fresh Firefox and Flash Player and accepted how FF is. 🙂

Firefox memory management is truly awful and its uses more system memory than practically any program I have ever seen (it nearly uses as much memory as Crysis!). Not much you can do except not use it but in my experience none of the common browsers excel at memory usage.
 
Nobody will need 640k of memory! :D

@ wrote:
....
....
....
 
Nobody will need 640k of memory! :D

ROFL!!!  Remember those hugely expensive sticks we used to pack into our x286 machines?  Ah.. the "good old days"...  Those things make neat key fobs now 🙂

I have a nice collection of old CPU`s that I am going to make into a nice collage wall piece.

@ wrote:
I have a nice collection of old CPU`s that I am going to make into a nice collage wall piece.

OH... I hadn't thought of that.. good idea!  I don't have many of those, but I used to do tech support for an internet service provider (10 years ago.. we are talking dialup days here).  I have quite a few 14.4k - 56.6k  modems still around... toss in a few of my old ISA vid cards.... 

Well, I updated firefox and flash and this still happens. Sometimes after not very much surfing at all. Plus, If I upload something big, like say 70 MB wsalog, or open many sites at once instead of speeding back up after this it stays slow until I disconnect and reconnect.

Unfortunately you cant do anything about a program`s poor memory management. You either don't use it and switch to an alternative or keep with it. I use Firefox and I don't really like it but I am not a fan of Chrome. As for the second issue that sounds like it may be worth giving your ISP a quick call.

@ wrote:
Unfortunately you cant do anything about a program`s poor memory management. You either don't use it and switch to an alternative or keep with it. I use Firefox and I don't really like it but I am not a fan of Chrome. As for the second issue that sounds like it may be worth giving your ISP a quick call.

Same here I don't like Chrome. I use Firefox & Opera mostly and sometimes IE10. ;)
 
Daniel

I also use Firefox but only because I can customize it better and other browsers are not good. Firefox has memory management issues. I hate it.

Yea Firefox uses allot of Memory but I like the second one!

 

 

 
Daniel

Seems you don't open much tabs TH. It reaches around 350. And Firefox process still continues sometimes after closing FF. Fresh install solves it. But comes back with weeks.:(

Yes I only have 2 to 4 tabs open max and that's true when you close Firefox sometimes I open Task Manager and Kill the Firefox process. :@
 
Daniel

Yeah it's very annoying isn't it TH? But I like FF better than others.