307577 - windows blue screens because of certain true type fonts [@ win32k!MAPPER::bNearMatch+0x6af]

Reporter

Description

•

19 years ago

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
Build Identifier:

numerous pages crash windows when browsing. wikipedia is one example which i
can reproduce but the problem strikes all over the place (i can't spot a
pattern other than that every page that has crashed continues to do so).

This happens in firefox, nightly builds and mozilla suite using windows xp sp2.

this is happening on 2 seperate systems now (both win xp sp2) - my desktop and
my laptop computers whereas previously it was only happening on the desktop.

i have ran numerous virus and spyware checks (mcafee and adaware) so can
conclude that this is not related to a virus spreading accross my home network.

it does appear to be linked to the recent installation of some software (i'll
explain fully in a moment) but removing said software (including remaining
registry values) and reinstalling firefox/mozilla (including removing all
traces of previous profiles) doesn't fix things either.

sorry if i'm getting bogged down in details but they hoepfully go a long way to
describe what is happening. about 6 months ago the problem appeared on the
desktop pc. i had recently reinstalled windows but rather than formatting the
drive partition i installed over the top of the old installation. upon noticing
that firefox was crashing windows i concluded that some old debris from the
original windows installation was corrupting things. the problems were
infrequent (though reproducible) so i didn't worry too much at first but it
became a constant pain.

throughout this the laptop was fine.

i completely formatted the drive partition and reinstalled windows earlier this
week. i updated windows to sp2 and all the other fixes etc. then went about
reinstalling all my old software. i installed the latest firefox release
(public not beta etc.) and tested it out straight away. no problems what so
ever, no crashes, evrything was good. i reinstalled all the extensions i used
to use and again firefox worked well. i started reinstalling software and
checked firefox at various stages of the way. i'm sure you get the picture but
all was working fine.

the other day i reinstalled avery (the labelling people) 'design pro
afterburner'. it's a peice of software to do cd labels and print them etc.
which comes with there labelling system. i didn't put 2 and 2 together but not
long after i started seeing the old crashes return when browsing with firefox.

the thing that points the finger though is that yesterday i needed to work on
some cd labels on my laptop so installed the avery software. now firefox on my
laptop crashes windows when browsing.

now i suspect that the pages doing the crashing may be to do with javascript
but i can't be 100% certain - sorry that probably doesn't help much does it?

when windows does an error report upon recovery microsoft's online crash
analysis claims 'error caused by device driver' and specifically 'Error
Message: STOP 0X000000EA THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER (Q293078)'

i've checked this out and can report the following:
- i tried microsoft's suggestions (reduce hardware acceleration to 'none' and
turn off 'enable write combining') and they make no difference.
- i've tried this in safe mode and again no difference.
- i've checked for newer drivers - there are none, i'm up-to-date
- the laptop and desktop use different hardware and software devices yet the
same problem is happening on both.

now i can only speculate that avery's software has altered a setting or
registry value which is causing the errors. but the appearance of the problem
after installing is compelling.

i suspect a java issue (how the above could affect this i do not know) but i
can't prove this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page uses java though.
another time it crashes is when i'm using my gmail account (i didn't make this
the main bug report as i don't know if you could replicate the problem). if i
open my inbox and open my contacts then choose show all contacts (rather than
frequently mailed) it crashes. gmail will definately have been using java
script before that without crashing but again it's a compelling coincedance.

none of these pages crash ie or opera browsers, it only happens with firefox
and mozilla. also i'm experiencing no other crashes from any other software etc.

avery have no updates for their software.

i don't know how you could test this with their software but i could probably
zip a copy for someone if they wanted to put this to the test.

also firefox and mozilla built in bug reporting doesn't appear to have time to
work as windows shut's everything down straight away so i'm afraid i can report
on what's going on inside firefox etc.

i'm sure there are lot's of tecnical details you need but i'm not really sure
what to give so please ask and i'll try my best.

thanks.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. open firefox (or mozilla)
2. search on google for wikipedia
3. open the link (or just enter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page in the
address bar)

Actual Results:
windows crashes either rebooting without saying anything or displaying blue
screen of death with aforementioned error.

Expected Results:
display the site in all it's glory and definately not crash windows.

can't think of anything to add.

Ryan Flint [:rflint] (ping via IRC for reviews)

Comment 1

•

19 years ago

WFM on Firefox and the Suite.

This is a problem on your system. Please see
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;293078 for details.

Gérard Talbot

Comment 2

•

19 years ago

WORKSFORME on Firefox 1.4 rv:1.8b4 build 20050806 and Seamonkey 1.1a rv:1.9a1
build 2005090806 under XP Pro SP2 here

The provided URL shows no javascript error reported and has 0 markup error
(validation) at W3C's validator.

original wikipedia page 19 years ago murray ward 40.80 KB, text/html		Details
adding in chunks until firefox/system crashes 19 years ago murray ward 26.86 KB, text/html		Details
adding in individual lines of the responsible chunk 19 years ago murray ward 24.71 KB, text/html		Details
the line responsible in the original html header and body tags 19 years ago murray ward 1.86 KB, text/html		Details
finally using the incorrect character encoding doesn't crash firefox/system though only displays question marks 19 years ago murray ward 1.85 KB, text/html		Details
first of four dodgy fonts (don't install unless you want windows and firefox to crash) 19 years ago murray ward 240.07 KB, application/octet-stream		Details
second of four dodgy fonts (don't install unless you want windows and firefox to crash) 19 years ago murray ward 35.25 KB, application/octet-stream		Details
third of four dodgy fonts (don't install unless you want windows and firefox to crash) 19 years ago murray ward 41.62 KB, application/octet-stream		Details
fourth of four dodgy fonts (don't install unless you want windows and firefox to crash) 19 years ago murray ward 37.38 KB, application/octet-stream		Details