1817847 - Since 111 beta, main window freezes before fully loading UI.

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1823159

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Jonas Hunziker]

Attachment: Firefox111Hang.PNG

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/111.0

Steps to reproduce:

Upgraded to Firefox 111 Beta from previous Beta, on Windows 10 22H2, then ran it as usual with my default profile.

Actual results:

Main window opens full screen and shows outlines of tabs and toolbars but then completely freezes (screenshot attached). When clicking into the window, Windows states "Firefox is not responding" and the only option I have is to close it as it never recovers. The hang is reported in the Windows Application event log but does not appear to be caught by Firefox (doesn't show in about:crashes).

When I immediately try to run Firefox again, it will sometimes load normally, but sometimes take several tries to get it to open. Once it does open, it works fine.

Expected results:

Main window should open and previous session should restore, with all tabs.

Comment 1

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

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Firefox::Session Restore' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 2

[Jonas Hunziker]

(In reply to Release mgmt bot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte] from comment #1)

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Firefox::Session Restore' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

I guess it could be session restore but it seems to me things go south even before it gets to try and restore the session. But the folks writing the code would know better than me :) I just know that this has not work for me with any of the 111 betas (1-3 thus far).

Comment 3

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

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:dao, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 4

[Jonas Hunziker]

This is on-going as of 111.0 build ID 20230306162820. First start, skeleton UI, then freeze. Terminate the process, try again, most of the time it will load fully on second attempt but every once in a while, it will turn into a multi-attempt ordeal.

Comment 5

[Jens Stutte [:jstutte]]

Hi :dao, as all the skeleton work seems to live inside Firefox: General, did you set Core: General on purpose? Thanks!

Comment 6

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to Jens Stutte [:jstutte] from comment #5)

Hi :dao, as all the skeleton work seems to live inside Firefox: General, did you set Core: General on purpose? Thanks!

Oops, that was an accident.

Comment 7

[Amy Churchwell [:amy]]

Thank you for reporting. Are you able to reproduce this issue when restarting Firefox in troubleshoot mode?

Comment 8

[Jonas Hunziker]

(In reply to Amy Churchwell [:amy] from comment #7)

Thank you for reporting. Are you able to reproduce this issue when restarting Firefox in troubleshoot mode?

It appears that way. Usually, it fails to load fully every odd start, with the even start following my terminating the process working. But when holding SHIFT while starting Firefox, I get a full-screen blank window for a split-second, followed by the "Use this special mode of Firefox..." dialog box. If I click "Open" in that dialog, Firefox opens and restores my previous session fully each time.

BUT: I worked my way through https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-extensions-themes-to-fix-problems#w_the-problem-does-not-occur-in-troubleshoot-mode and even when I switch to the default theme, disable hardware acceleration, and disable all extensions, Firefox still hangs every other start, unless I start it in troubleshooting mode.

Any suggestions? I'm thinking if it were something to do with my Firefox profile, it would hang every time and never start, so the fact that it typically starts fine after a previous hang seems odd to me.

Comment 9

[Jonas Hunziker]

(In reply to Amy Churchwell [:amy] from comment #7)

Thank you for reporting. Are you able to reproduce this issue when restarting Firefox in troubleshoot mode?

Sorry, what I meant to say above at the beginning of the first paragraph is "It appears to load fine in troubleshoot mode each time". Normal starts of Firefox fail the 1st, 3rd, 5th, etc. time, with the start following a freeze usually working (every once in a while it takes a few more tries).

It's puzzling to me.

Comment 10

[Negritas Sergiu, Desktop QA]

Hello Jonas!

Could you please provide the crash dump from about:crashes if there are any?

Comment 11

[Jonas Hunziker]

(In reply to Negritas Sergiu from comment #10)

Hello Jonas!

Could you please provide the crash dump from about:crashes if there are any?

