[johnhc]

I am running IE8 under XP x64. Most sites work fine but some hang and I must kill iexplorer.exe via the Task Manager. CNET is an example. To recreate the problem go to CNET, click on Downloads and scroll down and click on a DL (e.g. WinRAR). Sometime during this process, IE8 will hang. If the Task Manager is open you will see one of the several iexplorer.exe processes start taking more and more memory. Killing it seems to be the only solution. I am curious if XP (32 bit) has the problem or if anyone can reproduce this problem and, of course, I would really like to have a fix for it. This problem occurs on my real machine which I installed XP x64 on several years ago and installed IE8 using a DLed installer. I also run XP x64 on VMware Server and it has the same problem. IE8 was installed on the VM using nLite RunOnce exit, an .inf AddOn I created and a Real AddOn from 5eraph. I also removed IE8 then installed it from Windows Update. All have the same memory eating hang problem.
Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks, John.

This post has been edited by johnhc: 13 June 2009 - 02:53 PM

[cluberti]

Honestly, I'm not seeing the problem (I built an XP x64 VM the other day, so I dropped IE8 on it and tested your steps). I saw a bit of memory increase during the download (makes sense), but it went back to the original demarcation point pretty soon after it was done.

Usually, in my experience, IE increasing in memory usage over time is caused by a misbehaving add-on. You could try using the IIS DebugDiag toolkit to trace iexplore.exe for leaks (there's a rule for it in debugdiag, pretty easy to use).

[johnhc]

cluberti, thanks for your response. It helps very much just to know that you don't have the problem. I have brought some things over from IE7, so maybe in these there is a problem. I will start by stripping them out before I install on my VM. They would be the same between my real and virtual machines. I will look into the IIS tool if I don't make progress now. To clarify, when my memory begins to increase, it is increasing without bound. If left going, I get an "Out of Memory" report. In my VM I get a message saying that the Script is causing slow performance and do I want to stop it. When I respond 'yes', memory use goes down, then shortly starts back up. My real machine quit giving the slow script message. Thanks, John.

EDIT: I built a quick ISO, installed it on VM and did not allow three .reg files to run after install (WPI) that set parameters into IE8. I now have no memory eating problems and hangs. I need to narrow it down to which setting/tweak is the problem.

This post has been edited by johnhc: 12 June 2009 - 07:08 PM

[johnhc]

OK, I have determined what is going on and it concerns my cookie policy. CNET wants to set a cookie and I have my cookie policy set to 'Prompt' and if I respond 'Block Cookie', apparently CNET keeps trying using more and more memory. If I allow one cookie, then CNET is happy and all works fine. Thanks, cluberti for your help. Have fun, John.

[BobbyFischer]

Hello,
I am new to this forum but wanted to add my bad experience with CNET as well, under Vista.

Indeed it is a cookie issue, as was the ultimate conclusion to this thread. I manually decide to allow or block cookies.

When I blocked the CNET cookie a warning displayed that a script was running that could slow my system. I selected the option to stop the script.

And my system froze completely, not even responding to CTRL-ALT-DELETE so I could activate the Task Manager and end the bad process. Had to reboot, and dared not restore Explorer status as the same thing might happen again. Initially quite scary, it was a big waste of time.

I THINK IT IS UNCONSCIONABLE FOR CNET TO INSTALL SUCH A DAMAGING SCRIPT. Duh, why not simply display a message that points out that their page requires acceptance of cookies?? I will never use CNET again.

Thanks for looking in.