watir-webdriver with firefox 6.0 see following error Errno::ECONNREFUSED - firefox

Question

Currently run 150 plus scenarios nightly approximately 5000 steps. I see the following error occur around 10 times in the 5000 steps. Not a lot, nor on the same step, however don't know what to do to fix. Currently wrapping in a rescue block and retrying to work around error.
Any suggestions would be great.
Thanks,
Jim
Environment:
Windows 2003 Server 32 bit
FireFox 6.0.2
Ruby 1.8.7
watir-webdriver 0.3.4
selenium-webdriver 2.7.0
watir-page-helper 0.3.0
Errno::ECONNREFUSED: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it. - connect(2)
Stack trace:
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:560:in `initialize'
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:560:in `open'
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:560:in `connect'
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:53:in `timeout'
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:101:in `timeout'
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:560:in `connect'
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:553:in `do_start'
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:542:in `start'
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1035:in `request'
./features/support/../../lib/pages/base_page_class.rb:37:in `initialize'
./features/support/env.rb:147:in `new'
./features/support/env.rb:147:in `on'
./features/support/env.rb:143:in `visit'
./features/step_definitions/login_steps.rb:32:in `/^A user logs into Connect using (new|existing) rid using correct environment dictated by environment variable$/'
features\ReservationDailyView.feature:6:in `And A user logs into Connect using existing rid using correct environment dictated by environment variable'
One thing to note, I am closing the browser after each scenario and opening it up again at start of the next scenario.
If I leave the browser open instead I get this error and my firefox instance is totally running out of memory 600,000+ K VM Size 700,000+ K
Timeout::Error: execution expired
Stack trace:
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:64:in `rbuf_fill'
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:134:in `rbuf_fill'
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:116:in `readuntil'
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:126:in `readline'
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:2028:in `read_status_line'
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:2017:in `read_new'
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1051:in `request'
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1037:in `request'
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:543:in `start'
G:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1035:in `request'
./features/support/env.rb:148:in `call'
./features/support/env.rb:148:in `on'

Answer 1

Looks like you are running out of ephemeral ports. You might want to change settings in the registry to use more ports. Refer below
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa560610(v=bts.20).aspx