1140151 - Firefox window disappears, the process keeps running when browsing certain websites

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[Spampot]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:36.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/36.0
Build ID: 20150305021524

Steps to reproduce:

System: Firefox 36 or 36.0.1 on Windows
(verified for XP, but allegedly also happens on Vista...8.1)

1. Open http://www.gocomics.com/andycapp
2. (If not already crashed:) Use the "one day back" button
3. Repeat step 2 until Firefox crashes (it will almost certainly)


Actual results:

The Firefox GUI freezes for a moment, then it disappears (as if Firefox had been closed). Yet it cannot be restarted because the "firefox.exe" process is still running and needs to be terminated via the task manager.


Expected results:

The site should have been displayed properly without crashing Firefox, just like it did with all versions before 36.

Comment 1

[Spampot]

I can now confirm that the crashes are not limited to Windows XP and one specific website, but also occur under Windows 8.1 64-bit and on a number of different sites that I have come across.

Comment 2

[mozilla]

Also experiencing the behavior described using Firefox 36.0.1 on OS X 10.10.2 when opening guardiannews.com.

Comment 3

[Loic]

I'm not able to reproduce the crash with FF36.

Could you test with a fresh profile, please.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles

In addition, enter about:crashes in the location bar and post some crash IDs (bp-...).

Comment 4

[mozilla]

1) I created a new profile and was able to open guardiannews.com under the new profile without a crash. (I'm now running 36.0.4)

2) The following bug reports were generated by this issue:
bp-ae841000-8568-4b94-99a8-b318d2150323	
689A2E3E-E646-4D67-9F1B-9A2F37D744DA	
bp-98478a52-1cb2-4072-883f-ca8522150322	
bp-56ef3cc3-a988-4fa2-a183-d26142150322	
bp-60d111fd-8be9-43c7-904e-1139a2150312	
bp-972b7fa9-f057-42ba-b6a3-9ac672150310	
bp-43e52a2a-6dea-452e-9899-6120a2150310	
bp-5d394bd3-f822-494b-aca8-2ffb22150310	
bp-c50680f5-dba5-4a26-bf54-b192f2150310(In reply to Loic from comment #3)
> I'm not able to reproduce the crash with FF36.
> 
> Could you test with a fresh profile, please.
> https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-
> firefox-profiles
> 
> In addition, enter about:crashes in the location bar and post some crash IDs
> (bp-...).

Comment 5

[Spampot]

I could just reproduce the crash with 36.0.4 on the same website. (Although it seems somewhat harder to trigger the crash with that version.)

Comment 6

[Loic]

could you provide crash reports, please.

Comment 7

[Spampot]

I couldn't find any. When Firefox crashes this way, no report window pops up (the GUI just disappears while the background process keeps running and must be terminated via task manager). The about:config page just says "No crash reports have been submitted.", and there are also no crash reports present at "%AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\Crash Reports". Are there other places to look for crash reports that I might have missed?

Comment 8

[Spampot]

Of course I meant "about:crashes" in comment 7, not "about:config". Sorry.

Comment 9

[Spampot]

Just had the same crash with Firefox 37.0 on the same website (http://www.gocomics.com/andycapp). Again, the background process kept running while the GUI disappeared (must be killed via task manager). And again, no crash reports anywhere. (Fresh profile, same behavior.)

Comment 10

[Loic]

Did you test the crash with a fresh profile?

Comment 11

[Spampot]

(In reply to Loic from comment #10)
> Did you test the crash with a fresh profile?

Yes, but no difference (see comment #9).

Comment 12

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Spampot, if you never get crash reports, please install https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/nightly-tester-tools/ and test whether you can force crash reporter with Tools | Nightly tester | crashme | divide by zero

Comment 13

[Nickolay_Ponomarev]

Spampot: If the process is running, but the windows disappeared, you might be able to get a stack trace using https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/How_to_Report_a_Hung_Firefox - although it probably won't be useful.

From the symptoms, I'd also try
1) https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-issues-with-plugins-fix-problems#w_determining-if-a-plugin-is-the-problem
2) https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/upgrade-graphics-drivers-use-hardware-acceleration

[e-mail] (comment 4) - your issue is different, I believe. You do get the Mozilla Crash Reporter window, right? https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/How_to_get_a_stacktrace_for_a_bug_report
Since you use extensions and the problem doesn't happen in a new profile, try https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-extensions-themes-to-fix-problems

Comment 14

[Spampot]

Ok, I'll try. However, given that ...

1.) The problem was introduced with Firefox 36.0 and was definitely not present in earlier versions,

2.) The problem does also occur with a fresh installation and a fresh profile without any plug-ins or extensions,

... I wouldn't expect it to depend on some special add-on.

Comment 15

[Loic]

The main issue is to find a solid testcase, because we are not able to reproduce the issue with the website you provided.

Anyway, if you think it regressed since FF36, you can download and run the tool mozregression to find a possible regression range (as you're able to reproduce it).
See http://mozilla.github.io/mozregression/ for details about install and usage.
Run "mozregression mozregression --good-release 35" then copy here the pushlog (don't bisect more).

Comment 16

[brw]

I have a similar issue with FF 37.0.2 (started before this version was released). I will have several tabs open and suddenly the mouse becomes sluggish and unresponsive. Then Firefox disappears completely but the service is still running so I can't restart without stopping the service. When I restart the tabs come back and all works fine. Unfortunately I can't come up with a specific reproducible scenario. I think pages with a lot of Flash items, like The New York Times, may be a factor. I'm running Windows 7 Pro with all the latest patches and updates along with the latest Flash.

Comment 17

[Simona Badau, Desktop QA]

Spampot, are you still getting the same crashes when using the latest Firefox versions (Firefox 43, Nightly 46)?
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/
https://nightly.mozilla.org/

Comment 18

[Spampot]

(In reply to Simona B from comment #17)
> Spampot, are you still getting the same crashes when using the latest
> Firefox versions (Firefox 43, Nightly 46)?

I haven't observed them for a while with FF42 and FF43.
However, that's not necessarily a guarantee of course.

Comment 19

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

comment 18/several months is good enough for WFM