Closed Bug 205769 Opened 21 years ago Closed 17 years ago

Firefox crashes/quits on startup

Categories

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
General
Platform:
x86
Windows 98
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
critical

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: mpt, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Keywords: crash)

Attachments

(1 file)

The patched all.js
28.05 KB, application/x-javascript
Details 
Build: Phoenix 2003-05-14-15, Windows 98 SE

To reproduce:
1.  Double-click on the "MozillaFirebird.exe" icon.

What was expected:
*   A Web browser of some sort.

What happened:
*   The working-in-background cursor came on for about a second.
*   Nothing else.

Additional information:
*   The same thing happened with the April 29th build.
*   TalkBack didn't register a crash, with either build.
WFM Mozilla/5.0 (Windows 2000; en-US; rv:1.4b) Gecko/20030514 Mozilla Firebird/0.6
Maybe you have a bad profile

WFM

Maybe http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=205647
0.6 release crashes for me on startup.
Win2000, Fresh install, No profiles.

Talkback IDs:
TB20181575E
TB20181519Y
TB20181440X
TB20181415Z
TB20181412W
O.6 Release also crashes for me with a fresh XP build with a fresh profile.  No
TalkBack came up either.   When I tried to redupblicate the crash I did get the
program to launch, but it then froze up and crashed immediately (had to kill the
process to make it go away).

However, I was able to get the profile manager to come up (-p), and make another
profile elsewhere; same crash.
For the 0.6 crash that I was getting, I think I found a workaround.
I noticed that with a new profile, Firebird uses Mozilla.org as its start page,
adn would crassh while trying to load the page on startup.

So, I created a profile using the Mozilla suite (1.4b) and did nothing but set
the start page to about:blank.  I then closed Mozilla and ran the Firebird
profile manager and created a profile pointing to the new Mozilla profile that I
had just created.  Firebird starts off with a blank page and does not crash on
start up, since apparently the crash was a result of Firebird trying to fetch  a
web page on start up.

Does that work for anybody?
Yes, this workaround works. Actually for me it was enough to just run Mozilla 
using fresh profile and then copy this profile over to Phoenix directory.
Similar workaround to #5 works for me except that instead of using Mozilla suite
to create a fresh profile, I just copied my old Phoenix 0.5 profile into place
(has an about:blank homepage) and used that.

Note: A difference with my problem is that whereas Firebird hung for other
people prior to the workaround, for me it crashed (error dialog then submit
report - submitted a couple).
I don't know how to create a profile, let alone "create[] a profile pointing to 
the new Mozilla profile that I had just created", but if you can provide step-
by-step instructions in English, I'll follow them.

Meanwhile, further information.
*   Reproduced with Firebird 0.6, and with build 2003-05-17-08.
*   Phoenix 0.5 also crashes on startup. The 0.5 crash produces an error
    message, which the nightlies don't, so it might be a different bug.
    PHOENIX caused an invalid page fault in module JS3250.DLL at 017f:00b47a86.
    Registers:
    EAX=0657aa22 CS=017f EIP=00b47a86 EFLGS=00010202
    EBX=00000000 SS=0187 ESP=00dbf808 EBP=00dbf828
    ECX=0657aa22 DS=0187 ESI=00dbf844 FS=193f
    EDX=0657aa22 ES=0187 EDI=00dbf88c GS=0000
    Bytes at CS:EIP:
    8b 73 14 ff b3 50 01 00 00 83 c6 6c 8d 86 38 01 
    Stack dump:
    00dbf888 00000006 00dbf844 80000001 7800138e 00b4d77d 00efb190 0657aa22
    00dbf894 00b47c02 00000000 00dbf888 00000082 00000000 00ef9630 00610063
*   Phoenix 0.5, Firebird 0.6, and the nightlies all create a "Mozilla" folder
    inside the "Application Data" folder before crashing. The folder is empty.
I'm not sure if this is the same bug, but I find on Windows 2000 SP2 that
Firebird 0.6 does not like its own default profile.

The browser window loads, showing the toolbar, but not the bookmarks bar.  If
i'm offline then I get an offline error message.  Then Firebird crashes and the
talkback kicks in.

I have sent in a talkback report, but how do I find out the "Talkback ID"?

