535345 - Firefox 3.5.5 and 3.5.6 crashes on startup with Norton IPS extension

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Matthew Middleton (:zzxc)]

Over the past day, many users have reported startup and crashing issues on SUMO.  Some users have reported Firefox silently failing to start, while others have reported a Windows crash reporter dialog.  Most of these turned out to be fixed by disabling the Norton IPS extension or using Firefox safe mode.

At least five users have confirmed that Firefox crashes on startup when the Norton IPS 1.0 extension is enabled with Norton Internet Security 16.7.2.11 or Norton 360.  Upgrading Norton to the latest version (2010) via https://updatecenter.norton.com seems to fix the issue.

Comment 1

[Samuel Sidler (:ss)]

I can't help you with this anymore.

Comment 2

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

zzxc: do you have as example a crash reporter id, this would help to identify this problem in crash stats.

Comment 3

[Matthew Middleton (:zzxc)]

(In reply to comment #2)
> zzxc: do you have as example a crash reporter id, this would help to identify
> this problem in crash stats.

Crash reporter is not triggered with this, so there are no crash IDs.  Firefox either silently fails to start or a Windows crash dialog appears.  I am in contact with some affected users by e-mail, so I could ask for a windbg report if that would help.

Comment 4

[chris hofmann]

in data up until midnight last night there doesn't seem to be much interesting in signatures or comments that related to norton.   are there reports about the firefox crash dialog firing/not firing?


GoogleDesktopNetwork3.dll@0x3dfb 3.5.5 519344 \N  
GrabXpcom.dll@0xd3e8 3.5.5  Norton toolbar  
NPFFAddOn.dll@0x11867 3.0.15 512122,512406,519343 Since I added Norton anti virus, I can no longer access mozilla.  This program is imperative for me to use for business.  I can no longer access my work.  This must be rectified.  
NPSWF32.dll@0x11d0ed 3.5.5  \N  
NPSWF32.dll@0x1d3756 3.5.5 525709 \N  
NPSWF32.dll@0x209f8b 3.5.5  \N  
NPSWF32.dll@0x2e81ff 3.5.5  \N  
NPSWF32.dll@0x3af0a 3.5.5  \N  
NPSWF32.dll@0xe6de 3.5.2  "Moz is the only thing running, ""cept for norton and the things that are running normally every time i boot.  I was running 9 windows of Moz with multiple tabs. nothing video or audeo or even sound. All minimized All Ebay stuff Was opening in 1 windo | However just before it crashed I was thinking that I would probably have to restart Mozilla or WinXP  because the opening the page was unusually slow. | BTW: I would like Moz to have the option of reporting ALL windows and tabs on crashing!  TNX!"  
RtlReAllocateHeap 3.5.5  \N  
RtlpWaitOnCriticalSection | EtwEventEnabled | GrabXpcom.dll@0xa09b 3.6b4  \N  
RtlpWaitOnCriticalSection | RtlpAllocateAffinityIndex | PR_Lock 3.0.15  \N  
StrChrIA 3.6b4 530074 \N  
\N 3.5.5  \N  
_woutput_l 3.5.5 511756 \N  
curslib.dll@0x3f65 3.0.15  well the system background have blackout along with programs ,and continue to( shutdown)crush.if that any help?  
dirapiX.dll@0x37a01 3.5.5  \N  
libobjc.A.dylib@0x15688 | IdleTimerVector 3.5.5 519718 \N  
nsEventListenerManager::Release() 3.5.3 500879,513334 \N  
nsHttpsHandler::GetProtocolFlags(unsigned int*) 3.5.5 519729 Nachdem ich Norton 360 installiert habe, kommt es leider zu diesen Abstürzen. | Für eine Lösung bin ich Ihnen sehr dankbar  
nsStyleSet::AddImportantRules(nsRuleNode*, nsRuleNode*) 3.0.15 466024,507457 \N  
wininet.dll@0x1e051 3.5.5  no longer have norton antivirtis protection

Comment 5

[chris hofmann]

ah, collided...  

the flash crash sig is interesting.  the latest flash update might have disabled breakpad so that might be in play as well.

Comment 6

[Matthew Middleton (:zzxc)]

Attachment: Paste from a windows crash reporter dialog

Comment 7

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

will see that i get this version and will try to get a stack etc !

Comment 8

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

hm have now norton ips extension installed but no crash - do we know what version of norton (vers. number) this crash happend ? 

I have Norton 360Version: 3.5.2.11 and no crash :(

Comment 9

[chris hofmann]

wonder if this is related to  Bug 492437 

and 

http://community.norton.com/norton/board/message?board.id=nis_feedback&thread.id=41555&page=8

dveditz also know about a reoccurring problem around firefox release times, where users of expired norton users can't connect to the internet because the new version of firefox hasn't been whitelisted with a norton update.

I wonder if this expired version situation might also lead to crash problems.

I looked at a trend of coFFPlgn.dll crashes per day but didn't see a real tight correlation to release dates.  we did have a few cases where the day before and day of release we saw some spikes, but nothing real consistent.

Comment 10

[chris hofmann]

there have also been a previous high correlation of this signature to norton crashes, but these were hopefully addressed in bug 519729, and that fix should have landed in 3.5.6

  nsHttpsHandler::GetProtocolFlags(unsigned int*)|EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION (117 crashes)
     97% (114/117) vs.   3% (3551/106812) coFFPlgn.dll
         61% (71/117) vs.   2% (2345/106812) 2009.7.2.4
         35% (41/117) vs.   0% (502/106812) 2010.1.0.14
          2% (2/117) vs.   0% (3/106812) 2010.5.0.7

          0% (0/117) vs.   0% (60/106812) 2008.2.0.84
          0% (0/117) vs.   0% (1/106812) 2008.2.1.3
          0% (0/117) vs.   0% (1/106812) 2008.2.5.32
          0% (0/117) vs.   0% (417/106812) 2008.2.7.18
          0% (0/117) vs.   0% (179/106812) 2008.2.7.7
          0% (0/117) vs.   0% (2/106812) 2009.5.0.66
          0% (0/117) vs.   0% (2/106812) 2009.5.1.3
          0% (0/117) vs.   0% (5/106812) 2009.7.0.26
          0% (0/117) vs.   0% (7/106812) 2009.7.0.9
          0% (0/117) vs.   0% (24/106812) 2010.0.0.81
          0% (0/117) vs.   0% (2/106812) 2010.5.0.16
          0% (0/117) vs.   0% (1/106812) 2010.5.0.20

Comment 11

[[:Cww]]

We're seeing a large number of Windows crash reporter with "Mozilla Firefox has encountered a problem and needs to close" so this isn't necessarily hitting our crash reporter.

Also, this definitely happens in 3.5.6 Norton pushed a minor? update to NIS2009 users (2010 users not affected) on Tuesday that most people got at the same time as 3.5.6 so we're seeing a bunch of "Firefox updated and won't start now" but we saw sufficient incidences of this in 3.5.5 (at least 10 ish cases) that suggest it just affects everyone at least on 3.5. It's possible that they need to also have some malware or third party software as well for a 3-way conflict.

I don't think 3.0 is affected but I'm going to do a run through to see if I can find out.

I'll keep an eye out for 1.9.2 hits also.

Anything else? We get so many live chats a day with this (easily 10 a day) that we can ask affected users for files or to do certain scans.

Comment 12

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

cww: but we don't have a specific version number of norton 360 - see comment #8- i think a version number of the norton version would be good to know

Comment 13

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

Definitely, and especially if it's loaded as an extension, at which point we can consider blocklisting it.

Comment 14

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

no recent activity and Firefox3.x is EOL