Roll back to the 77 tree.. I had to..
https://forums.opera.com/topic/50730/win-7-opera-updated-to-78-0-4093-112-memory-being-chewed-up

Sorry I was unable to login to my acct for the past several days because the forums kept redirecting me to the TOS as if I were a brand new user, then Not accepting my acceptance of the TOS (it kept Not logging me in After I ticked both boxes and clicked submit; no one from support got back to me but I guess the finally fixed it)

Anyway

It's practically unusable

It's apparently disk space being chewed up by the pagefile, so yeah, memory, but virtual

All I can tell you, is this Never happened with before, and none of my behaviors have changed.

Even if I open just One private tab, eventually opera will reduce my 1.5GB free space to literally 80MB with some hours...

And as soon as I shutdown Opera (completely), ALL the disk space is back to 1.5GB free

So obviously, Opera is causing the pagefile to balloon, or rather, opening a private window seems to do this

I guess I have to look into downgrading

I wish there were anm official downgrade button..

I hate to lose open tabs, or anything else like history, etc, but this is unbearable

See here:
https://forums.opera.com/topic/50730/win-7-opera-updated-to-78-0-4093-112-memory-being-chewed-up

The only sol'n for me was to downgrade to the 77 branch as both 78 and 79 exhibited the same issue.

I am able to use the browser normally again without "chunks" of virtual memory (in the hundreds of megs at a clip) being swallowed and not released.

I wonder about the 80 branch now,. if this memory management issue has been addressed..

I am reluctant to upgrade and test it out.

I finally rolled back to the 77 version

I waited out All the versions in the 78 series..

I Even held out for this new 79 branch hoping that this issue would be addressed, but no.

None of them fixed this very fatal memory issue as I described in the OP

Once I opened the private window (it seems), and got beyond "some limit", of tabs, or I don;'t know what, my virtual memory (i.e., my disk space via my paging file) got eaten up in Huge gulps of several hundred megs at a clip. This ate up all the rest of my (sparse) free disk space real fast.

It became impossible to use the browser as I had to constantly restart it which then released that space back, but ofc I had to start the browser all over and open up the tabs I use constantly so they are "updated".

Back to 77, everything works great.

I can have 100 tabs actually active And plenty opened and active in the private window too, to No detriment to my disk space (memory via page file or whatever).

I've no idea if this is Opera's bug or the Chrome base but at least I can use the browser normally again.

Win 7

I've stayed on vers 77 because of significant memory leaks that rendered the browser totally unusable in versions I tried afterward (78-80. see here for background.

Now two years later, I am considering trying the last version for Win 7 (vers 95), but I am very leery.

1. If I install 95,. are there profile differences that would cause problems straight away? Extension issues? Will the direct to 95 install even work?

2. If there are issues, or the install simply fails, or if memory management is still broken (I assume it likely will be as I followed some other users who posted about a year ago who were still having the memory issues with versions up to 85 I believe)---

So again, if there are issues, would I be able to cleanly and 100% successfully roll back to my stable vers 77 by:

A) Making an eniter backup of my Opera Profile directory
B ) Uninstalling Opera completely through Windows Control Panel Programs and Files "uninstall" (data and all)
C) Installing Opera 77 from the setup file (using no auto-start and then disabling the automatic update system in Task Scheduler (etc) )
D) Copying back the entire backup of the profile directory

Profit?

Any issues with trying this that would prevent that from getting me back to where I currently am right now? Vers 77? 100%?

Thanks

@blackbird71

Thnx for the corroboration.

You have any idea of some way I might be able to get my current state (tabs opened) transferred over to another browser? (even a Chromium based one?)

It'll be a painful task to manually go through and open tabs one at atime when I have so many in my "working state", but it's what I'll have to do failing some "mechanism"

*ofc my extensions too, but that is less important than the tabs..

And lastly, I have another Win 11 box that I can utilize-

If I install current Opera there, and copy my entire "user-data-dir" over to that box (before Opera's first run there), will everything transfer (sans passwords, i know..)?

It'd be a big jump from the 70's to 115 (or w/e vers is current rn)

For anyone searching with the same issue-

I did a standalone install of version 95, and pointed it to a backup copy of my entire Opera user data folder.

Opera opened,. and ran, but the memory issue that existed when I first posted over two years ago has not been addressed at all

I will finally have to move to a better coded browser that still runs on Win 7. Too bad. I really liked a lot of the features of Opera

(I admittedly have a chit ton of tabs in my session (over 200), but obv not all opened at once.)

What happens:

Upon opening Opera v95, I go through activating some tabs. Once I get to about 10 or 12, I notice a instant 200 MB drop in disk space. As I continue through to about 15 tabs, I notice another 100MB gone.

This is obv the pagining file growig as Opera must be requesting this space.

I then merely open a private window, but don't enter any website (My Opera Start Page has all the bells/whistles off (shopping, etc etc), so just a blank plain start page)

Boom. 400MB of additional disk space gone, into the paging file (I assume, since my Opera data folder hasn't grown at all)

Two private tabs opened to plain-jane websites and another 400MB gone.

So it seems, once Opera (versions after 77) get to some threshold programmed in to Opera, it just goes ham on growing the paging file.

