Firefox crashes daily in plugin container on Facebook
OK - I have searched and Googled.
This happens with FF 46 32 bit, 64 bit, portable, on Win 7 32 bit, 64 bit and windows 10. It happen in safe mode. It has all plugins up to date. I t has remove all but needed and non removable add ins - such as Flash, Acrobat Reader, etc. It happens on computers with plenty of RAM (16 GB). Oddly enough, it happens worse with safe mode and plugin container is run-a-way. With normal mode, it appears that plugin container is under control and Firefox itself runs amuck.
So - totally repeatable. Page down in Firefox with one or 50 tabs open - no matter. It will crash. Goes black, or stops responding. Until Firefox closes. NEVER happens with Edge for example.
I have to think it is a Firefox memory leak, but even using Firemin does not help much if at all.
What can be done? I have done my homework!
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH Application Name: plugin-container.exe Application Version: 46.0.1.5966 Application Timestamp: 572818c9 Fault Module Name: mozglue.dll Fault Module Version: 46.0.1.5966 Fault Module Timestamp: 572808c3 Exception Code: 80000003 Exception Offset: 0000efdc OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48 Locale ID: 1033 Additional Information 1: 0a9e Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789 Additional Information 3: 0a9e Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
More info, of course. End of my rope on this one....
Thanks.
~Bob
Chosen solution
Yes noted thanks. We are not yet certain of course if this will remain the case when Firefox 50 makes it through to Release.
Read this answer in context 👍 0All Replies (20)
in4m8n said
Tested for malware MANY times. And the odds of all machines being infected are VERY small.And I guarantee I could crash FF on YOUR computer, John :) Have ANYONE contact me. We can go voice or Webex or.... I will show them how to crash if they have a Facebook account and some friends. As to your other comments, I willlet others reply John. Thanks. ~Bob
Not sure what makes you so sure you could crash other peoples computers. Alex is not able to crash using your Steps, and I don't think anyone else has reported being able to crash using your STR. I know we may not have many people explicitly saying that, but probably several people trying to help you will have tried to check whether Facebook crashes like you say.
The odds of a machine being infected by malware may; or may not be small; however once one machine is affected, I imagine the chances of other machines used in a similar manner being infected is pretty high.
Have you tried your experiment with friends relatives or colleagues -- What about all those facebook friends ? -- if they can crash in a similar manner in a clean profile, no plugins and Firefox Safe mode, & preferably in Windows safemode also, as they may be willing to try that; then PLEASE start a new question thread about that posting from their affected machine on their behalf, or better still ask them to post themselves. Maybe we will get interesting data and confirmation of this. I did suggest that a couple of weeks ago
I will look through this thread later and ask those that have posted if they can reproduce this. I am not sure many will even reply but some may. Meanwhile how about you checking with your own contacts.
I don't recall ANYONE testing and detailing the steps they took and showing a screenshot of Task Manager and the memory used in Firefox. Do you, John? Perhaps I missed it. Or perhaps it has not been tested as I detailed??
Having friends does not mean they are tech savvy, or they use Firefox or they have time to test this for me.
I still think you are grasping at straws John trying to find ANYTHING but Firefox as the cause of the issue. Its me, all my computers infected with malware, my refusal to use Safe Mode in Windows - etc. Please stop that.
And I AM confident I can do this on any computer. Unfortunately I only have three to test on in my office.
~Bob
A screenshot of Task Manager is irelevant especially as you are not using Windows Safe Mode. The Firefox about:memory and Crash IDs are highly relevant.
Bob Sorry. Yes I am deliberately and intentionally playing Devil's advocate, but with good intentions. I agree my efforts of elimination include
trying to find ANYTHING but Firefox as the cause of the issue.
I am trying to
Find reproducible crashes from a particular STR. So that Engineers can have a chance of being able to investigate this if a specific bug were to be filed.
AND
I am trying to rule out as many none Firefox causes as possible because otherwise we risk wasting Developers' time.
Or More likely never even getting their attention because we have not given them suitable STR and not shown it is something that is likely to be a Firefox issue rather than a Graphics, Website, or Windows related interaction with Firefox that is avoidable or so unusual as to not be worth looking in to given other priorities.
As I said earlier I will contact others and see if they can reproduce this.
