383700 - NS_ERROR_FAILURE (apparently random) stops javascript processing and images loading

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Olivier Dony]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4

I have never noticed this behavior before 2.0.0.4.
Since I upgraded, every now and then a page fails to load and the following error appears in the error console:

[Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE) [nsIFileOutputStream.init]" nsresult: "0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)" location: "JS frame :: file:///Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/components/nsSessionStore.js :: sss_writeFile :: line 2025" data: no]

When it occurs it usually stops loading a part of the Javascript on the page, resulting in various javascript errors, and most of the time some images on the page appear as broken links.
If I reload the page (and get the exact same HTML source) it usually loads fine, with no error.

I have not yet found a pattern with this, or a way to reproduce it systematically, although it seems to occur quite frequently on some websites.
I will add more details if I can find additional info.

This can be quite annoying because it makes you think the website is broken/down, which is something we don't want our customers to think of our services, so I selected major severity.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Use Firefox 2.0.0.4 and browse the web as ususal
2. If at some point the images on a page appear to be broken and/or part of the dynamic behavior of the page seems to be missing, check the error console for this error.
3. If you see the same error, reload the page, it will usually go away

Comment 1

[Sam Richards]

I just want to confirm that I get exactly the same behaviour. Sometimes it seems like its recoverable, but sometimes (especially when it stops images being loaded) the only recorse is to kill the app and restart, since at that point firefox will not cleanly shutdown.

Curirously all the menu options also start failing (they dont display), apart from the "Firefox" menu option.

Comment 2

[Kai Bolay]

I sometimes get a similar error on Windows XP with 2.0.0.11:

[Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE) [nsIWebNavigation.document]"  nsresult: "0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)"  location: "JS frame :: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Mozilla%20Firefox/components/nsSessionStore.js :: sss_saveState :: line 1749"  data: no]
file:///C:/Program%20Files/Mozilla%20Firefox/components/nsSessionStore.js
Line 1749

Comment 3

[Simon Bünzli]

Are you still able to reproduce this issue with a 20081106 nightly build? If not, this bug was fixed by bug 407110.

Comment 4

[Kai Bolay]

I haven't seen this problem in a while. If I had to guess probably not since upgrading to Firefox 3.0.x.

Comment 5

[sonya]

On OS X, this used to happen to me reliably on Firefox 2.0.x, about once every couple days of "continuous" firefox usage (i.e., a couple hours a night across a couple days, with the same instance of FF running).  On Firefox 3.0.x (currently Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.4) Gecko/2008102920 Firefox/3.0.4) this problem is even worse, and it tends to pop up after just a couple hours.

Once it has started, I can open new tabs, but clicking on links or manually entering a URL results in no browser activity.  Using the menu to quit doesn't work either (you can select quit, but then nothing happens), and the only way to really fix it is to force-quite firefox.  I only get a few more hours of reliable usage per restart.  Behavior has gotten no better across maintenance releases of 3.0.x. Here is the error I get in Error Console:

Error: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE) [nsIFileOutputStream.init]"  nsresult: "0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)"  location: "JS frame :: file:///Users/sonya/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/components/nsSessionStore.js :: sss_writeFile :: line 2145"  data: no]
Source File: file:///Users/sonya/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/components/nsSessionStore.js
Line: 2145

I thought it was bad enough in 2.0.x, and hope 3.0.x fixed it, but sadly not.  As far as platforms, this has been happening on my Mac for ages; on my Windows machine which I use very heavily in my day job, I have never seen this issue in either Firefox 2 or 3.

I tried creating a new profile from scratch back when this started happening to me with Firefox 2; that did not appear to help either.

Comment 7

[Christopher Mason]

I can confirm that I'm also still seeing this in 3.5.  At random, after using firefox for hours to days, the following errors occur, layout is incorrect, images are missing, and the browser becomes generally unresponsive.  Restarting firefox seems to be the only remedy.


Error: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE) [nsIFileOutputStream.init]"  nsresult: "0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)"  location: "JS frame :: file:///Applications/Firefox%203.5.app/Contents/MacOS/components/nsSessionStore.js :: sss_writeFile :: line 2761"  data: no]
Source File: file:///Applications/Firefox%203.5.app/Contents/MacOS/components/nsSessionStore.js
Line: 2761

Error: uncaught exception: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE) [nsIDOMHistory.length]"  nsresult: "0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)"  location: "JS frame :: http://partner.googleadservices.com/gampad/google_ads.js :: anonymous :: line 43"  data: no]

Error: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE) [nsIFileOutputStream.init]"  nsresult: "0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)"  location: "JS frame :: file:///Applications/Firefox%203.5.app/Contents/MacOS/components/nsSessionStore.js :: sss_writeFile :: line 2761"  data: no]
Source File: file:///Applications/Firefox%203.5.app/Contents/MacOS/components/nsSessionStore.js
Line: 2761

Error: uncaught exception: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE) [nsIDOMHistory.length]"  nsresult: "0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)"  location: "JS frame :: http://partner.googleadservices.com/gampad/google_ads.js :: anonymous :: line 43"  data: no]


Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.1) Gecko/20090624 Firefox/3.5

Comment 8

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Reporter, please retest with Firefox 3.6.12 or later in a fresh profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). Also update your plugins (flash, adobe reader, java, quicktime, silverlight, etc.) Go to the developer's website and download the latest version from there. If you no longer see this issue, please close this bug as RESOLVED, WORKSFORME. If you do see the bug, please post a comment.

Comment 9

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.12 or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). If you continue to see this issue with the newest firefox and a new profile, then please comment on this bug.