1698431 - Firefox broken after system restart

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, defect)

Description

[rafaeldominiquini]

Attachment: jrU6ohI6ez.png

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:86.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/86.0

Steps to reproduce:

1. Close Firefox after using it normally.
2. Restart the computer
3. Open Firefox

Actual results:

Every time I restart my computer Firefox appears broken (addon icons invisible and no web page loads).
This problem does not happen when I just restart Firefox or log out & log in to the system. Only when I restart!
To solve this issue I need to delete the folder "C:\Users{USER_NAME}\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles{PROFILE_NAME}"; or start firefox in safe mode, close, and open again. Both ways I need to reconfigure all my addons!

Attached is a screenshot of the loaded browser after restarting my computer!

Expected results:

I shouldn't be reconfiguring all my addons every time I restart my computer! Firefox should have loaded normally every time.

Comment 1

[rafaeldominiquini]

I have multiple addons installed and enabled! I already tried to find if some of then is causing the bug, but I'm unable to find. I don't test all addons, because I need to restart my PC for each addon I disable for testing!

Comment 2

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'WebExtensions::Untriaged' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please revert this change in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 3

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Hi, next time you restart into this broken state, please could you try:

• Go to the three bar application menu, selecting "Web Developer" and then "Browser Console".
• In the new window that opens, right-click and select "Select all"
• Then use ctrl-c to copy
• Then come back to the bug and paste it into an attachment (there's an attachment link just before the first comment).

Finally once you've done that, please could you check your machine for malware. We think this could be one a side effect of some malware interacting badly.

Comment 4

[rafaeldominiquini]

Attachment: Firefox.txt

Attached is the message I captured, as requested.

Thanks.

Comment 5

[rafaeldominiquini]

Attachment: ooqruRHlDC.png

There is a screenshot too!

Thanks.

Comment 6

[rafaeldominiquini]

Attachment: firefox_QUYlxm42aW.png

This is a screenshot of how Firefox should open, with the icons for my addons appearing!

Comment 7

[rafaeldominiquini]

Comment on attachment 9209185 [details]
firefox_QUYlxm42aW.png

This is a screenshot of how Firefox should open, with the icons for my addons appearing!
I can also access web pages...

Comment 8

[Daniel Bodea [:danibodea]]

@rafael: I would like to confirm your issue, by reproducing it on my machine and I need your help:
Can you share the information displayed in the "about:support" page in the affected browser? I'll attempt to reinvestigate with your addons.

@Mark: Does the response to your question help to address this issue further? (or at least give it the correct component)

Comment 9

[rafaeldominiquini]

Attachment: Raw Data.txt

Raw data from "about:support" page!

Comment 10

[rafaeldominiquini]

Attachment: Text.txt

Text from "about:support" page!

Comment 11

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Hi, sorry for the delay in getting back to you. From the log you posted, this would appear to be the critical line:

C:\Users\Rafael Dominiquini\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\isiotqxk.default-release\prefs.js:169: prefs parse error: unterminated string literal

That looks like something is attempting to modify your prefs.js file, maybe from outside Firefox, and doing it in a bad way.

Since it only happens when you restart your computer, our suspicion would be that it most likely be an external application, e.g. a cache cleaner or malware/adware.

If you are able to examine the file (loading in a text editor should work), then looking at line 169 as indicated there may give a clue as to what is trying to be changed, and therefore what is may be causing the issue.

Would you be able to take a look at that and see if it gives some clues?

Comment 12

[rafaeldominiquini]

Attachment: prefs_ERROR.js

I restarted my PC, saw that Firefox was corrupted and got the file "prefs.js". But I didn't find anything wrong with it! I checked the log in the "Browser Console" window and there was nothing there indicating an error in this file! This error may have been something unique and unrelated. I tried to restore this file to an earlier version and the browser was still corrupted (after restarting the browser).
I will attach this file (with the browser corrupted).

Comment 13

[rafaeldominiquini]

Attachment: prefs_OK.js

This is the file with the browser working ok!

Comment 14

[rafaeldominiquini]

I discovered a tool that allows me to restore a Firefox backup every time I start my PC, restoring all settings for extensions and keeping the browser running:

https://www.sordum.org/12298/simple-firefox-backup-v1-2/

So now this bug is not so critical for me anymore.
Anyway, I appreciate the attention.

Thanks.

Comment 15

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Thank you for the additional information.

As the prefs file doesn't seem to be the issue, I'm moving this across to our startup system due to the messages about XULStore not being able to find the profile.