The profile can be fixed by running an older build (e.g. Phoenix 0.5) or by
editing the prefs.js file as follows:

This is the default prefs.js file created by 0.6:-

# Mozilla User Preferences

/* Do not edit this file.
*
* If you make changes to this file while the browser is running,
* the changes will be overridden when the browser exits.
*
* To make a manual change to preferences, you can visit the URL about:config
* For more information, see http://www.mozilla.org/unix/customizing.html#prefs
*/

i.e. no settings.

By adding this to the end of it, Firebird 0.6 should load:

user_pref("browser.bookmarks.added_static_root", true);

See also:

http://www.mozillazine.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=83746#83746
Regarding my comment 9 the Talkback IDs are TB20243134H and TB20180039Y
Thank you for providing the solution to the problem.  The hang up you describe
is exactly what Firebird was doing to me and the fix to the prefs.js file worked
perfectly. Your solution to the problem seems a far better fix than the duct
table and chewing gum solution that I posted in comment five (recycling a
Seamonkey profile).   
I dediced that I was far to lazy to manually add the line into the prefs.js file
for every profile I created, so I decided to fix Firebird instead using Peter's
comment #9.  I edited the all.js file in the build and included the missing line
so that whenever firebird creates a profile, it will create one that contains
the missing line. 

You can edit the file yourself by inserting the line in comment #9 (removing
user_) or download the attached edited version.   Copy the file to
[dir]\MozillaFirebird\defaults\pref\all.js.  Then, create a new profile which
should now work wtihout any tweaking.
Attached file The patched all.js — 
This patched version of all.js should replace the one that shipped with
Firebird 0.6, I meant to include it with the previous comment, but forgot.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 205129 ***
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 21 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
verified.
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
I have doubts as to whether this is a duplicate of bug 205129.
(1) Bug 205129 appears to happen only to local admins on Windows NT 5.x (i.e.
    Windows 2000 and XP). This bug, meanwhile, is happening to me on Windows 98.
(2) Those experiencing bug 205129 report seeing an initial window. I get none.
(3) Altering all.js, as described in bug 205129, has no effect on this bug.

Firebird 0.6.1 brings slight progress: instead of crashing, it hangs. Any 
further application launch is blocked until Mozillafirebird.exe is End-Tasked.
Yup, it's not a duplicate. Reproduced with Firebird 0.7, Windows 98. Reopening.
Status: VERIFIED → REOPENED
Resolution: DUPLICATE → ---
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031108
Firebird/0.7+

The new FirebirdSetup.exe Installer-Version suffers from the same problem. It
won't startup with its own default profile. 
I managed to get it going by copying the content of my old prefs.js, which was
created in a profile of the zipped Firebird-Version (the same BUILD!), into the
new prefs.js.
Now Firebird starts up - but the Google Search bar doesn't work. Clicking the
Firebird symbol in the upper rigt brings no results and no changes in
Options>Privacy can be saved (each of this a bug of its own?).
I can confirm this problem for the latest build (12-05-2003) under Linux.
According to this
 
http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/archives/000188.html#comments

I'm not the only one having these problems.
Got immediate crash on startup with 20031214 nightly build on WinXP.
It crashed in rendering startup page (for me it's Google)
Bug resurfaced on WinXP with Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US;
rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031214 Firebird/0.7+.  Immediate crash with send info to
Microsoft window.
WFM, same build, also on WinXP.  I used the zip build (not the installer).

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031214
Firebird/0.7+
Installing from .zip file with clean profile still results in crash.
Flags: blocking0.8?
I too did installation from .zip. As 20031213 nightly runs ok for me, it must be
caused by a checkin of that day, though the crash in comment #19 looks it
happened in different place.
Resummarizing. This bug was not caused by a 20031213 checkin, because it has 
existed at least since April. Any crasher bug that started after that time is a 
separate bug; please file a new report and stop littering in this one. Thanks.

