1361634 - Computer Locks Up when firefox opens new tab

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[mrex700]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:53.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/53.0
Build ID: 20170413192749

Steps to reproduce:

Opening a new tab using the + icon at the first time when opening my home computer.


Actual results:

After then, at first the firefox stops responding, however unlike a regular irresponsive firefox the window cannot be shut down and after a while the whole computer locks up and the mouse becomes locked as well. After then pressing caps lock has no effect, so the computer is dead locked so i must press the power button to reset the computer. Antivirus scan results in no viruses detected. After i restart the computer, the computer no longer gets dead locked when opening new tabs during this session.


Expected results:

This seems to be a firefox bug or a virus, although it is very unlikely to be a virus.

Comment 1

[mrex700]

(In reply to mrex700 from comment #0)
> User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:53.0) Gecko/20100101
> Firefox/53.0
> Build ID: 20170413192749
> 
> Steps to reproduce:
> 
> Opening a new tab using the + icon at the first time when opening my home
> computer.
> 
> 
> Actual results:
> 
> After then, at first the firefox stops responding, however unlike a regular
> irresponsive firefox the window cannot be shut down and after a while the
> whole computer locks up and the mouse becomes locked as well. After then
> pressing caps lock has no effect, so the computer is dead locked so i must
> press the power button to reset the computer. Antivirus scan results in no
> viruses detected. After i restart the computer, the computer no longer gets
> dead locked when opening new tabs during this session.
> 
> 
> Expected results:
> 
> This seems to be a firefox bug or a virus, although it is very unlikely to
> be a virus.

I later found out that this has something to do with interactive google maps (Which are trackers that are used to play pokemon go) because the lockdowns only happen when:
1. Various types of google maps (Like pokemon go trackers) are opened
2. A new tab is opened

Comment 2

[Emil Pasca [:emilpasca]]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:53.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/53.0

I have tested this issue on Windows 7 and Windows 10 x64 with the latest Firefox release (53.0.2) and the latest Nightly (55.0a1-20170507030205) and haven't managed to reproduce it.
After navigating to http://maps.google.com/, when pressing the "+" button, a new tab is successfully loaded. No lag, hang or unresponsive behavior occurs.

Can you please retest this using the latest Firefox release and the latest Nightly build (https://nightly.mozilla.org/) and report back the results? When doing this, please use a new clean Firefox profile, maybe even safe mode, to eliminate custom settings as a possible cause (https://goo.gl/AR5o9d).

Also can you please name the websites (pokemon go trakers) you are visiting? Since you mentioned that it may have something to do with this.

Thank you.

Comment 3

[mrex700]

Sorry but minutes ago even if i don't have the app opened, the whole firefox problem happened again which when i open a new tab the whole computer was locked up dead. It seems like that if you do not open a tab for a while in firefox when you first start it, when you open a new tab soon the whole pc freezes.

Comment 4

[Emil Pasca [:emilpasca]]

If you have any addons or custom settings enabled this may affect your current profile, have your tried re-testing this using a new clean Firefox profile as mentioned in comment 2?

Comment 5

[Mark Foley]

I am running Firefox 53.0 and Windows 7. I have been using Firefox as my regular browser for a couple of years. For the past week or so I have been having this same problem. It has nothing to do with google maps or a particular page. When I open the 6th tab in Firefox the computer hangs completely. The mouse still works, but can do nothing. I cannot close Firefox, run task manager, use the keyboard or reboot. I have to power off the computer. This has happened half-a-dozen times in the past week or so and is very repeatable.

Comment 6

[mrex700]

(In reply to Mark Foley from comment #5)
> I am running Firefox 53.0 and Windows 7. I have been using Firefox as my
> regular browser for a couple of years. For the past week or so I have been
> having this same problem. It has nothing to do with google maps or a
> particular page. When I open the 6th tab in Firefox the computer hangs
> completely. The mouse still works, but can do nothing. I cannot close
> Firefox, run task manager, use the keyboard or reboot. I have to power off
> the computer. This has happened half-a-dozen times in the past week or so
> and is very repeatable.

