707772 - FIPS mode crashes Firefox at startup

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 689107

(Core :: XPConnect, defect)

Description

[David Bourguignon]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:8.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/8.0
Build ID: 20111104165243

Steps to reproduce:

I started my FF v8 latest.


Actual results:

FF launched normally. (Then I waited for 10 to 30s roughly...) It crashed. I sent an automated bug report, as nearly every day for the past... 6 months? (The problem is around since v6 or v7 I think.)


Expected results:

FF shouldn't have crashed? :-)

Apparently, there are plenty of bugs on the topic of sudden crashes... However, a few extra info on this one:

- The problem occurs 99% of the time at startup, even before using Firefox. If I start using it (filling in forms, opening a new tab, etc.), the crash probability diminishes sharply (but do not disappear completely).

- A while ago, right after installing FF v4, following a useful tip (http://www.tweakguides.com/Firefox_10.html) I changed the default setting of one environment variable (namely browser.sessionstore.max_concurrent_tabs) in order to get the same behavior as the BarTab plugin (https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/bartab/) which was no longer compatible with v4. Apparently this env var has disappeared now, and this is default behavior... But could my config files be corrupted?

Comment 1

[Tim (fmdeveloper)]

Please provide a crash id or stacktrace -> https://developer.mozilla.org/en/How_to_get_a_stacktrace_for_a_bug_report

Comment 2

[David Bourguignon]

Thanks Tim for your answer!

There is a long list of crash IDs in my about:crashes. The last one is from yesterday:
bp-38149ec5-de90-469e-97a0-09a5f2111205 05/12/2011 14:43
by clicking on it this leads to https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-38149ec5-de90-469e-97a0-09a5f2111205

(Another example is:
bp-5de9d4ce-db8f-4fca-a9e7-1231a2111202 02/12/2011 10:08
and https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-5de9d4ce-db8f-4fca-a9e7-1231a2111202)

By the way, I've added info to this bug case as reply to a comment on the Bug 650384 page, but I guess this new bug report is the right place for moving this discussion forward... :-)

Thanks in advance for your help!

Comment 3

[Paul O'Shannessy [:zpao] (not bugmail, email directly)]

All of these crashes are in the component loader, which is used to load different things from core Firefox code to many addons. My guess is that it's an addon.

Can you try starting in safe mode (https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe%20Mode) and see if the problem persists?

Comment 4

[David Bourguignon]

Thanks Paul. I will switch to safe mode: first deactivating all addons, then switching them on, one by one. I'll let you know as soon as I've spotted the problem.

As a side note, something is strange in my about:addons page. Some addons (such as the Java 6 and 7 consoles) are tagged as "not compatible with FF v8", and are therefore deactivated, but there is no button available to uninstall them for good from the system.

Strange, isn't it? If you want I can send you a copy of my about:support info by email, and/or create a new bug report for this issue.

Comment 5

[Tim (fmdeveloper)]

To get rid of the old Java consoles, uninstall the old versions using ad/remove programs

Comment 6

[David Bourguignon]

Thanks Tim for the hint! Unfortunately, I can't use this solution because it would remove the entire JRE 6 and 7 packages from my computer, and I need them... :-)

In fact, these Java console addons are not the only deactivated addons refusing to be uninstalled... :-) I also have a "Plugin Orange Installeur 1.0.0.0" in the same situation ("home page": http://logicielsgratuits.orange.fr/).

Concerning the other topic: I'm moving forward, checking the addons one by one, to find which one is causing crashes. More info soon.

Comment 7

[David Bourguignon]

Tim, for your information, I've uninstalled the "Plugin Orange Installeur 1.0.0.0" using the ad/remove programs tool. However, the (deactivated) addon still appears on my about:addons page... Strange, isn't it?

Concerning the crashes, I haven't experienced one since my last report. My only still deactivated addon is "Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant 0.0.0" (http://windowsclient.net/). This is quite probably the guilty addon... :-) I'll confirm this asap.

Comment 8

[David Bourguignon]

Dear Tim, dear Paul, sorry for taking so long. The root cause of the crashes seems to be in fact F-Secure's "Browsing Protection 2.00" addon (http://www.f-secure.com/).

For your information, my latest crash is filed under the reference bp-c3c98028-07a7-4a8f-9d2d-f430b2111213 and I will send a bug report to F-Secure now.