The only difference I can see from versions above 77 where this problem "exploded" to the last version for win 7, vers 95, is that when I close Opera v95, Most of the disk space taken by the program via the paging file, is actually released back to the OS.

The last version I'd tried before v95, was version 80, and none of that disk space was released after closing Opera, and I would have to reboot the machine to get it back.

Ridiculous.

So, all in all, a completely unusable browser under Win 7 (core i5 8GB RAM) beyond version 77

As an aside, I did a stand alone install of veriosn 75 which I'm using right now, and I have no less than 35 active tabs going and barely and disk space via the paging file has been chewed up..

this is the way Opera always ran until version 78

O well.

Win 7

I've stayed on vers 77 because of significant memory leaks that rendered the browser totally unusable in versions I tried afterward (78-80. see here for background.

Now two years later, I am considering trying the last version for Win 7 (vers 95), but I am very leery.

1. If I install 95,. are there profile differences that would cause problems straight away? Extension issues? Will the direct to 95 install even work?

2. If there are issues, or the install simply fails, or if memory management is still broken (I assume it likely will be as I followed some other users who posted about a year ago who were still having the memory issues with versions up to 85 I believe)---

So again, if there are issues, would I be able to cleanly and 100% successfully roll back to my stable vers 77 by:

A) Making an eniter backup of my Opera Profile directory
B ) Uninstalling Opera completely through Windows Control Panel Programs and Files "uninstall" (data and all)
C) Installing Opera 77 from the setup file (using no auto-start and then disabling the automatic update system in Task Scheduler (etc) )
D) Copying back the entire backup of the profile directory

Profit?

Any issues with trying this that would prevent that from getting me back to where I currently am right now? Vers 77? 100%?

Thanks

See here:
https://forums.opera.com/topic/50730/win-7-opera-updated-to-78-0-4093-112-memory-being-chewed-up

The only sol'n for me was to downgrade to the 77 branch as both 78 and 79 exhibited the same issue.

I am able to use the browser normally again without "chunks" of virtual memory (in the hundreds of megs at a clip) being swallowed and not released.

I wonder about the 80 branch now,. if this memory management issue has been addressed..

I am reluctant to upgrade and test it out.

Roll back to the 77 tree.. I had to..
https://forums.opera.com/topic/50730/win-7-opera-updated-to-78-0-4093-112-memory-being-chewed-up

Session Buddy extension from the Chrome store

Install SessionBuddy.

Never lose your open tabs again. I learned this lesson not to trust Opera correctly shutting down a while ago

It's a Chrome extension so you need the Opera extension that allows you to install Chrome extensions.

I finally rolled back to the 77 version

I waited out All the versions in the 78 series..

I Even held out for this new 79 branch hoping that this issue would be addressed, but no.

None of them fixed this very fatal memory issue as I described in the OP

Once I opened the private window (it seems), and got beyond "some limit", of tabs, or I don;'t know what, my virtual memory (i.e., my disk space via my paging file) got eaten up in Huge gulps of several hundred megs at a clip. This ate up all the rest of my (sparse) free disk space real fast.

It became impossible to use the browser as I had to constantly restart it which then released that space back, but ofc I had to start the browser all over and open up the tabs I use constantly so they are "updated".

Back to 77, everything works great.

I can have 100 tabs actually active And plenty opened and active in the private window too, to No detriment to my disk space (memory via page file or whatever).

I've no idea if this is Opera's bug or the Chrome base but at least I can use the browser normally again.

@xinyes507
I've been holding out hope that subsequent 78 updates would address the issue but doesn't seem like it yet, so it appears reverting is the only solution to have a usable browser.

By reverting back to the 77 tree did you lose:

Profile including installed extensions?
Current season open tabs?
Cookies?
History?

Could you either link to specific instructions to revert, or lay out the procedure here?

Thanks

Firstly and off topic (because I don't know where else to ask for help)

Will a mod please fix or otherwise email instructions to my associated email address on what could be causing my "login" issue, and subsequent nonsensical ban?

The email said:

"This is the reason why you have been banned:

Use of caps"

Ludicrous. I have less than 10 total posts on this forum.

Congruent to the above, I have no issue logging in to the "auth" portal, in which when I do login, under Sessions", I always see a "twin" login from another address (usually a German ip address). I clear all the logins except the current one.

I have no clue why this is happening and it seems to coincide w/my upgrade to the 78 tree.

As to the original issue:

It is apparently the paging file that explodes soon after I open a private window. And I cannot reclaim that memory (disk space) unless I completely shut down and restart Opera.

This started happening immediately after I updated to 78. My behavior hasn't changed: open tabs, private window tabs opened, etc.

The only thing I haven't done since updating is reboot the computer. I will try that but it seems that I will have to find some way to downgrade to get this browser back to a useable state.

I'm literally down from 1.5gb to 145mb after only opening temporarily a private window with one or two tabs (doing that several times)

I don't want to reinstall, lose my session with 140 tabs, my history, cookies and profile.

That seems like killing a mosquito with a bazooka to me.

A simple update should not wreak this much havoc with memory/paging file.

But please, someone who can, please look into the forum issue and communicate to me through email.

I see western56 was banned by for asking why I'd been banned.

Something is seriously broken.