Opera memory usage.

I have searched the forum, but many threads on memory usage / leaks appear to be locked.

I'm running Opera Version 11.52 / Build 1100 / Platform Win32 / System Windows XP

My machine has 3gb RAM.

With about 10 tabs open, I have found Opera begins to get laggy. Looking at the memory usage, it's easy to see why.

I have seen memory usage peak at 1gb!! Which indicates to me that there must be a memory leak somewhere.

It's a great browser, I have used it for a long time (since back when you had to pay for it, which I did) but come on Opera developers, there must be a problem somewhere...

I have tried all the tweaks suggested in the posts I read earlier - but still it uses too much RAM.



P.S. Why are all the topics on memory usage closed?

I did search before posting, but can't reply to a topic that's closed, so had to start a new one.

Depends on what web pages you are opening. I've tested opening approximately 70-80 tabs and it definitely slows, but if a web page consumes some processing power and the cpu is running at 100% then it will run slower.

Now that the cpu is running at 20%, and all web pages are fully open, Opera is now running mostly fine. Memory maxed out at 1.61gb. Installed 2gb. After shutting down all the tabs, ram usage has dropped to 600mb

I have no problems with a 'memory leak'

With 10 pages open it's fine. I'm running XP on a laptop made in 2005.

I've tuned Opera to run with high ram useage, and no virtual memory. I don't understand why people want ram useage to be as low as possible. If you want your computer to have low ram usage, then just take out the 3gb and run your computer off of the hard drive.

What is the list of the 10 pages you have open?

Originally posted by tonyar:

Why are all the topics on memory usage closed?

They are not. I did a search of this forum for "memory" and most were still open.

The reason why threads are closed are given at the top of the closed threads.

I just opened 100 craigslist pages using auto patch work. No problems.

I currently have 10 active tabs, including youtube video and feeds in Opera.
8 active tabs open in chromium.
4 other cpu intensive programs running.
with 1.5 gig ram, I still have over 300mb available.
when I close opera, the memory is reclaimed with no problems

I'm currently running with 4 tabs open.

Opera is using 192mb at the moment.

These are all relatively simple pages, no Flash, Ajax or similar.

As I don't use my laptop exclusively for web browsing, I don't want Opera to use *all* available resources.

If I now open some Ajax rich pages (Facebook / Hotmail) the memory usage will jump up to 500mb.

I find that unacceptable for a browser.

I use various other browsers, none of which use this amount of RAM for equivalent pages / tabs open.

Even IE7 does better!

I also find when I close Opera (when memory usage becomes excessive) it can take anything up to 5 minutes to close, and observing the RAM usage in Task Manager shows the RAM going up and down for a minute or so before it finally begins to free up the RAM it has used. This activity is accompanied by a lot of disk activity - which suggests to me that Opera is using a lot of virtual memory too.

I have observed this behaviour on several PCs, so it's not just my own specific laptop.

And this has gradually got worse post Opera 9 (which didn't seem to have any memory issues).

Here's a comparison of four different browsers (admittedly not looking at the same sites)

Opera: ( 4 tabs open - all text based sites )



K-Meleon (7 tabs open)



Dragon (a Chromium based browser - 3 tabs open - Ebay and Facebook and BBC TV)



Internet Explorer 7 ( 2 tabs open )

this argument has gone on in the past post after post.
I have never had memory leaks or problems in 2 years of using opera,
my pc's during this period have had from 512 mb of ram to 1.5 gig of ram.
I must admit that I don't know what happens with dual core or quad cores with 4-8 gig of ram.
Also opera has not had delays in closing or refused to let go of memory when closed.

Originally posted by tonyar:

I also find when I close Opera (when memory usage becomes excessive) it can take anything up to 5 minutes to close, and observing the RAM usage in Task Manager shows the RAM going up and down for a minute or so before it finally begins to free up the RAM it has used. This activity is accompanied by a lot of disk activity - which suggests to me that Opera is using a lot of virtual memory too.

This is true and it has been for quite some time now. I don't have an explanation for that but IIRC, it's a phenomenon I have observed beginning with the 10.xx series. I've had to wait up to ten minutes before being able to relaunch the program.

But I don't think Opera's usage of memory is shocking enough to warrant "unacceptable" as an adjective. Try Firefox: up until 6.x.x, the memory usage was ludicrous. It's a problem they know perfectly and they've been working on it, to the point that its reduction was one of the highly publicized features of FF 7.In all cases, I've had FF with three tabs (http://accent.gmu.edu/browse_language.php?function=find&language=english + GMail + the login page of Yahoo Mail) uses up 236,000 KB – almost half the memory used by Opera 10.63 and 11.52 for over thirty tabs. So I think we're kind of lucky around here.

