1567144 - Reports of Startup freeze when running Firefox alongside AVG or Avast

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(External Software Affecting Firefox :: Other, defect)

Description

[Romain Testard [:RT]]

Description of the issue:

• Starting with Firefox 68, users started reporting (see references below) issues where Firefox freezes on startup when ran alongside AVG or Avast: " I am using Windows 7. I click to start firefox and it looks like the program starts. It opens a Window with the minimize, maximize, and close buttons but the window contents are blank and the load icon appears. I can minimize and maximize the window but I cannot end the program. If I use CTRL-ALT-DEL, I can see that firefox.exe is running but I cannot end the task by selecting End Process. If I try to start another instance of Firefox, I get a warning box saying "Firefox is already running, but is not responding. The old Firefox process must be closed to open a new window."
• Downgrading to 67 fixes the issue and uninstalling AVG or Avast fixes the issue
• Similar issues on 32 and 64 bit Win7
• Refreshing or reinstalling Firefox did not fix the issue
• Environment: Firefox 68 on Win7 with Avast free program version: 19.6.2383

Thoughts:

• With 67 we started seeing an increase of the profile locked dialogue https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1493284 which this could be contributing to
• We launched the launcher process in 68 to all release users. Avast commented that renaming the only injected module does not fix the issue so unsure if it can be related

References:

• https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=228355.0
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1264440?page=2#answer-1238172
• https://support.avg.com/answers?id=9060N0000005M4Z

Comment 1

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

A crash report or dump would be helpful. If we determine the cause is the avhook dll, we can block that.

I've also asked Aaron to put together a launcher process debugging faq as there's some features that can be turned on to help diagnose issues.

Comment 2

[Romain Testard [:RT]]

Apparently Firefox cannot be started in Safe mode and crash reports are not created per https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1264440?page=3#answer-1238480

Apparently AVG Sysinfo data logs were share with AVG per https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1264440?page=3#answer-1238480, thanks for keeping us updated Vaclav once you can analyze your logs.

Comment 3

[(No longer employed by Mozilla) Aaron Klotz]

I have attempted to reproduce in a VM with Avast Free and have not been able to, even after tweaking various settings in Avast.

Comment 4

[(No longer employed by Mozilla) Aaron Klotz]

(In reply to Jim Mathies [:jimm] from comment #1)

I've also asked Aaron to put together a launcher process debugging faq as there's some features that can be turned on to help diagnose issues.

This page is a brain dump of every single option that may influence launcher process behavior and debugging.

Comment 5

[Rares Doghi, Desktop QA]

Hi Guys, We started testing this issue with both AVAST and AVG on both Windows 7 x86 & x64 bits but we were unable to reproduce it, The latest version of AVAST is the same version reported in the description v19.6.2383 and both AVG and AVAST has the "aswhook.dll" in the build and yet we couldn't crash Firefox.

We updated from an older version to the latest Release Fx 68.0.1, then we tested Sync, Dirty profiles, New profiles, Safe Mode and Firefox Starts without issue, We also installed some of the more common Addons but we couldn't find any issues with the AV's. The only thing to mention is that the Launcher Process for AVG shows enabled while for AVAST it shows disabled due to failure (not sure its related to the crash).

We did try different AV's settings like Hardened mode for AVAST and a few more strict options but still no luck, there are no crashes on start-up. Maybe if we knew how the mentioned dll gets invoked by Firefox, maybe some websites ? Or something else then we might be able to reproduce it on our side.