Yes, mine was exactly like this too. Have to power off, shutting down firefox manually is impossible.

Comment 7

[mrex700]

Also, i found out that it happens when a new tab is not opened within a set amount of time during the session.

Comment 8

[Flore Allemandou [:flore]]

Unless this happens again when you test it with a fresh and clean profile (as expalined in comment 2 and asked again in comment 4), we can not rule out the possibility that it is due to your profile (custom settings and addons).

So please, try with a fresh profile and report back.

Comment 9

[Mark Foley]

I uninstalled Firefox from my system (Windows 7) including deleted the folders C:\Users\me\AppData\[Local|Roaming]\Mozilla (which btw had over 14,000 files an about 3/4 Gig of space!!!). I installed Firefox from scratch. It ran just fine for over a week and I believe I had 12 or so tabs opened. Then, I got the message "Gah. Your tab just crashed." I don't recall if I had done anything to trigger that -- perhaps opened a new tab, but I can't be sure. I did not choose restore. Instead, I went to the address line and hit ENTER. My cursor continued moving for a several seconds, then nothing. No mouse response, no keyboard response. I left it for several hours in case interaction resumed, but no. Once again I had to manually power off the computer and once again my system was sufficiently hosed that I had to run chkdsk /f C: and restore from a previous Restore Point.

This has only happened since version 53.0.x. Although I have been using Firefox for years and recommending it to my clients for the speed, security and privacy, I cannot continue like this. Please investigate.

Comment 10

[Emil Pasca [:emilpasca]]

Can you please retest this using the latest Nightly build (https://nightly.mozilla.org/) and see if the issue is still reproducible here?

Comment 11

[Mark Foley]

I am currently on 53.0.3. I restarted everything after the lockup I reported 15 days ago on 5/22/2017 (comment 9). I have been running with 11+ tabs opened and so far no system lockup. I did get the "your tab just crashed" once during this time, but this time I chose to 'Restore' instead of ignoring the message. I'm not sure if the choice to restore made a difference, but Firefox did not lock up my system that time. I will continue to use the standard release versions until I get the lockup problem again. If that happens, I'll test with the nightly version.

As an aside: is 14,000+ files and 750+MB of space used normal for the C:\Users\me\AppData\[Local|Roaming]\Mozilla folders? Seems rather excessive and I don't see options to clean this up. I can post this question on the user forum if not a simple one-line answer here.

Comment 12

[mrex700]

(In reply to Mark Foley from comment #11)
> I am currently on 53.0.3. I restarted everything after the lockup I reported
> 15 days ago on 5/22/2017 (comment 9). I have been running with 11+ tabs
> opened and so far no system lockup. I did get the "your tab just crashed"
> once during this time, but this time I chose to 'Restore' instead of
> ignoring the message. I'm not sure if the choice to restore made a
> difference, but Firefox did not lock up my system that time. I will continue
> to use the standard release versions until I get the lockup problem again.
> If that happens, I'll test with the nightly version.
> 
> As an aside: is 14,000+ files and 750+MB of space used normal for the
> C:\Users\me\AppData\[Local|Roaming]\Mozilla folders? Seems rather excessive
> and I don't see options to clean this up. I can post this question on the
> user forum if not a simple one-line answer here.

The problem is that in my case the firefox lockup in my case goes not give any warnings; It doesn't allow me to restore nor does it give the tab crash warning. Instead, it goes straight into not responding then locking up the computer after a while forcing me to shut it down by pressing the power button.

Comment 13

[Mark Foley]

(In reply to mrex700 from comment #12)
> The problem is that in my case the firefox lockup in my case goes not give
> any warnings; It doesn't allow me to restore nor does it give the tab crash
> warning. Instead, it goes straight into not responding then locking up the
> computer after a while forcing me to shut it down by pressing the power
> button.

Mine did exactly the same, repeatedly, until I scoured every vestige of Firefox from my system including deleting the 3/4G of files in the C:\Users\me\AppData\[Local|Roaming]\Mozilla folders. I seem to be running mostly OK after that with the one mentioned exception. Did you try a complete Firefox purge and reinstall? If that didn't help, did you try the latest https://nightly.mozilla.org/ as suggested by Emil Pasca in Comment 10?