Maybe you need to remember you do not have others who see this issue, and so it may not be surprising if others in this thread also do not see the issue. The Firefox Memory Developer Nicholas Nethercote - who has seen & commented in your bug report - may have a very relevant point with YEINU
Please note, as I have linked to previously Alex seems unable to reproduce these crashes.
alex_mayorga said
¡Hola Bob! First of all, thanks for sticking up with us while we try to pin this one down =) .... I use daily and I've been so far unable to reproduce the crashes with the steps you've provided. .... ¡Gracias! Alex {My emphasis ~J99)
Firefox TAB crashed in Developer edition just now. I also sent John a Memory Report but it was after the tab crashed so may not have value. Never saw this one coming. All was fine until the tab crash:
https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-f50d3a67-584f-430a-b5b8-9e9792160820
~Bob
"A screenshot of Task Manager is irelevant especially as you are not using Windows Safe Mode. The Firefox about:memory and Crash IDs are highly relevant."
THEIR task manager, not mine. I have no idea how these folks are testing if they really are John.
YEINU - never said I wasn't unique. But I am a power user and have been for 25 years. It makes me a great Beta tester as well. And even if I am unique does not mean there is not an issue with the product.
ALEX - again, would like to know what the memory usage looked like in Task Manager. Was he using 32 bit or 64 bit? How many screens did he scroll or page down? Was he watching memory grow as he did this?
Too little to know if he really was following what I do, John. It is like me saying I tried Windows Safe Mode and it still crashed. Would be nice to see a little more detail to confirm it is as I mentioned. I am sure he tried.
~Bob
Can I uninstall Developer Edition or do you think it has more value to use it to test again in some other way?
Thanks.
Developer Edition could be still of value as it allows testing of another Firefox version, and has a clean or relatively clean profile. In fact for test purposes it possibly helps to uninstall and reinstall Developer Edition using the clean install method that you will be familiar with, and as it contains no important information delete the profile also before reinstalling - just take care to delete the correct profile - if in any doubt just rename the profile; you can always delete the renamed one after you have checked it was the correct profile that was renamed.
Alex was recently suggesting#answer-907808 you test Fx50 & Fx51. I will let Alex comment further on that.
No doubt Alex will also explain how your STR were tried, but the point of STR is you explain them in a way that anyone can follow, so I have no reason to doubt Alex followed your STR, or that as Alex reported there was no crash.
I did notice#c7 one particular crash was within 20 minutes however your STR is endless as it just says until Fx blows up. No indication of how long or how many screens that may take to crash your computer. Or of how fast you see the memory usage increasing in Task manager or what value you are studying in Task Manager.
I have not yet tried contacting others, Before I do so would you like to reconsider the STR & wait for Alex's response. Would it be reasonable to say you expect Firefox to crash within ? 10|20|30 minutes or within 10|100|500 taps of the newsfeed. Your existing STR may be expecting people to be able to test for hours, or days on end tapping away at the keyboard !! Like that infinite troop of monkeys writing Shakespeare.
Presumably the number of Friends is irrelevant everyone gets a newsfeed ?? If so I could register with fake details no friends and try to reproduce - suppose it depends how inconvenient it is to register on Facebook and what verification they may need.
;-)
YEINU but if you are Unique and of the ca 1/2 billion Firefox users only your three machines cause the crash that is an interesting point, and could be a fault in Firefox but no one would bother looking into fixing something affecting less than one in a million users.
Mentioned several times before John, I usually crash between 80 and 200 page downs. I have never accurately counted. Time is irrelevant to this. I sometimes get engrossed reading. so it takes longer. Never hours, of course. I ALWAYS watch Task Manager and the various Firefox processes whether they be 32 or 64 bit, plugin container (rarely ever see this any longer) etc. I believe I have posted screenshots. If not, happy to. Somewhere between 2.4 and 3.2 GB RAM used BY FIREFOX (not explorer or ANY other process) it crashes. In 64 bit, I have stopped as memory usage FOR FIREFOX goes over 7 GB.
I feel like I am repeating myself. If something is not clear, ask a very clear question such as:
"How many page downs using developer edition before a single open Facebook tab crashes" and I will count. Try to make them useful questions please.
