305844 - Strange crash in DP Branch with Sessionsaver extension

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[IU]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050824 Firefox/1.0+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050824 Firefox/1.0+

The Deer Park Branch build of Firefox crashes and restarts with an "(Untitled)"
tab at the left-most position whenever the browser attempts to launch a new
window, but only is the new window is being launched from a browser session that
is not the result of a crash restart.  Talkback also does not get triggered when
this occurs - even though Talkback works for other types of crashes.

IMPORTANT: If you then open a new window within the restarted browser (from the
crash), it does not again crash during that session.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install latest DP Branch build with Talkback
2. Obtain either this version (Sessionsaver 0.2-dev):
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=47184 or this version
(Sessionsaver 0.2.1.028.5): http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?showtopic=166
3. bump maxVersion in install.rdf so Sessionsaver will install on the current
branch.
4. install and restart the browser
5. Pay very close attention to the browser window either click File --> New
Window, press Ctrl+N, or click a link that normally launches a new window.  
6. You will notice that the browser restarted but did not trigger talkback.  You
will also notice that the new window you tried to open has instead become an
"(Untitled)" tab at the left-most position of the same window.

IMPORTANT: If you have a fast system, it may appear like the browser did not
restart and that the browser window merely flashed.  This is not so.  If you
have many tabs open (12+) to sites that take time to load, you will be able to
see better that a crash occurred.  You will also notice the tabs reloading.  You
can especially slow this down further if you have Adblock Plus installed.

IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT CRASH BEHAVIOR:
1. Firefox WILL NOT generate a talkback
2. The crash occurs ONLY in a window off a fresh browser startup. If you have
already tried and got a new tab, but no new window, the crash and restart have
already occured. You MUST shutdown and restart the browser to be able to
reproduce the crash again. You CANNOT reproduce the crash using the browser
session from the crash restart.

Actual Results:  
Firefox restarts but does not Trigger talkback.

Expected Results:  
A new window should have been launched per "normal" behavior, without Firefox
restarting.  In the undesireable case, Talkback should at least be triggered
during a crash.

I have confirmed that other people can reproduce this crash.

Intel P3 933 MHz, 512 MB; Windows XP, SP2 + patches

Comment 1

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

It is extremely unlikely that this is an extension manager bug which manages the
install, uninstall, etc. for extensions and not what the extension does when it
is operational.

component -> general until the proper component is found

Also of note: bug 276370, bug 305828, and bug 109672 (some comments regarding
sessionsaver).

Comment 2

[IU]

This appears to be fixed in the latest branch.  Based on previous comments, this
may be due to the checkin for Bug 304882.  I am marking this as resolved.