440969 - Vista's Data Execution Prevention is killing FireFox 3 - Non Plugin Related. [@ fun_trace] [@ js_GC] [@ js_TraceObject]

Status: VERIFIED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Kieran]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052906 Firefox/3.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052906 Firefox/3.0

DEP is killing FF3 every 5-10 minutes (sometimes even less than that) - I'm on a fresh FF3 (final release), fresh profile, with no extensions.

The crashes are completely random and even happen when I have no (0) tabs open. They happen very frequently for me and it is stopping me from using this browser. I love FireFox and use it daily on my mac, but it is a shame I cannot use it successfully on my desktop.

Threads with people with the same problem:

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=660262&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=681735

I hope this gets figured out, as it's a real shame I can't use FF3! :(

Feel free to request any additional information: I'm already submitting data to Mozilla on every crash through the form which pops up after a crash.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Random. No pattern.



Vista Home Edition.

Comment 1

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

(In reply to comment #0)
> Feel free to request any additional information: I'm already submitting data to
> Mozilla on every crash through the form which pops up after a crash.


Can you provide the Crash Reporter ID, you can see this ID when you type about:crashes into the url bar.

Comment 2

[Kieran]

As requested:

ed3d47a1-3f77-11dd-a717-001cc45a2ce4	21/06/2008	10:53
e36e7411-3f77-11dd-bfc3-001321b13766	21/06/2008	10:53
043733e1-3f22-11dd-a159-001cc45a2c28	21/06/2008	00:38
521bf511-3e13-11dd-a70d-001cc45a2c28	19/06/2008	16:21
49f481a6-3e13-11dd-bae1-001cc45a2c28	19/06/2008	16:20
7870d317-3de1-11dd-a181-001cc45a2c28	19/06/2008	10:24

Comment 3

[Mats Palmgren (inactive)]

FWIW, the stacks looks a bit like those in bug 431060 comment 20.

Comment 4

[u315048]

I see this problem as well (I started one of the threads at mozillazine); if more data might help, here are my crash reports:

44fad66b-3f55-11dd-8143-001321b13766	6/20/2008	10:45 PM
7b319587-3f00-11dd-bfa3-001cc45a2c28	6/20/2008	12:38 PM
2cb15670-3d65-11dd-8260-001cc4e2bf68	6/18/2008	11:33 AM
ce52e585-3d0b-11dd-bcf1-001cc4e2bf68	6/18/2008	12:54 AM

Most crashes however do not pop up the crash reporter; that's why this list is small.

Comment 5

[Kieran]

The second thread I linked to got moved to here:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=681825

A few new people have added that they have the same issue.

I hope this can be solved. :)

Comment 6

[Anton Fletcher]

I've been running ffx3 for a while :) Like others have said, these crashes might not be DEP related, as when the DEP shows up the mozilla crash reporter doesn't.

68022b0c-3dd6-11dd-a196-001cc4e2bf68	19/06/2008	5:34 PM
46ab55f8-3826-11dd-8919-001321b13766	12/06/2008	11:51 AM
790c1e57-377f-11dd-b310-001cc45a2c28	11/06/2008	3:57 PM
fffc8335-3384-11dd-9cd1-0013211cbf8a	6/06/2008	2:27 PM
2e78ff17-336b-11dd-a2bd-001cc45a2c28	6/06/2008	11:21 AM
732cb10c-32af-11dd-a3b2-001a4bd46e84	5/06/2008	12:58 PM
bbaec1fa-31f3-11dd-a2b5-001321b13766	4/06/2008	2:34 PM
7273b291-310b-11dd-b619-001cc45a2ce4	3/06/2008	10:51 AM
fde60cb5-307d-11dd-9935-001cc4e2bf68	2/06/2008	5:59 PM
89e5b9f3-307d-11dd-a808-0013211cbf8a	2/06/2008	5:56 PM
87417ca6-2d4e-11dd-8124-001cc4e2bf68	29/05/2008	4:41 PM
17296005-2d2f-11dd-ad2d-001cc4e2bf68	29/05/2008	12:56 PM

Comment 7

[Al]

Yes, I get this too on my Vista system. I didn't have this problem with Firefox 2. It crashes at least once every 15 minutes, bringing me to the bug reporter box. Only once did a little box popup saying that the DEP has blocked it (due to excessive memory use, I believe). I then looked up online how to add exceptions to the DEP, and when I tried doing that, I was told that this specific program cannot be added to the exceptions list!

Comment 8

[Mikhail Kozub]

(In reply to comment #3)
> FWIW, the stacks looks a bit like those in bug 431060 comment 20.
> 

This bug appears similar to me as https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=431060

I think it's related to DEP in Windows Vista.  I have seen my browser crash very frequently (FF3.0), where FF2 didn't ever crash.  Although there is no constant trigger, it seems that loading GMail will often crash the program, along with many other sites.  

Sometimes starting a download will crash it, sometimes loading a page, etc.  


To test whether it is caused by DEP, I turned off DEP completely as described in http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/01/15/disable-and-turn-off-or-enable-or-turn-on-data-execution-prevention-dep-in-windows-vista/
(using the command "bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff" in admin-access to command prompt.)

Since I have disabled DEP completely, it works just fine.  


NOTE:  I could not disable DEP in Vista normally because it resulted in the error message "This program must run with data execution protection (DEP) enabled.  You cannot turn off DEP for this program."  This is why I was forced to use the command prompt, which has been extremely successful: I have had no crashes in the many, many hours I have been using it, as opposed to about one every 15 minutes, which I had before I disabled DEP.  


