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Firefox on Windows 10 crashes every time it is closed (last 6 months or so).

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In making this post I am following instructions found at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-crashes-closing-or-quitting, which include the statement "Fill out the Details section of the next page..." which seems to refer to THIS page, but I see no Details section here, so I'll just put the details where they seem to apply.

Firefox Version 102, installed today, shows the same symptom I've been seeing for several weeks, perhaps months: whenever Firefox is closed, a crash report popup appears on the screen (after a minute or two). I've been submitting these on a regular basis and hoped that Version 102 would contain a fix, but the issue continues.

So today I've created some minimum-to-reproduce examples, in each case using the same setup, but closing Firefox in a different manner:

Setup: Firefox for Windows V 102 installed today. Windows 10 is up to date. I open Firefox in troubleshooting mode, which displays my home page, located on a shared server that I use for a website and other stuff I want to be able to access from anywhere. Nothing exotic, just a list of links. That works.

Then, without doing anything else (for purposes of these tests), I close Firefox via one of the following (with associated report ID):

  • Click on large X in the upper right corner of the window.
   bp-e31ef7d6-8d17-41c8-a204-0e53c0220630e
  • In the window menu, select File > Exit.
  bp-d15f97c8-267f-4550-9d42-69eb70220630
  • On the task bar, RMB on Firefox, then select 'Close window'.
 bp-39756c12-ccb7-4f83-998a-ec8030220630

My system is an HP laptop with AMD Vision A6 processor. My wife uses a Dell all-in-one on the same wired network and does not experience the crash-on-close symptom. This makes me suspect my hardware, but just tested with other browsers:

Chrome - Blocked my home page (never saw that before, but I use Firefox...) until I removed the block from Settings. Closed without crashing. Edge - Updated itself, then gave me the same "Not secure" warning as Chrome, but displayed the home page anyway. Closed without crashing.

In all cases, the link to my home page is specified as http://, not https:// My wife's system is set up the same way.

My question: How can I get Firefox to close gracefully, without spitting out a crash report 1-2 minutes later? Note that I can OPEN Firefox and use it for hours without incident, but if I close it and do something else, when I close THAT, there's the Firefox crash report window underneath.

I just ran the w3.org validator on my home page and I see that a few errors have crept in,. mostly unencoded ampersands. I'll fix those, but if that caused a problem for Firefox, would it wait until much later to crash? And why only on my system, not my wife's?

Suggestions?

In making this post I am following instructions found at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-crashes-closing-or-quitting, which include the statement "Fill out the Details section of the next page..." which seems to refer to THIS page, but I see no Details section here, so I'll just put the details where they seem to apply. Firefox Version 102, installed today, shows the same symptom I've been seeing for several weeks, perhaps months: whenever Firefox is closed, a crash report popup appears on the screen (after a minute or two). I've been submitting these on a regular basis and hoped that Version 102 would contain a fix, but the issue continues. So today I've created some minimum-to-reproduce examples, in each case using the same setup, but closing Firefox in a different manner: Setup: Firefox for Windows V 102 installed today. Windows 10 is up to date. I open Firefox in troubleshooting mode, which displays my home page, located on a shared server that I use for a website and other stuff I want to be able to access from anywhere. Nothing exotic, just a list of links. That works. Then, without doing anything else (for purposes of these tests), I close Firefox via one of the following (with associated report ID): * Click on large X in the upper right corner of the window. bp-e31ef7d6-8d17-41c8-a204-0e53c0220630e * In the window menu, select File > Exit. bp-d15f97c8-267f-4550-9d42-69eb70220630 * On the task bar, RMB on Firefox, then select 'Close window'. bp-39756c12-ccb7-4f83-998a-ec8030220630 My system is an HP laptop with AMD Vision A6 processor. My wife uses a Dell all-in-one on the same wired network and does not experience the crash-on-close symptom. This makes me suspect my hardware, but just tested with other browsers: Chrome - Blocked my home page (never saw that before, but I use Firefox...) until I removed the block from Settings. Closed without crashing. Edge - Updated itself, then gave me the same "Not secure" warning as Chrome, but displayed the home page anyway. Closed without crashing. In all cases, the link to my home page is specified as http://, not https:// My wife's system is set up the same way. My question: How can I get Firefox to close gracefully, without spitting out a crash report 1-2 minutes later? Note that I can OPEN Firefox and use it for hours without incident, but if I close it and do something else, when I close THAT, there's the Firefox crash report window underneath. I just ran the w3.org validator on my home page and I see that a few errors have crept in,. mostly unencoded ampersands. I'll fix those, but if that caused a problem for Firefox, would it wait until much later to crash? And why only on my system, not my wife's? Suggestions?