When I return to Windows I'll try Firebird 0.4, 0.3, etc to see when it began.
Keywords: conversion
Summary: Firebird crashes (or quits) immediately on startup → Firebird has crashed/quit on startup since (at least) v0.5
I submit bug 228648 for crash with 20031213 checkin, please move there if you
have no crash with 20031213 nightly.
Flags: blocking0.8?
Does not occur in Phoenix 0.3 or 0.4. If anyone has CVS and some spare time and 
server space, it would be very helpful if they could put up builds for regular 
intervals between 2002-12-12 and 2003-04-29, to narrow down the bug's origin.
Summary: Firebird has crashed/quit on startup since (at least) v0.5 → Firebird started crashing/quitting on startup between v0.4 and v0.5
Is this still an issue?
(In reply to comment #28)
> Is this still an issue?

I believe so, I am having similar issues on a clean load of Firfox 0.8 release,
crashes at the very end of the install with both XP Home and XP media center
edition.  My XP Pro Laptop is running it just fine, but it has had many of it's
default security settings changed since it is my development platform.  The
28-Feb-04 build installs on XP MediaCenter, but never starts, no talkback,
process appears for a second in process list and disappears.  I'm thinking there
might be some setting from a MS security rollup that is doing this.  I will try
copying over a profile that starts with about:blank and see how that goes...
(In reply to comment #29)
The 20040228 gives me access to the profile manager, I soon as I create a new
profile, I can use firefox.  There must be something with the install that tries
to use mozilla's profile whether it is there or not, either way until create a
new profile you can't use firefox.  This is obviously an easy work around for
testers, but until the profile mess gets fixed end-users won't be happy.
Is this still a problem with 1.0?

Also, removing extraneous keyword...
Keywords: conversion
Summary: Firebird started crashing/quitting on startup between v0.4 and v0.5 → Firefox crashes/quits on startup
When i click on the icon, it shows me the 'work in background' symbol and then 
nothing. It just doesn't open. However, I should mention, that I had left 
firefox open overnight and I had 3 tabs open. One was finance.yahoo.com, one 
was www.figleaves.com and the other was www.stockcharts.com. When i tried to 
click on it, it didn't respond, so i closed it and tried to re open it. Now it 
just isn't starting up.
Two years later, the computer about which I reported the bug (where I used to
work) is still running Windows 98, but now runs Firefox 1.0 fine. Worksforthem.
I am running Win XP Pro v 5.1.26 with Firefox v 1.0.3 and seem to be suffering
from the same problem - clicking the Firefox icon opens the browswer with the
menu and toolbars in place but apparently dead. The Firefox home page is not
displayed on screen.

Clicking the 'Go to the Firefox homepage'icon in the top right of the Firefox
window does not appear to do anything but when I close the browser it informs me
that I have several tabs open - one for each click of the icon.

This is also true 'Open a new tab' icon. I guess all this clicking must be doing
something behind the scenes but no changes are visible on the display.

If I select a search engine in the box at the far right of the navigation
toolbar, a menu pops up on the left hand side of the display but disappears
again as soon as the mouse is moved off the search engine icon. This is
obviously being rendered in the wrong place.

In addition to this, the browser seems to work OK in safe mode when launched
from the Windows start menu.

I hope that these observations are of some help.
I am also facing similar problems with Firefox 1.5 Beta2. (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows;
U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b5) Gecko/20051006 Firefox/1.4.1)

I am using a Windows XP Prof (SP2) system.  I think I also faced similar problem
with Firefox 1.0.6 & 1.0.7.

However, this problem is very rarely observed.

Problem :

Clicking on the Firefox icon does not pop up the browser. Going to the task
manager  after a few minutes I find the Firefox process running cosuming around
15-25 kB of memory. Terminate the process. Restart Firefox, it starts.



This is a problem for me with build 20060228 running WinXP SP2 and a fresh profile directory.  

Double click firefox.exe, and ZoneAlarm tells me that it's trying to access localhost (127.0.0.1:1871).  I say OK.  Then it tells me again that it's trying to access localhost.  I say ok.  Then nothing happens, and I have to go kill the process.

It appears that a complete profile directory is created.  

I'm using 20060222 right now, which is the last nightly build to successfully launch.  No crash, no TB created.
Assignee: bross2 → nobody
Status: REOPENED → NEW
QA Contact: asa → general
closing WFM per reporter comment 33.  any newer, unresolved issues can probably be more effectively addressed in separate bugs.  (BTW, this bug w9x)
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 21 years ago → 17 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
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