510818 - Firefox 3.5 crashing, taking WinXP with it via Blue Screen of Death

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Ray Birks]

Approximately since the June 30 release of 3.5, my WinXP with Service Pack 3 has been crashing increasingly (no pattern), often overnight when only Thunderbird 2.0.0.22 and Firefox 3.5 are running. ZoneAlarm Security Suite is running, as is Folding@Home 5.03.

Crash will usually occur while browsing in Firefox (no pattern). May also occur when using (e-mail client) Thunderbird while Firefox is running as well.

Almost every crash has appeared as the dreaded Blue Screen of Death with a restart--until today, when I first saw a fast message that Mozilla had closed, and then came the Blue Screen before I could note any rationale.

Windows always manages to send a crash report upon restart.

Creating a new Firefox profile does not seem to solve the problem. Have not yet tried uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox.

Windows seems to think I need to update my drivers and/or check my hardware. All that is new is Firefox 3.5.2 and the usual ongoing Windows XP updates. Hardware is all new as of December 2008.

Upon restarting Firefox, the "Well, this is embarrassing..." message appears. Overriding it always allows Firefox to start apparently normally.

This bug report is only vaguely similar to other recent crash bugs I have seen, thus I have chosen to file it. Anecdotal reports out on the web (blogs, etc.) seem to be reporting somewhat similar behavior.

Comment 1

[Robert Longson [:longsonr]]

If only Firefox crashes then it's Firefox fault. If the operating system is
crashing then it's the fault of the operating system, hardware, video drivers
etc.

Comment 2

[Eli Marcus]

Platform - Win XP, SP3, AMD Athlon II X2 245, 1.9GHz, 2 GB RAM
Applications in use: Firefox 3.6 and Thunderbird 2.0 Portable 

It appears to be Firefox that causes this sudden crash- 
Immediately upon clicking the close [X] button in Firefox 3.6, 
PC screen goes black, followed by BSOAD, and reboot

This fault has happened frequently over the past 2-3 weeks.

here is the minidump notice: 
**********************************
Event Source:	Save Dump
Event Category:	None
Event ID:	1001
Date:		22/02/2010
Time:		23:41:00
The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck.  The bugcheck was: 0x1000000a (0x00000000, 0x0000001c, 0x00000000, 0x804f8a6b). A dump was saved in: I:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini022210-01.dmp.
***********************************

Comment 3

[timeless]

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/How_to_get_a_stacktrace_with_WinDbg open the minidump, but please be aware that this is definitely not our fault. windbg can help you determine who to contact to further investigate your blue screen. we're of course saddened to hear of it, however there's nothing we can do.

if you have trouble using windbg, you might be able to ask http://support.mozilla.com/chat for help, but if they're helping, it's out of the kindness of their hearts, not out of any particular obligation.