All Replies (4)

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After validation errors on the home page were corrected, the results are unchanged, resulting in a new crash report:

bp-2b6da601-4abf-449c-885d-8ae050220701

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Thank you for the links. On the first tab for all four of these "shutdown hang" bugs, I see:

MOZ_CRASH Reason (Sanitized) : "Shutdown hanging at step AppShutdownTeardown. Something is blocking the main-thread."

Not very illuminating. What is more peculiar is that the crash signature is different in the four cases:

  • shutdownhang | js::CallGetter
  • shutdownhang | mozilla::net::nsIOService::GetProtocolHandler
  • shutdownhang | js::MapObject::set
  • shutdownhang | je_malloc | moz_xmalloc | mozilla::BasePrincipal::CreateContentPrincipal

I'm not sure what that indicates -- whether a faster or slower shutdown reaches a different place in each case before the watchdog process terminates it, or whether there might be a memory or disk problem which Firefox hits randomly, or something else.

Unfortunately, you'll notice that the Bugzilla tabs of the reports do not list any active bugs, which may mean that the signatures do not have enough reports to get flagged for resolution.

One thing that can slow Firefox's shutdown is clearing history or cookies when Firefox closes. Is your Firefox set to do that?

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Sorry for the long delay, but I spent some time on experiments...

First, my Firefox was NOT set to clear cookies and site data at shutdown, BUT if I DO set it do so (CHECK the box in Cookies and Site Data), then Firefox does NOT crash at shutdown, BUT when I bring up Firefox again, the box is no longer checked and Firefox will crash when next shut down.

I believe the technical term for this is Catch 22.

Since cookies and site data were mentioned, I looked into that. I initially had 700+Mb of such data. I manually deleted first large blocks (the ones more than a year old) then the most recent (since 'last year') then selective ones based on intuition. Each time FF crashed at shutdown, until the only data left was from mozilla.org (which reappears).

So the crash does not seem to depend on the number or contents of site data/cookies.

I also renamed prefs.js, which was promptly recreated and did not change the symptom.

So there are two scenarios:

  # All site data has been manually deleted.  

The delete-at-close box is not checked. Firefox crashes when closed.

  # All site data has been manually deleted.  

I check the delete-at-close box (which may create a mozilla.org cookie, visible the next time I start FF). Firefox does not crash at close, but the box has been UNchecked.

In the second scenario, it appears that the only thing for FF to delete is the mozilla.org entry.

So I started FF in Troubleshooting mode. Manually deleted the mozilla.org data, leaving none. Left the delete-at-close box UNchecked. Closed Firefox, resulting in bp-2b6da601-4abf-449c-885d-8ae050220701

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Thank you for the detailed discussion. Testing in Troubleshoot Mode was as a good idea, too.

When you check the box in the Cookies and Site Data section in Firefox 102, at the next startup, Firefox migrates that older feature to equivalent settings in the History section, behind the "Clear history when Firefox closes" Settings button. So it's normal for the box to be empty again in Firefox 102. This will be fixed in Firefox 103 by making the checkbox work in real time rather than only being migrated at startup.

Anyway, you can turn that off now. There must be some other shutdown activity that is hanging, but I don't know what other cleanups or disconnections could cause Firefox to hang. It looks like something related to memory in the latest case. ??