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Firefox crashes when quitting after clearing history, clearing and managing data

  • 24 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 21 views
  • Last reply by Terry

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This issue started on August 19, 2021 with a profile I have been using for about 3 years. It persisted so I copied data and the chrome folder to a profile folder I created in October, 2020 but had not used. That was on August 22, 2021. It happened again with the 'new' profile. I quit several times earlier in the day (without clearing history, clearing and managing data) without issue. Sometimes the lock file is NOT deleted when Firefox quits. These are the reports from August 22, 2021: bp-4788a5d4-5989-492e-a8af-fc34b0210822 22/8/21, 21:20 bp-8aadf9d6-51b7-4da1-b28e-439b20210822 22/8/21, 21:18 bp-132d4134-609a-4a45-ac7e-9b3350210822 22/8/21, 21:15 bp-ac52e700-c3d0-48e2-ab32-233b80210822 22/8/21, 21:11 As directed by the support article, I clicked on 'View' for the latest report. After the mozstats page finished loading, I closed it.

This issue started on August 19, 2021 with a profile I have been using for about 3 years. It persisted so I copied data and the chrome folder to a profile folder I created in October, 2020 but had not used. That was on August 22, 2021. It happened again with the 'new' profile. I quit several times earlier in the day (without clearing history, clearing and managing data) without issue. Sometimes the lock file is NOT deleted when Firefox quits. These are the reports from August 22, 2021: bp-4788a5d4-5989-492e-a8af-fc34b0210822 22/8/21, 21:20 bp-8aadf9d6-51b7-4da1-b28e-439b20210822 22/8/21, 21:18 bp-132d4134-609a-4a45-ac7e-9b3350210822 22/8/21, 21:15 bp-ac52e700-c3d0-48e2-ab32-233b80210822 22/8/21, 21:11 As directed by the support article, I clicked on 'View' for the latest report. After the mozstats page finished loading, I closed it.

All Replies (20)

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bp-4788a5d4-5989-492e-a8af-fc34b0210822 - Uptime 115 seconds (1 minute and 55 seconds) bp-8aadf9d6-51b7-4da1-b28e-439b20210822 - Uptime 111 seconds (1 minute and 51 seconds) bp-132d4134-609a-4a45-ac7e-9b3350210822 - Uptime 200 seconds (3 minutes and 20 seconds) bp-ac52e700-c3d0-48e2-ab32-233b80210822 - Uptime 32,347 seconds (8 hours, 59 minutes and 7 seconds)

Signature: AsyncShutdownTimeout | Places Clients shutdown | sanitize.js: Sanitize,sanitize.js: Sanitize

MOZ_CRASH Reason (Sanitized) : MOZ_CRASH()

Crash Reason SIGSEGV /SEGV_MAPERR


This is for Sumo's Related Bugs 1597915 RESOLVED FIXED Crash in [@ AsyncShutdownTimeout | Places Clients shutdown | sanitize.js: Sanitize]

1404105 RESOLVED FIXED Crash in AsyncShutdownTimeout | Places Clients shutdown | sanitize.js: Sanitize,sanitize.js: Sanitize on shutdown

1700584 NEW --- Crash in [@ AsyncShutdownTimeout | Places Clients shutdown | sanitize.js: Sanitize]

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If you have sync, and there is a problem anywhere, Shut Down Sync Immediately On All Devices to prevent the problem from spreading. Once the problem is fixed, perform the same repair on all computers/profiles before using sync again.


[v57+] Places Maintenance is built into Firefox.

Type about:support<enter> in the address bar.

You will find Places Database near the bottom. Press the Verify Integrity button.

If any errors are reported: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-bookmarks-and-history-will-not-be-functional

The places.sqlite file contains your History and Bookmarks. And it looks like it is corrupted.

Type about:support<enter> in the address bar.

Under the page logo on the left side, you will see Application Basics. Under this find Profile Folder. To its right press the button Show Folder. This will open your file browser to the current Firefox profile. Now Close Firefox.

Locate the above file. Then rename or delete it. Restart Firefox. The browser should then create a new place.sqlite and recover your bookmarks from the backup files.

Note: Your history is not backed up and will be lost.

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Thanks. I pressed "Verify Integrity" with the following result. If that was the problem, it seems it is fixed. I forgot to mention when retyping my original post that since the crashes began the close recent history dialogue hasn't closed automatically when I press OK.

