Pale Moon 24.0.2: Limited cache won't be cleaned up

KNTRO · Post by **KNTRO** » 2013-10-13, 02:51

Hi all,

I want to report an issue with Pale Moon's cache management.

Operating system: Windows XP Professional SP3 32 bits
Browser version: 24.0.2
32-bit or 64-bit?: 32 bits
Problem URL: N/A
Theme: Let It Fly… by candelora
Installed add-ons: Enabled: Abduction! 3.5.0, about:addons-memory 7, about:me 0.5, Adblock Plus 2.4, Adblock Plus Pop-up Addon 0.9.1, Add-on Compatibility Reporter 2.0.1, AOL Favorites 1.1.44, Awesome Screenshot: Capture And Annotate 2.4.0.1, Black Youtube 4.9, Classic Toolbar Buttons 1.3.1, Collusion 0.27, Flagfox 4.2.13, Flash Video Download 4.0.0, Ghostery 5.0.5rc1, Live HTTP headers 0.17, Personas Plus 1.7.2.1, RefControl 0.8.16, ReloadEvery 17.0.0, Stylish 1.3.3, User Agent Switcher 0.7.3, Visor de PDF 0.8.298; Disabled: App Button Clear 1.1, App Button Color 1.0, App Button No Text 1.2, MSN for Firefox 1.1, Tab Auto Reload 0.0.0.6m and Twitbin 3.3.5.
Installed plugins: (about:plugins) Shockwave Flash, Microsoft DRM [x2] and Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library.

The problem is about how Pale Moon manages cache. I limited Pale Moon to use up to 100 MB of cache. Thing is it will not clean older cached elements. The cache gets stuck at 99.9% or 100% often and it won't erase the oldest cached items to store temporally new content, no matter how much time happens after this. So I have to clean cache manually, which becomes a pain in the ass, as I don't want to give it more space just for trash, temporary files.

Any idea on how to solve this?

Thanks in advance.

UPDATED:
Included here the Pale Moon's troubleshooting information:

Post by **satrow** » 2013-10-13, 03:34

Does this only happen while trying to manually clear the cache, ie. there's no sign of problems in normal/extended Pale Moon usage?

Post by **Moonchild** » 2013-10-13, 04:17

There doesn't seem to be a problem with a manual limit of the cache size. new cache elements get added properly and old elements are discarded. about:cache -> list cache entries for disk cache will display the entries and the last updated stamp for cache elements, where you can check that new elements are indeed updated properly.

KNTRO · Post by **KNTRO** » 2013-10-13, 04:28

satrow wrote:Does this only happen while trying to manually clear the cache, ie. there's no sign of problems in normal/extended Pale Moon usage?

Hi satrow.

No. In fact, I have to clear the cache manually because Pale Moon won't work right with some websites, like Netvibes, which updates every 2 minutes or so. Pale Moon fills the cache till 100 MB and won't release old data.

I forgot to add something: I have also Mozilla Firefox 24, with its cache memory limited to 100 MB as well. And I've never had to manually deleted its cache, since Firefox cleans it by itself. For example, right now is using 27.3 MB and I haven't cleaned the Firefox cache manually ever.

Moonchild wrote:There doesn't seem to be a problem with a manual limit of the cache size. new cache elements get added properly and old elements are discarded. about:cache -> list cache entries for disk cache will display the entries and the last updated stamp for cache elements, where you can check that new elements are indeed updated properly.

Moonchild, you're right. This has nothing to do with manual limit of the cache size. I think it's more related to how Pale Moon handles the cache thing. Yeah, I know you told me that no changes were made from how Firefox manages the cache memory, but I can't realize why Firefox cleans cache deeper than Pale Moon does — if it cleans it after all. I can't tell that actually.

Post by **Moonchild** » 2013-10-13, 04:34

I think what you are seeing is actually Firefox being less efficient by storing larger elements in the cache.

Pale Moon discards old elements as-needed when new elements would overflow the cache limit: the least likely element to be needed in the future will be removed. If Firefox actually ends up with unused cache space after continued browsing, it's discarding more than it should. A cache works like a "first in first out" buffer most of the time, and it will retain elements in the cache until it either expires by date or by having to make room for a new cache entry. Meaning: the cache level will always stay close to 100% if the cache is being used at maximum efficiency once it is filled.

If elements stored in the cache are too large for efficient use, a small new element may bump a large element out of the cache and reduce the cache size, causing unused cache space and resulting in the lower number of used cache.

EDIT: Losing about 75% of your cached data this way is pretty bad, actually. It doesn't mean that Firefox "cleans deeper", it means that Firefox actually wasted the cache space for unwanted elements to begin with.

KNTRO · Post by **KNTRO** » 2013-10-13, 04:44

Hmph…

So, seems like Pale Moon's cache's workin' properly after all. So I don't know how to manage to make some heavy AJAX & JavaScript websites to work OK. :S If you have any tip or workaround, please just let me know. I'm gonna appreciate that a lot.

Thanks for explain me how Mozilla Firefox & Pale Moon handle the cache.

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Pale Moon 24.0.2: Limited cache won't be cleaned up

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