However, I totally understand your gripe as I have expressed the same complaint a few months ago regarding my older laptop.

You should click the 'Threads' tab in your task manager and take a look at how version 11.52 seems to be constantly working. If anything, that is what puzzles me, not the memory usage.

Originally posted by tonyar:

My machine has 3gb RAM.

And it seems to be using about 10% of that. Why are you complaining about it?

I have seen memory usage peak at 1gb!!

Peaking at 1 GB and returning to 300 MB shows that it actually releases memory again.

P.S. Why are all the topics on memory usage closed?

They are not, but threads where people are whining pointlessly, and speculating wildly about things they are clueless about, seem to be locked. It also seems to happen when the original poster has stopped replying, and other people start hijacking the thread with completely irrelevant comments about memory usage.

Originally posted by tonyar:

Opera is using 192mb at the moment.

Useless without knowing the total amount of RAM.

As I don't use my laptop exclusively for web browsing, I don't want Opera to use *all* available resources.

Does it?

If I now open some Ajax rich pages (Facebook / Hotmail) the memory usage will jump up to 500mb.

I find that unacceptable for a browser.

You are clueless about browsers.

I use various other browsers, none of which use this amount of RAM for equivalent pages / tabs open.

You can't compare memory usage directly like that because different browser have different ways of handling memory.

Even IE7 does better!

No it doesn't. A lot of it is hidden because IE7 is loaded as part of the operating system.

And this has gradually got worse post Opera 9 (which didn't seem to have any memory issues).

Wrong. Clueless people have been complaining since basically the first public version.

Here's a comparison of four different browsers (admittedly not looking at the same sites)

Again, useless. Especially since you aren't even comparing the same set of sites.

I did a brief search for memory / memory leak and found about 10 topics - all of which were closed.

I didn't find any open topics on this.

As I said in my post - I did admit that the browsers were open on different sites - but I still believe it to be somewhat representative, given the disparity in memory usage between the various browsers.

Certainly, IE does use 'hidden' resources from the O/S itself - so perhaps it would have been fair to exclude it.

The main issue I have is not the amount of memory used as such, *but* - when the memory usage is high, switching between tabs can result in a 5 - 10 second delay! During this delay, the hard disk light is almost completely on (i.e. not merely a few flashes). I have verified that it is Opera performing this disk activity by the amount of bytes read / written.

I'm not a software developer, but to my inexperienced eye, it looks as though there is something wrong with the memory management function of the browser - however you choose to look at it.

It looks as though too much of the running application is being swapped to virtual memory - hence the massive delay when switching tabs.

I might be clueless about browsers - you are right. But when I see memory issues with Opera (and only Opera) *and* I can pinpoint it to a specific site (or sites using specific technologies - e.g. Ajax / Javascript / etc.) then I don't think that makes me *that* clueless.

Therefore I am only reporting what I'm seeing on my own PCs and laptops - I didn't come on here to be 'flamed' and have accusations thrown at me.

I'm simply stating my experiences with Opera as a heavy user.

Whether or not my assumptions are accurate is neither here nor there surely, as it's pure speculation.

Again, what is the list of 10 sites that is 'slowing' your system down? You don't even give us a chance to recreate your problem.

Personally, I want all my apps to use as much ram as possible. I don't understand this obsession with using as little ram as possible. I've minimized Pagefileing and Virtual Memory so that my programs are forced to use more ram. Peak useage is still only 1/2 of my total ram.

All those speed test touting Opera as 'the fastest' browser on earth... Maybe it's because it uses the most ram?

I don't think that there is a prize for least amount of ram useage.

If I run out of ram, I go buy more ram. For this old laptop, speed is the more important than ram useage, especailly since standard ram has increased from 512mb to 6gb

Originally posted by tonyar:

I did a brief search for memory / memory leak and found about 10 topics - all of which were closed.

At least READ what people are writing!

As I said in my post - I did admit that the browsers were open on different sites - but I still believe it to be somewhat representative, given the disparity in memory usage between the various browsers.

Again please READ what people are writing.

The main issue I have is not the amount of memory used as such, *but* - when the memory usage is high, switching between tabs can result in a 5 - 10 second delay! During this delay, the hard disk light is almost completely on (i.e. not merely a few flashes). I have verified that it is Opera performing this disk activity by the amount of bytes read / written.

If Opera is only using 10% of your RAM it is HIGHLY unlikely to have anything to do with memory usage.

But when I see memory issues with Opera (and only Opera) *and* I can pinpoint it to a specific site (or sites using specific technologies - e.g. Ajax / Javascript / etc.) then I don't think that makes me *that* clueless.

Opera using 10% of your memory is not an issue. And you have completely failed to actually report any site that's causing problems.

Originally posted by tonyar:

I did a brief search for memory / memory leak and found about 10 topics - all of which were closed.