Sorry, but the most recent crash listed there is crash id bp-cd856cd8-3849-41ab-a051-a11510230220 from 2/20/2023, 10:46 AM and I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with this issue. Before the above crash, there hadn't been any since 08/2020 which is impressive!!

However, I believe I accidentally found the culprit: ESET Internet Security 16.0.26.0's "Web Access Protection" module, more precisely the "Enable advanced scanning of browser scripts" function within. While loading firefox.exe in WinDbg, I noticed c:\Program Files\ESET\ESET Security\eplgBrowser.dll getting loaded also and I wasn't aware of that. At that point, I began playing with ESET's options and when I disabled the advanced script scanning, Firefox now fully loads each time. So I guess now I need to scream at ESET and apologize to Firefox developers for wasting their time.

My apologies! I simply was not aware that ESET linked its own DLL into the browser or I would've checked that angle sooner.

Comment 12

[p.kiesel]

Same problem here: sind update to version 111 build 20230309232128 firefox hang every second start. Manual reload of recent session works during the next session.
The problem also comes up if I do not reload the recent session. After a successful start, I close firefox immediately and restart it, hang. Kill it, start it again, everything is OK. Shutdown firefox, start again, hang.

Comment 13

[Yannis Juglaret [:yannis]]

Hello,

Thank you for the report. Would you consent to taking a dump of the process and sharing it with me over email at [e-mail]? (It is better to not share the raw dump publicly in the bug.)

Here are the steps to take the dump:

1. Run Firefox and reproduce the hang.
2. Open Windows Task Manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC).
3. Find Firefox.exe among the list of processes. If there are multiple Firefox process, the easiest solution is to do step 4 for all of them.
4. Right-click Firefox.exe and select “Create dump file”. Task manager should indicate where the dump file was written to.

If you use Windows with a Microsoft account, you should be able to use the same account to share the file(s) with OneDrive for free (see here). Sharing by Copy link should be fine. You can send the link to me and later delete the file from OneDrive once you have confirmation that I have downloaded it.

Comment 14

[Donal Meehan [:dmeehan]]

Hello p.kiesel,

Thanks again for your report. We are tracking a similar issue under Bug 1823159.
If you had the opportunity, could you take a look at a test build with a potential fix. Would you be able to test it out and let us know?
Please see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1823159#c11 for instructions

Comment 15

[Jonas Hunziker]

(In reply to Donal Meehan [:dmeehan] from comment #14)

Hello p.kiesel,

Thanks again for your report. We are tracking a similar issue under Bug 1823159.
If you had the opportunity, could you take a look at a test build with a potential fix. Would you be able to test it out and let us know?
Please see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1823159#c11 for instructions

I have tested that test build after re-enabling the ESET option that provokes the issue on my system, and Firefox started up fine each time I ran the test build. I'm already on 112.0b4 and the latter would still hang every odd-numbered start with the ESET feature enabled, so I'm guessing the changes in the test build do work. Nicely done!

Comment 16

[Yannis Juglaret [:yannis]]

(In reply to Jonas Hunziker from comment #15)

I have tested that test build after re-enabling the ESET option that provokes the issue on my system, and Firefox started up fine each time I ran the test build. I'm already on 112.0b4 and the latter would still hang every odd-numbered start with the ESET feature enabled, so I'm guessing the changes in the test build do work. Nicely done!

Great, thanks for the confirmation! I'm closing this bug then.

(In reply to p.kiesel from comment #12)

Same problem here: sind update to version 111 build 20230309232128 firefox hang every second start. Manual reload of recent session works during the next session.
The problem also comes up if I do not reload the recent session. After a successful start, I close firefox immediately and restart it, hang. Kill it, start it again, everything is OK. Shutdown firefox, start again, hang.

So far the solution from bug 1823159 comment 11 seems to work for all people who have complained about hangs with Firefox 111 and tested the solution. If it doesn't work for you, feel free to send new messages here or file a new bug. Thank you!