473174 - Erratic transient crashes on Firefox startup, Mozilla Crash Reporter might fail [@ nsXULDocument::OnStreamComplete ]

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 270042

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[steffen.zschaler]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5

Firefox crashes erratically (but frequently) on startup. The symptoms are as follows: 
1. I start Firefox.
2. The Mozilla Crash Reporter window opens, telling me Firefox crashed.
3. I click "Restart Firefox" and Firefox starts normally.

Sometimes, Firefox will crash again on clicking restart, but so far it has always run eventually.

I've also seen this under Windows Vista, though it feels a tad less frequent there.

Firefox seems to be running OK otherwise, with one exception: It erratically seems to ignore settings for some of my add-ons, sometimes apparently not even loading the addon. Specifically, this concerns NoScript and Tab-Mix Plus, both in the latest version.

I tried looking up the crash reports I submitted, based on the method described in http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Firefox+crashes+when+you+open+it . Unfortunately, my local crash report files only contain a Crash-ID, but not URL for the report. Searching for the crash id at http://crash-stats.mozilla.com/ makes that server search for my report for a very long time without finding it. This leads me to believe that the crash reporter wasn't able to report the crash correctly.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start Firefox.
2. The Mozilla Crash Reporter window opens, stating Firefox crashed.
3. Click "Restart Firefox" and Firefox starts normally (most of the time).
Actual Results:  
s. above

Expected Results:  
Firefox should run without the interruption of the Mozilla Crash Reporter

Here are the Crash-IDs that I found on my machine (all of them should relate to this issue). The first one is from January 5, the latest from January 12, 2009:

bp-686209d5-147a-4b84-9e6f-8a1332090112, bp-8221997a-7f2c-4b80-b3d8-12a902090112, bp-77261fd8-5e7f-4f09-ad56-39c572090112, bp-7092b2d0-349b-4731-a237-b48c32090109, bp-1bfff52c-1c53-4fae-81fe-b7bbc2090109, bp-b7b5c7b6-a5c8-4b9c-976e-80f382090109, bp-3cc83a76-5086-4634-9cdb-d540e2090108, bp-630360e2-5b4e-4ffa-bbb1-db71d2090106, bp-dbeabcf6-3aa1-4bd2-a738-b55632090109, bp-eb32825d-bbcf-440c-b5b5-981c52090109, bp-1381501f-a25a-4400-b805-c24bd2090105, bp-cdddea21-e369-429d-a3e6-ac1a02090107, bp-27765d43-92a5-4600-ac91-e41b12090105

Comment 1

[Dave Garrett]

bp-dbeabcf6-3aa1-4bd2-a738-b55632090109
0  	xul.dll  	nsXULDocument::OnStreamComplete  	 mozilla/content/xul/document/src/nsXULDocument.cpp:3365
1 	xul.dll 	nsStreamLoader::OnStopRequest 	mozilla/netwerk/base/src/nsStreamLoader.cpp:108
2 	xul.dll 	nsJARChannel::OnStopRequest 	mozilla/modules/libjar/nsJARChannel.cpp:841
3 	xul.dll 	nsInputStreamPump::OnStateStop 	mozilla/netwerk/base/src/nsInputStreamPump.cpp:576
4 	xul.dll 	nsInputStreamPump::OnInputStreamReady 	mozilla/netwerk/base/src/nsInputStreamPump.cpp:401
5 	xul.dll 	nsInputStreamReadyEvent::Run 	mozilla/xpcom/io/nsStreamUtils.cpp:111

Stack trace is identical to the one in bug 270042 comment 26. This is apparently an old bug that is resurgent with recent versions. (bug 270042 comment 27) Hopefully the cause of this will be found now that more people are getting it.

Comment 2

[Dave Garrett]

Just to be sure, did you try Firefox safe mode to avoid the crash?
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode
If you can't get this there then an add-on is triggering things.
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes

If you could find a bad add-on here that would be great, but my guess is it's not that. Would be good to check anyway, if you haven't already.