I don't believe you. I did a search for "memory" and "memory leak" and found just one closed thread

I am Dumfounded which was closed due to the meaningless thread title.

Originally posted by Pesala:

Originally posted by tonyar:

I did a brief search for memory / memory leak and found about 10 topics - all of which were closed.

I don't believe you. I did a search for "memory" and "memory leak" and found just once closed thread

I am Dumfounded which was closed due to the meaningless thread title.

Well, I appear to have made a genuine mistake - I searched again and found that same thread.

My apologies.

Originally posted by fefrie:

Again, what is the list of 10 sites that is 'slowing' your system down? You don't even give us a chance to recreate your problem.

Personally, I want all my apps to use as much ram as possible. I don't understand this obsession with using as little ram as possible. I've minimized Pagefileing and Virtual Memory so that my programs are forced to use more ram. Peak useage is still only 1/2 of my total ram.

All those speed test touting Opera as 'the fastest' browser on earth... Maybe it's because it uses the most ram?

I don't think that there is a prize for least amount of ram useage.

If I run out of ram, I go buy more ram. For this old laptop, speed is the more important than ram useage, especailly since standard ram has increased from 512mb to 6gb

Based on the other memory threads I have been reading, it doesn't really matter what sites are open.

As for ram / CPU - my laptop is a decent spec:

Intel T3400 @ 2.16GHz Dual CPU
3Gb RAM

Like I said in one of my earlier posts, the major issues for me are:

1) Opera frequently takes 5 - 7 minutes to shutdown, sometimes longer.
2) There can be a delay of 5 - 7 seconds switching tabs (sometimes more) and furious disk activity whilst this is happening, which slows the entire machine.

I have also used it on an 8 Core Xeon machine with 8GB RAM - and same problem - Opera memory usage reaches around 1GB of RAM, and the delay problem of switching between tabs becomes evident. Try and close it, and it wastes several minutes releasing memory, also killing the machine performance whilst doing so (because of the intense disk I/O).

A few years ago, I switched to Opera because it was lightweight and fast.

Now it's in danger of becoming bloatware, because the developers are trying to cram too many features into it, which is a pity.

Originally posted by tonyar:

Based on the other memory threads I have been reading, it doesn't really matter what sites are open.

You're right your laptop hardware is not the issue. I have a Pentium M 1.7ghz 2gb ram. That's a laptop made in 2005 running 11.52 with no 'lag' you talk of.

Wow. We're trying to help you, but you refuse to provide details. This thread is not for solving problems, but simply a rant by the OP.

I know the issue regarding restarting opera, which should be in another thread. Which you brought up in later posts simply devolve your thread into a I hate Opera post.

If we can't recreate your problems, then your problems are simply your own.

This thread needs to be closed.

Originally posted by fefrie:

<snip>
Wow. We're trying to help you, but you refuse to provide details. This thread is not for solving problems, but simply a rant by the OP.

I know the issue regarding restarting opera, which should be in another thread. Which you brought up in later posts simply devolve your thread into a I hate Opera post.
<snip>

I don't hate Opera at all.

I just think it's unfortunate that there are clearly so many issues with regard to memory management since version 10 and possibly even the later 9.x versions, but yet rather than solve the memory issues, the developers seem intent on pushing more features in to the product.

I don't see how the problems I have raised in this thread are going to be resolved by anybody but the developers themselves.

It was never intended as a rant, I just wanted to share my own personal experiences with the product.

I have worked in IT for 15 years now, so I think I'm quite capable of resolving issues, and working out where problems exist.

In this particular case, the problems exist with Opera, not the sites I use it to visit (perhaps with the exception of Facebook, but that's another issue in itself).

I'm happy for the thread to be closed, since my views do not appear to be welcome here anyway.

/thread.

Originally posted by tonyar:

I just think it's unfortunate that there are clearly so many issues with regard to memory management

What issues? There are just a of users who have no clue how to report problems, which gives a totally false impression of what the problems actually are. The developers are working on memory handling improvements, along with many others that are more important.

Please educate yourself about ongoing developments for Opera Next

Faster browsing with reduced memory usage

Opera has fine tuned the browser to be more efficient: Opera 12 alpha has a 40% faster load time for secure websites and uses 30% less memory on websites with lots of JavaScript.

He complains about 2 things. Opera being laggy with 10 tabs open, and 'memory leaks'.

The second we've disproved, the first he won't even provide details.

And his statement of 'so many issues regarding memory management' is completely generic.

Please someone close this thread. I've been trolled badly by a noob.

And on the very slight chance that it will be provided, may I request AGAIN a list of 10 urls that on your computer will slow down opera on YOUR computer?

If not FFS someone please close this thread. Thanks