This makes me absolutely sure the crashes are caused by DEP.  Disabling it fixes the problem.  


-  Mikhail Kozub

Comment 9

[cs]

With regard to Gmail, I had crashes almost every time it loaded, with rare exceptions. Disabling the hide invite box and hide quick contact box functions in CustomizeGoogle (extension) solved the problem. I'm not sure if it's the extension code itself causing the crash, or whether it's the extension code triggering something else.

Comment 12

[Dawn A. Diglio]

I'm using FF3 latest version and it crashes frequently.  I have extensions loaded but only the ones that are FF3 compatible.  I was getting prompts to file crash reports but I don't know if the reports are being received.  At first it would just restart on its own, but now I keep getting the DEP message and I have added FF3 to the list of programs it is ok to open.  Doesn't matter.  Still happens frequently.  I don't understand a lot of the terms used in the above posts because I'm not as computer savvy nor am I a developer.  I never had a single crash using FF2, even with oodles of extensions and themes.  Should I simply use FF2?  If so, where can I download it?  Is it still available?

Comment 13

[Anton Fletcher]

(In reply to comment #12)
> I'm using FF3 latest version and it crashes frequently.  I have extensions
> loaded but only the ones that are FF3 compatible.  I was getting prompts to
> file crash reports but I don't know if the reports are being received.  At
> first it would just restart on its own, but now I keep getting the DEP message
> and I have added FF3 to the list of programs it is ok to open.  Doesn't matter.
>  Still happens frequently.  I don't understand a lot of the terms used in the
> above posts because I'm not as computer savvy nor am I a developer.  I never
> had a single crash using FF2, even with oodles of extensions and themes. 
> Should I simply use FF2?  If so, where can I download it?  Is it still
> available?
> 

I'm begging to recommend it - this is beyond a joke.

You can get the old version here:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html

I hope the problem is fixed before they axe support for December or I'm going to have to start recommending people look elsewhere for their browser.

Comment 14

[Kieran]

Definitely, I've already recommend two people to get firefox 2 over 3... What a shame, and nobody is even working on the bug.

Comment 15

[u315048]

To those of you with this bug, please trying installing the nightly build of 3.0.1: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/3.0.1-candidates/build1/

3.0 crashed like crazy for me, but I've been running this build for over a day and haven't seen a single crash yet.  I installed this so I could run WinDbg on a version of firefox with debugging symbols to get a stack trace on crashes, but it looks like something in 3.0.1 may have fixed the problem.

If you still get DEP crashes with this build let us know.

Comment 16

[Kieran]

I downloaded 3.0.1 this morning and their have been no crashes as of yet (2 hours in) - looks like this might have fixed the issue. Fingers crossed!

Comment 17

[u315048]

What would be really nice is to get an explanation from someone on the mozilla dev team as to what changed in the 3.0.1 nightly build and how it could have possibly fixed this issue.

Comment 18

[kguru]

I still am having this problem with the latest Minefield (July 14) nightly.  It brings up a DEP crash every time I hit CNN's live video.  Otherwise, the only other time I hit this bug is occasionally with the Move Networks video player in Firefox 3.

Comment 19

[timeless]

no you aren't. cnn is bug 427382

as for move, if they use a plugin, then it shoudln't be this bug given that this bug is *explicitly* about *non* plugins.

Comment 20

[Duro]

I'm having what appears to be the same issue using MS Server 2008 x64.. Running FF 3.0.3: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092417 Firefox/3.0.3

I'm unable to whitelist firefox using the dialogue, as MS indicates this program must run with DEP activated..

I too am unable to post the crash reports, as there have been none generated.. the DEP (I think) steps in before that can occur..

Comment 21

[Duro]

Attachment: shtml file which is causing all the issues..

This is the page that I'm viewing which is causing the grief.. There is a fair whack of javascript in here.. It's funny, cause I can leave the page unrefreshed for quite sometime, and it just decides it wants to crash..

And interesting piece of info in this file is:
<noscript>Your browser has JavaScript turned off.<br>For the user interface to work effectively, you must enable JavaScript in your browser and reload/refresh this page.
</noscript>

So might be linked to a javascript attempt to refresh?

Comment 22

[Duro]

And here is a grab of the MS output from the dialogue alerting me FF3.0.3 has tripped over..

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:	BEX
  Application Name:	firefox.exe
  Application Version:	1.9.0.3188
  Application Timestamp:	48dae60e
  Fault Module Name:	StackHash_fd00
  Fault Module Version:	0.0.0.0
  Fault Module Timestamp:	00000000
  Exception Offset:	0238d07b
  Exception Code:	c0000005
  Exception Data:	00000008
  OS Version:	6.0.6001.2.1.0.274.10
  Locale ID:	1033
  Additional Information 1:	fd00
  Additional Information 2:	ea6f5fe8924aaa756324d57f87834160
  Additional Information 3:	fd00
  Additional Information 4:	ea6f5fe8924aaa756324d57f87834160

Read our privacy statement:
  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=50163&clcid=0x0409

Comment 23

[timeless]

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/How_to_get_a_stacktrace_with_WinDbg

Comment 24

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

I don't know if this is still happening (DEP protection will preclude our own crash reporter so we don't have the reports), but if it is it's a potential security problem.

Comment 25

[kguru]

I recently had problems with the crash reporter not being able send a request when I had a crash related to <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=477564">Bug 477564</a>

The error message mentioned the Vista Data Execution Prevention error.  This was with build id: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.1.1) Gecko/20090715 Firefox/3.5.1 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)