Comment 14

[mrex700]

I also found the following things about this bug:
* It happens shortly after Chatzilla is launched. If i don't launch chatzilla it won't happen.
* A new tab must be opened in order to trigger it. 
* It doesn't happen instantly. Sometimes even if you would open chatzilla, the system will not freeze until a period of time has passed. In one case today, it happened instantly (I was opening a tab after launching chatzilla).
* Once it happens there is no way to get around it save for rebooting.
* After it happens and the computer is fully rebooted it will not happen again, at least for this time of the day, like a trigger or something like that.

Comment 15

[mrex700]

Also there is no warning when it happens; It won't display anything (So not the Gah! Your tab just crashed like Mark Foley said). The firefox just hangs (Not responding) while opening the tab, and you cannot shut it down. Clicking X has no effect and attempting to summon the task manager freezes the pc instantly. After a while the whole windows os locks up. (Clicking caps lock has no effect, cursor dissappears) and there is no way to get around it after it happens; Only way is to shut down the computer by powering it off.

Comment 16

[mrex700]

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling firefox and even deleted all of the hola files because i downloaded hola before. When i reinstalled it, all of my progress is intact. It worked for around a week or 2, then it happened seconds ago before i typed this post. Same symptoms, when i was opening a new tab, the browser freezes then after a few seconds the whole pc locks up. 

I believe i need a cleaninstall but i seriously don't know.

Comment 17

[Mark Foley]

What do you mean by, "all of my progress is intact"? Does this mean your preferences, history, favorites were still there? If so, you did not completely uninstall your Firefox. See my comment #13 about removing C:\Users\me\AppData\[Local|Roaming]\Mozilla folders. Did you do that? Only after I uninstalled completely, removed those folders and reinstalled did this problem go away for me. I had no favorites, history, add-on, etc. after that installation. I've been running since that post with no freezes and many tabs open -- some are still opened from that day. You also didn't mention whether you tried https://nightly.mozilla.org/

Comment 18

[mrex700]

When i was uninstalling firefox, i cannot find the mozilla folder local/roaming file, indicating that it might had been removed. And no i did not try nightly.

Comment 19

[mrex700]

Or maybe i simply cannot find it, will try it later when i get back home.

Comment 20

[Gisele J]

I am having this same issue occur at 4 PCs in my office since 2/3 weeks ago. No Google Maps, tho we do use pages that auto update. Firefox might freeze while opening a new tab or while using the uploading file dialog. We all have several tabs open at the time. Have tried reinstalling FF without luck.
Once it hangs, and the whole machine freezes there's nothing to do but holding the power button down.

Comment 21

[Emil Pasca [:emilpasca]]

I have re-tested the issue on Windows 7 x64 with the latest Firefox release (54.0.1) and the latest Nightly (56.0a1-20170716030208), following the notes described in comment 14 and after opening Chatzilla and other tabs and waiting a few hours, the browser didn't hang or crash.

@mrex700 Did you find the time to test this issue on the latest Nightly?

@Gisele, can you please file a new bugzilla bug report with more detailed information about your system and the steps required to reproduce your issue, even if your issue as described might be very similar to this one, your environment and circumstances you had experienced are different and we could better understand and debug it if we treat this separately.

Comment 22

[Emil Pasca [:emilpasca]]

Considering the fact that I cannot reproduce this and the fact that the reporter or Gisele J did not answered to my request until now, I will mark this as Resolved-Incomplete.

If anyone can still reproduce it, feel free to reopen the issue and provide more information.

Comment 23

[Mark Foley]

I agree. After I completely removed all vestiges of Firefox (including apdata/, cache, etc.) and reinstalled I had no more problems with this.

Comment 24

[mrex700]

(In reply to Emil Pasca [:emilpasca] from comment #4)

If you have any addons or custom settings enabled this may affect your
current profile, have your tried re-testing this using a new clean Firefox
profile as mentioned in comment 2?

Solved, thanks.