And maybe just a note to put Malware to bed (other than I do test and use great anti virus and anti malware programs):
I have 265 applications and utilities on this computer - Office, Photoshop. Lightroom, Indesign, Illustrator, Focal, 4 printer drivers - on and on. Would be interesting malware if the only thing it affected is Firefox and only on a Facebook tab. There have been NO other issues.
I still think the elephant in the room is how much memory FIREFOX process consumes without releasing it back until the tab is closed.
~Bob
I mentioned this thread to Helpdesk staff again. I will see if that gets any response before trying anyone else.
I wonder if the AV software is contributing to the leak, but as I said I will wait to see if I or this thread gets any information from Helpdesk or Developers next week.
I borrowed someone's credential and tried to reproduce. Firefox did not crash. I did not bother using safemode or disabling plugins, neither did I use a clean profile I had way over a hundred tabs open.
This was on a 64bit Windows 10 using 32bit Fx48.0.0 Release. (Not active E10s -(Disabled by add-ons) )
STR
- Open a facebook page and sign into facebook.com
- Open task manager (Ctrl+Shift+ Esc) and use the always on top option
- Open a new tab and use the newsfeed address https://www.facebook.com/?sk=nf
- Whilst tab https://www.facebook.com/?sk=nf has focus press the Keyboard Page down key repeatedly, until either Firefox Crashes or a count of 200 presses. Noting to pause keypressing if the page is still loading and the throbber spinning.
RESULT Firefox does not crash. I noted Firefox is using over 1GB memory per Task Manager and it is in total showing 3 of 3.5GB used 86% After something in the region of 40 keypresses I seem to have reached the end of the Newsfeed as it no longer scrolls down. Firefox still also seems responsive. I am able to post on this forum, and view vido clips from the Facebook newsfeed.
Thanks for testing this John. Sorry for a tardy reply but actually took a weekend :)
Interesting, but if it reached the end of the newsfeed, not an adequate test. I never reach the end of a newsfeed. Until I crash. But there is always history there to go back to. I will usually crash at 6-10 hours old of newsfeed.
I appreciate your test, but something not quite right. In 200 presses i am well above 1 GB memory used. Unless this is somehow unique to me and my three computers. Cannot imagine how.
Also, number of tabs open only increases memory usage, but does not affect the crashing for me. Happens, as shown, with only FB open.
Not sure what to do next.
~Bob
Well I was thinking about waiting to see if Developers, Alex or Helpdesk get back. However Helpdesk probably is not doing much Helpdesk work at present as they will be heavily involved in the Forum Migration to new software. The Developer we were hoping for a reply from seems inactive, quite possibly Holiday time , and when he does get back I dont see this will be a priority.
I could try the others who have commented in this thread but I may as well wait for Helpdesk first.
OK, thanks John.
I am off to a family reunion this weekend. I am sure there will be at least one if not more laptops there. I will try to crash them. Will at least rule out my computers leaving either something weird about my Facebook account or Firefox if I do crash.
I'll try to post crash reports if I do.
~Bob
¡Hola Bob!
So were you able to crash your relatives' Firefox?
¡Gracias!
Just back Alex. Among 12 of us, all iPhones, iPads, MacBooks and me with Windows. I was amazed not another laptop to try by the pool :)
Not sure where to look for another machine to try now. Would have hoped my three were enough to prove the case, but....
~Bob
OK, convinced my next door neighbor to let me at his computer for a bit. Must admit, it took a little longer to crash, but did when Firefox 32 was using just over 2.5 GB memory.
Here is the crash report:
bp-8606c809-4c7a-4358-b57d-2ead42160910
9/10/2016 10:23 AM
Please let me know what you find. As I said, I am reasonably sure I can do this on any computer. This one did take a few more page downs, but never released memory and its usage just kept building until the crash.
~Bob
¡Hola Bob!
Per https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1291294#c18 it seems that this crash does not occur on Firefox Developer Edition (a.k.a. Aurora).
Could you give that a try and confirm please?
¡Gracias! Alex
Already tried developer edition. will try one more time. Alex. Then I give up. It is either Firefox or Facebook. 100 % repeatable whether anyone believes that or not. I had hoped I could get someone interested in owning the memory leak. Guess not....
Back one more time after I crash the latest developer edition. I can already hear John telling me its malware on my computer :)
~Bob
Modified by in4m8n
Big improvement. However :
https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-3ccf01e4-4c68-4d35-8608-b81a62160912
~Bob