June 2023 crashes

[shanen0]

The lack of stability is such a perennial topic I don't know how else to approach it. I have NOT seen a new feature I cared about in a LONG time, but the crashes are forever and I care a lot about that.

I am not sure this is a new version of some old problem, but I'll try to summarize the mess as far as I can see it. I'm marking it for June 2023 because one aspect is new. The new wrinkle is an immediate crash upon starting Firefox. I saw it on Windows 10 yesterday and I'm wondering if it's related to a similar problem that has plagued Ubuntu for a long time now. However, in Ubuntu the problem has apparently gotten worse. Rather than just rebooting Ubuntu, the newest wrinkle is now sometimes rebooting Ubuntu.

"I'm too old for this **bleep**." Also too tired too chase the bugs and not smart enough.

But I better include some possible complexities. I think most of this rules me out as a data source. At least I can claim some excuses for failing to can the bug so it can be squashed. The Windows 10 machine is old, upgraded from Windows 7, and the hardware is becoming suspect. Plus it is pretty purely Japanese. The English version of Firefox is one of the few such programs on the machine. Regarding Ubuntu, it's running on a much newer machine, but it's actually in the VirtualBox so there are four candidate sources for the problem. I'm suspecting Firefox, but it could be Oracle motivated by the lack of profit, Ubuntu motivated by the seem kind of feeping creaturitis that hurts Firefox, or Microsoft engaging in some kind of clever blackmail in the Windows 11 upgrade (from a Windows 10 base). Again the underlying machine is Japanese, though there is more English software on this one. Oh wait. One more complexity. It's a shared machine and the other user is even less technically sophisticated than I am, so I suppose that malware has to be considered as an option.

[jscher2000]

If your browser is displaying the Mozilla Crash Reporter, and you submit the crash reports to Mozilla, then you can share your crash report IDs on Mozilla Support. See: https://support.mozilla.org/kb/firefox-crashes-asking-support

[shanen]

Sometimes the crash reporter was activated and I always give it permission. The latest crashes never offer the crash reporter, but sometimes I am getting a safe mode restart. No idea why that might matter since it's supposed to involve plugins and I am not aware of having installed any. Maybe Ubuntu did it? Maybe a hacker? Perhaps a website?

[jscher2000]

Firefox may suggest starting in Troubleshoot Mode after a crash in case it is caused by a graphics driver incompatibility, so I wouldn't assume it's an add-on issue.

Does the Windows Event Viewer, Application log, give any information on the crashes?

[shanen0]

I thought I had tried to reply to this, but I'm going to assume I didn't (rather than speculate again on reliability of the bug-reporting system).

If it's a graphics driver problem, then that seems to point at VirtualBox. More evidence in support of that hypothesis since the virtual machine is again crashing and rebooting soon after Firefox is started in Ubuntu. But the main thing is that I don't have the expertise to figure it out and would regard it as basically a waste of a lot of my time to try to get it back at this late date. (There was a day when I actually poked around in OS internals and even times when I didn't make things worse...)

The Windows problem was relatively transient, and though the symptoms looked similar, it has apparently been fixed. I didn't use the Event Viewer at that time. I'll say that's easier to understand, but there's usually a lot of noise to be filtered to spot the meaningful signal.

[shanen]

August now. Doesn't seem worth the effort of updating the problems, except as part of the generally increasing push to leave Firefox. I'm beginning to feel surprised that no one is trying to maliciously rebrand it as Firebox...

The latest update caught my attention because of problems with scrolling. I keep saying I just want it to work as well as it used to. I do NOT want to constantly have to fight for old functionality against mysterious new functions. In particular new functions I would NOT donate for. Insofar as it keeps coming back to the financial model, it is clear that whatever model you are using it is NOT "aligned" with what I want. So who would support it? (And now I mostly stay with Firebox because Microsoft and the google are so EVIL and Opera and Safari are like weak relatives of Firebox...)

On the main problems when I wrote the June report, the Windows 10 stuff was a false alarm. If the bug had spread from Ubuntu, then maybe it would get fixed? However the Ubuntu version has become worse than ever after a short period when it seemed to have gone away. I still have mixed feelings there. Now that it can repeatedly crash Ubuntu and force a reboot, then it has risen to the level of something that no OS can tolerate, but since Firefox is the only software (that I know of) that triggers the crash, then that points at Firefox doing something wrong...