Comment 6

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

We received a couple minidumps AVG. Every one of the dumps was stuck in trying to display a locked profile dialog. This is probably the result of the user trying repeatedly to open firefox. I'm not convinced it's the actual hang.

xul.dll!mozilla::widget::WinUtils::WaitForMessage(unsigned long aTimeoutMs) Line 745	C++
xul.dll!nsAppShell::ProcessNextNativeEvent(bool) Line 550	C++
xul.dll!nsBaseAppShell::OnProcessNextEvent(nsIThreadInternal * thr, bool mayWait) Line 259	C++
xul.dll!nsThread::ProcessNextEvent(bool aResult, bool *) Line 1095	C++
xul.dll!NS_ProcessNextEvent(nsIThread * aThread, bool) Line 486	C++
xul.dll!mozilla::SpinEventLoopUntil<mozilla::ProcessFailureBehavior::ReportToCaller,`lambda at z:/task_1562361253/build/src/xpfe/appshell/nsXULWindow.cpp:385:24'>(nsXULWindow::ShowModal::<unnamed-tag> && aPredicate, nsIThread * aThread) Line 348	C++
xul.dll!nsXULWindow::ShowModal() Line 386	C++

xul.dll!nsWindowWatcher::OpenWindowInternal(mozIDOMWindowProxy * aParent, const char * aUrl, const char * aName, const char * aFeatures, bool aArgv, bool aLoadState, bool aResult, nsIArray *) Line 1247 C++
xul.dll!nsWindowWatcher::OpenWindow(mozIDOMWindowProxy * aParent, const char * aUrl, const char * aName, const char * aFeatures, nsISupports * aArguments, mozIDOMWindowProxy * * aResult) Line 290 C++

Comment 7

[george]

Not sure if this is still relevant, but i don't have any antivirus installed and i've excluded firefox's program location, respective appdata folder and process name from windows' own antivirus.

safe mode, hardware acceleration, disabling addons: the behavior is the same.

what is strange is that when firefox starts, whatever i type appears in the location textbox... then firefox freezes... and finally the rest of the text that i typed while firefox was unresponsive (cursor not blinking), DOES appear.

i would try build the debug version but i suspect it will just present a thousand errors in vs even before trying to build.

Comment 8

[george]

Today, i deleted favicons.sqlite and set it +rash. Strangely enough, there was no freeze on startup.

no bookmarks to be seen either, but no freeze on startup.

so it has to do with bookmarks and maybe history

Comment 9

[george]

found it.

anyone interested?

Comment 10

[Selim Şumlu]

I'm having a similar issue on Windows 10.

Here's a screenshot of what I see: https://imgur.com/a/NX8CwJv

I can reproduce this almost every day on both of my PCs. Both PCs have Avast Free Antivirus installed.

When I click the close button, a "Firefox Nighty is not responding" dialog appears. From here I can close the program. After that, I can launch Nightly without a problem.

Let me know if I can be of any help with dumps, logs etc.

Comment 11

[Cristian Fogel [:cfogel]]

Hi Selim.

To speed things up, getting a reading with the Profiler would help out.
Also, can you confirm that the Windows version is the same as in the report or do you have a different one?

Thanks for the help!

Comment 12

[Selim Şumlu]

(In reply to Cristian Fogel, QA [:cfogel] from comment #11)

Hi Selim.

To speed things up, getting a reading with the Profiler would help out.
Also, can you confirm that the Windows version is the same as in the report or do you have a different one?

The original report mentions Windows 7. I'm on Windows 10.

Actually I haven't been experiencing the issue for the past week or so, but if I do, what should I capture with the Profiler?

Comment 13

[Cristian Fogel [:cfogel]]

Right, didn't notice it :D
Defaults options should do it for now.

Comment 14

[Selim Şumlu]

The problem has just resurfaced, but I need some guidance on the Profiler. How am I supposed to capture anything if Firefox doesn't launch? Or do you need a profile captured when Firefox does launch properly?

Comment 15

[Andrew Overholt [:overholt]]

Is there ongoing work here, Gian-Carlo?

Comment 16

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto [:gcp]]

No, and there's no more news for 6 months, by which time AVG has likely changed. This is INCOMPLETE but it looks like I can't set it as that.

Comment 17

[Selim Şumlu]

The problem might be ongoing. I got tired and removed AVG a few months ago.