353537 - Firefox 2 beta 2 freezes or crashes "illegal operation ... kernel32.dll" on startup on Windows 95

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 346290

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Andrew Turnbull]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win95; en-US; rv:1.8.0.7) Gecko/20060909 Firefox/1.5.0.7
Build Identifier: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/2.0b2/win32/en-US/Firefox%20Setup%202.0%20Beta%202.exe

I've noticed that Mozilla Firefox 2 beta 2 cannot run successfully on Windows 95.

On my Windows 95 OSR2 system, the software immediately freezes the system on startup at the moment the application window appears.  When running the program through its "safe mode" (without extentions), it crashes with an "illegal operation" message detailing an invalid page fault in kernel32.dll.

I realize that Windows 95 is no longer officially "supported" (whatever implications that has), but all prior versions of the software up through and including Firefox 2 beta 1 worked fine, and it would be courteous to have the final release of Firefox 2 be capable of running on this OS as well.

I contacted another individual about this issue, whose response provided some additional insight:

"Yea, I have the same problem under Windows 95 and NT 3.51. It seems to
work OK under NT 4 though.

I discovered that deleting the file nsUrlClassifierLib.js let me run it
without an immediate freeze (both under Win95 and NT3.51). But I don't
think this is the actual cause of the freeze, just something that is
calling whatever function that is actually freezing. Even after removing
this file visiting certain pages will cause Firefox to freeze.

Unfortunately I haven't had time to investigate the problem further
myself."

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Download and install Mozilla Firefox 2 beta 2
2. Run it
Actual Results:  
The software freezes the system the moment the application window appears or (in the software's "safe mode") crashes with an invalid page fault in kernel32.dll.

Expected Results:  
For the software to start normally and functionally, like all prior versions.

Comment 1

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

First make sure that the current FF2 release builds still fail, so download one from http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla1.8/ and see if it crashes (the firefox-2.0.en-US.win32.zip build or the installer). It it does, try this: If you happen to have some free time and a somewhat fast internet connection, you could try testing the builds between the FF2 Beta 1 and the FF2 Beta 2 release and see when it broke. You could do this by going to http://archive.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/nightly/ and download builds between 2006-07-12 (Beta 1) and 2006-08-31 (Beta 2). Download the builds from the folders with -mozilla1.8 at the end, normally -04-mozilla1.8 are the folders with the Windows builds in it. I would start with a build from 1st of August and see if that still works (just download the .zip file and extract somewhere). If it does, download a build which is more towards the 31st of August, if not, download a build more towards the 12st of July. Continue until you'll find a range of four days or below where this broke and then note those two dates in this bug here.

Comment 2

[Andrew Turnbull]

I did additional testing, trying out the corresponding 1.8 nightlies released after Firefox 2 beta 1 came out.

All nightlies up to and including 20060727 could work on Windows 95; all nightlies from 20060728 on (including the latest available and Firefox 2 RC1) crashed.  So, it seems that compatibility broke on July 28.

Posting with "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win95; en-US; rv:1.8.1b1) Gecko/20060727 BonEcho/2.0b1" right now.

Comment 3

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

Bonsai link: 
http://bonsai.mozilla.org/cvsquery.cgi?treeid=default&module=PhoenixTinderbox&branch=MOZILLA_1_8_BRANCH&branchtype=match&dir=&file=&filetype=match&who=&whotype=match&sortby=Date&hours=2&date=explicit&mindate=2006-07-27+03%3A00%3A00&maxdate=2006-07-28+06%3A00%3A00&cvsroot=%2Fcvsroot

Comment 4

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

Talkback does not appear when it's crashing, right (you need to use a .zip build or use Custom Install to get Talkback)? You need to run Firefox in normal mode to get Talkback working though (safe-mode won't work). Maybe try a new profile with -profileManager so that it not crashes the whole system.

Comment 5

[Andrew Turnbull]

To answer your question: Talkback does not appear when crashing, although it is enabled.

Comment 6

[erpman1]

(In reply to comment #5)
> To answer your question: Talkback does not appear when crashing, although it is
> enabled.

I did a "custom" install of Firefox 2.0 beta 2 (and the newly released RC1) under Win95 OSR2 and UNselecting the Talkback option [aka. Quality Feedback Agent].  So Talkback is not installed but FF 2.0 b2 and RC1 kept on crashing when loading it.

it would be nice to make Firefox 2.0 work properly again under Win95 OSR2.


(In reply to comment #0)

> I realize that Windows 95 is no longer officially "supported" (whatever
> implications that has), but all prior versions of the software up through and
> including Firefox 2 beta 1 worked fine, and it would be courteous to have the
> final release of Firefox 2 be capable of running on this OS as well.

Microsoft dropped ALL support for ALL edition of Windows 95 (including the OSR2 versions) on December 31, 2002.  that's when Win95 entered the "end-of-life" stage.

Comment 7

[erpman1]

eh, forget it.  Win95 users should get Firefox 1.5.0.8 instead.  the official release of Firefox 2.0 also crashes under Win95 as I've tested it myself on an ol' Win95 computer a week ago.  I dont expect the creators of Firefox to make FF 2.0 run properly under Win95 in the future.

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

regression per comment 2

dup of bug 346290?

Comment 9

[Andrew Turnbull]

(In reply to comment #8)
> regression per comment 2
> 
> dup of bug 346290?
> 

It looks like it...although I think my bug entry was a tad more descriptive, if I may say so myself. :-)

Comment 10

[E B]

Both Firefox 2.0 as well as 2.0.01 crash under Windows 95 for me.
Last build of version 1.5 is 1.5.0.9, that one works.

Did Windows 95 compatibility officially end with the last build of version 1.5?

Comment 11

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

getting a talkback ID is still the critical piece

(In reply to comment #10)
> Both Firefox 2.0 as well as 2.0.01 crash under Windows 95 for me.
> Last build of version 1.5 is 1.5.0.9, that one works.

I find almost no bugs reported that are w95/w98 and FF 2. bug 361766 is one, but it may turn out to be a problem on other OSes and not limited to w95.

marking this dependent on bug 345920 in case it turns out to fix this bug


> Did Windows 95 compatibility officially end with the last build of version 1.5?

see bug 346290 comment 9.


E B, Ed, you probably want to cc: yourself on a bug when you comment, so you see response that get posted later.  (your bugzilla profile) Preferences > General > Automatically add me to the CC list of bugs I change

Comment 12

[erpman1]

(In reply to comment #10)
> Both Firefox 2.0 as well as 2.0.01 crash under Windows 95 for me.
> Last build of version 1.5 is 1.5.0.9, that one works.
> 
> Did Windows 95 compatibility officially end with the last build of version 1.5?
> 

pretty much, E B.  the last build of FF 1.5 will be the upcoming 1.5.0.12 release for Win95 as Mozilla will retire support for FF 1.5 in the middle of May 2007.

Comment 13

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

duping