[shanen0]

Strongly suspect the problem was inadequate memory allocation, but seems sad there were no hints anywhere. Just strangely patterned crashes. Cannot even explain what finally got me to look at that possibility. My speculations seem worth quite little, but I'll be pretty sure it is fixed if the crashes stay away for another week or two. <knocks on wood>

[Initra]

I have 20 or more crashes a day and I have reinstalle mozilla firefox in windows 10 and its all the same.

[shanen0]

Pretty sure that your situation isn't related to the problem I reported, but I regard it as unfortunate that Firefox apparently isn't giving you any useful data about what is wrong. On one hand it is tempting to ask for a new feature the provide better feedback, but on the other hand I don't think I'd actually pay for it on the speculation that such a feature could be created... (And the Mozilla people never ask me about new features at that level of granularity.)

[jscher2000]

Hi Initra, if your browser is displaying the Mozilla Crash Reporter, and you submit the crash reports to Mozilla, then you can share your crash report IDs on Mozilla Support. See: https://support.mozilla.org/kb/firefox-crashes-asking-support

(To be clear, this Connect site is not the support site.)

[Bundy714]

I might as well chime in here too.  I've used Firefox happily for years now, and I may have had a crash before this month, but IF I did, it was so rare that I truly can't remember one.  But starting in August 2023, I crash constantly when watching Youtube.  Like multiple times a day.  To the point where I may be forced to change browsers and I really don't want to, as I love Firefox.  But this new constant crashing is getting on my last nerve.  It just started this last month, and nothing I've tried has helped it.  It saddens me to think that this may be the end of the road for my favorite browser of all time.

I've just built a new PC that I'll hopefully be switching to this coming weekend (if I can get a 7800XT by the weekend).  My current PC runs Windows 10, while the new one is Windows 11.  Hopefully Firefox won't continue to do it's crashing thing on the new PC.  IF it does, I'll have to reluctantly find a new browser.  Fingers crossed that it doesn't come to that.

[shanen0 · Accepted solution]

Basically I just want to note (again) that I'm increasingly inclined to believe that the problem that I was reporting here (and perhaps in previous reports, too) was related to insufficient memory. I even think it would be possible to prove that if I was able to understand the logs, but I don't even know which logs to search in. The most visible part was the Firefox crash, but it's possible that Firefox wasn't even aware of what was killing it and I do regard it as some sort of bug that Firefox never came out and said anything about insufficient memory, even in cases where Firefox reported that it had crashed.

Also important to remember that I was running Ubuntu in a VM, so the problem was going up a chain. However none of the links (Ubuntu, VirtualBox, and Windows) reported insufficient memory at any point, and the duration of my problems was long, at least many months and perhaps a couple of years by now... That means there were many "upgrades" and new versions of all of the links, not just Firefox.

As a lowly user, I just want Firefox to work. But that seems to be where my priorities collide with the priorities of the powers-that-be-making Firefox. Based on my own years of programming, I have to admit that program maintenance is pretty boring work. Flashy now code is much more attractive. But as a paying customer, I am unable to remember many cases where I wanted to pay for flashy new features, no matter what the marketing droids said. I just want my tools to continue working, but paying for that does not seem to be a detectable option. (And I mostly blame Microsoft for driving the market in that direction.)

[jscher2000]

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@shanen0 wrote:

Basically I just want to note (again) that I'm increasingly inclined to believe that the problem that I was reporting here (and perhaps in previous reports, too) was related to insufficient memory. I even think it would be possible to prove that if I was able to understand the logs, but I don't even know which logs to search in. The most visible part was the Firefox crash, but it's possible that Firefox wasn't even aware of what was killing it and I do regard it as some sort of bug that Firefox never came out and said anything about insufficient memory, even in cases where Firefox reported that it had crashed.

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If the about:crashes page lists submitted report IDs, you can click the ID to view the report in the public viewer. Out-of-memory (OOM) signatures can be very obvious, or they can be difficult to diagnose. You can use the "More reports" link to view other crash reports with the same signature.

There is additional non-public information that developers can access if you create a bug and provide your report IDs. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ 

[jscher2000]

Hi Bundy714, if your browser is displaying the Mozilla Crash Reporter, and you submit the crash reports to Mozilla, then you can share your crash report IDs on Mozilla Support. See: https://support.mozilla.org/kb/firefox-crashes-asking-support

(To be clear, this Connect site is not the support site.)