Comment 9

[Paul O'Shannessy [:zpao] (not bugmail, email directly)]

David, thanks for tracking that down, it's very helpful information.

I'm moving this bug to hopefully get the right people looking at it. There is a crash caused by f-secure, but after having a couple other people look at it, this is something that shouldn't causes us to crash.

bholley: khuey tells me you are the new xpconnect guy, so here you go :)

Comment 10

[Bobby Holley (:bholley)]

This looks like bug 689107, no?

Comment 11

[David Bourguignon]

Dear Paul, thanks a lot for your encouraging message. However, the mystery thickens... In fact, yesterday I had deactivated both F-Secure and Microsoft .NET addons. And, surprise, I experienced a crash this afternoon... It is filed under the reference bp-537ef388-4a0c-42c1-9f18-74dea2111214.

I have no idea what's going on. I'm deactivating now the remaining addons one by one... (I just deactivated ChatZilla 0.9.87. The remaining ones are simple spell checkers.) Let me know if I can provide you with some specific info. Thanks in advance!

Comment 12

[Paul O'Shannessy [:zpao] (not bugmail, email directly)]

(In reply to Bobby Holley (:bholley) from comment #10)
> This looks like bug 689107, no?

It does look similar...

(In reply to David Bourguignon from comment #11)
> Dear Paul, thanks a lot for your encouraging message. However, the mystery
> thickens... In fact, yesterday I had deactivated both F-Secure and Microsoft
> .NET addons. And, surprise, I experienced a crash this afternoon... It is
> filed under the reference bp-537ef388-4a0c-42c1-9f18-74dea2111214.
> 
> I have no idea what's going on. I'm deactivating now the remaining addons
> one by one... (I just deactivated ChatZilla 0.9.87. The remaining ones are
> simple spell checkers.) Let me know if I can provide you with some specific
> info. Thanks in advance!

Hmm, do you have FIPS enabled? If so, then this is almost certainly a dupe of bug 689107. https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Configuring%20Firefox%20for%20FIPS%20140-2 (probably just step 2)

Comment 13

[David Bourguignon]

Hi Paul, thanks for the advice. I checked against the FIPS configuration guidelines you sent.

- Contrarily to what's indicated, I didn't deactivate SSL-3.0 (and TLS-1.0 is of course activated).
- In "Security devices", true, I did enable FIPS...
- In my about:config the "ssl"-related environment variables are set to Firefox default values (and I didn't check them against the long list of env vars given in the configuration guidelines).

Should I deactivate FIPS from my "Security devices"? (Frankly, I have no idea why I switched that on...)

Thanks in advance!

Comment 14

[David Bourguignon]

Post-scriptum: I've experienced a new crash this afternoon. Finally, it seems addons have nothing to do with this, since I only have a few spell checkers activated now... The new crash report is filed under number bp-ce1ad769-5325-4222-af96-0926d2111215. Thanks in advance for your help!

Comment 15

[Paul O'Shannessy [:zpao] (not bugmail, email directly)]

(In reply to David Bourguignon from comment #13)
> Should I deactivate FIPS from my "Security devices"? (Frankly, I have no
> idea why I switched that on...)

I think unless you have a reason to enabling FIPS (maybe you're a US government employee?), I don't see any compelling reason to use it. And in your case, it seems like it's causing you to crash!

And now based on that, I'm going to go ahead & call this a dupe of bug 689107.

David, you've been super helpful and responsive working through this. I wish we had more bug reports coming from people like you :) Keep finding & reporting bugs!

Comment 16

[David Bourguignon]

Thanks a lot Paul for your message. I've deactivated FIPS by clicking on the corresponding button in the "Security devices" menu. In fact, I'm not a US government employee. I'm currently working as independent software project manager in Paris, France... :-)

A small suggestion: maybe the FIPS feature should be hidden in the about:config section to prevent people like me from activating it by mistake? :-) Alright for merging this bug with the other one. However, I'll let you know if anything strange occurs in the coming weeks.

Thanks also for your compliments. I'm glad that my reports were useful: it's always a pleasure to help the Mozilla Team. (By the way, aside from bugs, I'll be interested in providing performance reports, but I don't know where to submit them.)

I wish you all happy holidays!