> Task: checkIntegrity + The places.sqlite database is sane + The favicons.sqlite database is sane > Task: invalidateCaches + The caches have been invalidated > Task: checkCoherence + The database is coherent > Task: expire + Database cleaned up > Task: originFrecencyStats + Recalculated origin frecency stats > Task: vacuum + Initial database size is 5120KiB + The database has been vacuumed + Final database size is 5120KiB > Task: stats + Places.sqlite size is 5120KiB + Favicons.sqlite size is 1760KiB + pragma_user_version is 57 + pragma_page_size is 32768 + pragma_cache_size is -2048 + pragma_journal_mode is wal + pragma_synchronous is 1 + History can store a maximum of 112348 unique pages + Table moz_places has 250 records + Table moz_historyvisits has 71 records + Table moz_inputhistory has 0 records + Table moz_hosts has 0 records + Table moz_bookmarks has 259 records + Table moz_keywords has 0 records + Table sqlite_sequence has 1 records + Table moz_anno_attributes has 1 records + Table moz_annos has 4 records + Table moz_items_annos has 0 records + Table sqlite_stat1 has 18 records + Table moz_bookmarks_deleted has 0 records + Table moz_meta has 6 records + Table moz_origins has 152 records + Table moz_places_metadata has 0 records + Table moz_places_metadata_search_queries has 0 records + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_inputhistory_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_hosts_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_keywords_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_anno_attributes_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_bookmarks_deleted_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_origins_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_places_metadata_search_queries_1 + Index moz_places_hostindex + Index moz_places_visitcount + Index moz_places_frecencyindex + Index moz_places_lastvisitdateindex + Index moz_historyvisits_placedateindex + Index moz_historyvisits_fromindex + Index moz_historyvisits_dateindex + Index moz_bookmarks_itemindex + Index moz_bookmarks_parentindex + Index moz_bookmarks_itemlastmodifiedindex + Index moz_places_url_hashindex + Index moz_places_guid_uniqueindex + Index moz_bookmarks_guid_uniqueindex + Index moz_annos_placeattributeindex + Index moz_items_annos_itemattributeindex + Index moz_keywords_placepostdata_uniqueindex + Index moz_bookmarks_dateaddedindex + Index moz_places_originidindex + Index moz_places_metadata_placecreated_uniqueindex > Task: _refreshUI

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Looks good. Are you still crashing? Post any new reports.

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Thanks for looking. Yes, it's still crashing. It crashes when I quit, even without doing anything; I tested for that this morning. This is the latest report. bp-85a0fd92-caca-42ba-a184-652010210823 24/8/21, 08:01 I loaded the report.

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That report is the same as the others. I called for more help.


Start Firefox using Troubleshoot(Safe) Mode {web link}

A small dialog should appear. Click Start In Troubleshoot(Safe) Mode (not Refresh). Is the problem still there?

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When I selected Troubleshoot Mode the browser crashed. As usual it was a minute or so before the notice appeared. There is no option now to refresh (at least I didn't get one).

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Try this to see if you can spot what is causing the crash in the output. Also try downloading a separate copy of Firefox and run it from the folder(do not sign into you Firefox account) to see what happens.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#product-desktop-release

Or just try Firefox from another account on the same machine.

Modified by jonzn4SUSE

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Thanks. It won't crash, just as this one didn't until I had developed the profile to the point where it did.

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The separate copy of Firefox didn't crash until you logged into your profile?

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If you use "Clear history when Firefox closes" you can try to disable this feature or only check one item at the time to see what item is causing this.

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@jonzn4SUSE: no, I didn't install a separate copy. There's no point because it won't crash, just as this one didn't until I had spent several hours developing the profile.

@cor-el: thanks but I have discovered that Firefox is crashing even when I do nothing AND even when I select Troubleshoot Mode from the menu.

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Are you using "Clear history when Firefox closes" ?

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You can check for problems with preferences. You can delete possible user.js and numbered prefs-##.js files and rename/remove the prefs.js file to reset all prefs to the default value including prefs set via user.js and prefs that are no longer supported in current Firefox releases.

You can use the button on the "Help -> More Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.

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Thanks, cor-el. I believe I am not using "Clear history when Firefox closes". I don't know where that is. I can find my profile folder without any trouble; I created it. I may try deleting the prefs.js file but that will have to wait a couple of days. I have no prefs-##.js nor user.js files.

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See:


  • clearing "Site Preferences" clears exceptions for cookies, images, pop-up windows, and software installation and exceptions for passwords and other website specific data
  • clearing "Cookies" will remove all cookies including cookies with an allow exception you may want to keep
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Thanks. I tried starting with prefs.js renamed then quit. Unfortunately, I will have to repeat when I have more time. The lock file remained in place for longer and I deleted it. No crash report followed. It won't do as a solution because style sheets don't work (easily fixed) and, more to the point, addons disappear when Firefox is started again. I will begin searching for about:config settings that can be returned to default values.

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After a purge of about:config Firefox is no longer crashing. Thanks to cor-el for pointing me in that direction. Thanks also to others who replied. The clear recent history dialogue is closing when I press OK.

Firefox is consistently failing to delete the lock file when quitting. That is another issue.

I would dearly love to delete the crash reports; they are of no use to me. Are any of them of any conceivable use to Mozilla?

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Firefox is consistently failing to delete the lock file when quitting.

The parent.lock (Windows) or .parentlock (Linux, Mac) file is no longer removed in order to detect startup failures (crashes) and offer to start in Safe mode.

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Thanks. I'm not referring to .parentlock. It is the lock file that is remaining after I quit. I have checked the time as 2 minutes, 2.5 minutes and 1 minute.

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