Why do I get hang-crashes when I close out of a tab, sometimes? My latest crash involved that.

bp-4e424b9b-b5b9-4949-8ba8-0f0591170620

This is part-and-parcel of all my other crashes. I had to use the crashfirefox exe to get this one.

please try to uninstall malwarebytes anti exploit protection.

Uninstalled Malwarebytes. This seems not to have been the problem as I've already gotten two crashes, tonight:

bp-02232dda-21e4-4b11-9c8e-9699e0170622 bp-7c0e154a-1cb3-4480-9cdd-43ca91170622

What I was doing at the time was attempting opening up five or so news articles, first at lsj.com and then at freep.com. Many of them had auto-play embedded videos, which seems to have been part of this. I can never directly replicate a crash, but they do seem more often when I have a page with embedded videos or graphics.

Is it possible to tell if my graphics card is incompatible with Firefox? I don't get why this has been so hard to figure out given all of the information I've given. We're going on at over 60 comments, now.

EDIT: This is utterly ridiculous. Half an hour in, and I have to use the crash reporter executive file to crash a hang on detnews.com:

bp-f7a2cd57-99da-4f87-bf65-c0aa01170622

I'd literally gone from freep.com to detnews.com before I got this hang, so it wasn't even about some memory thing.

EDITx2: Just go another hang. This time I opened up an article at LSJ.com with an embedded auto-play video and had to use crashfirefox.exe.

Now I'm getting hang-crashes when I simply close out of a tab from the likes nytimes.com or https://www.dailykos.com/blogs/elections/

Why would it hang when I simply close out a tab? I'm using custom settings for my history, which I was told years ago can mess things up. What could possibly being causing these crashes two, three, and four times a day? I don't even do anything particularly memory intensive in Firefox. I basically read newspapers, but can't even seem to do that without crashes.

bp-b593892a-ff3d-46e2-b2da-cc06d0170623 bp-37ee0cd4-7e2d-4d91-935b-67a591170623 bp-e4ec90e8-2ec2-44ef-9e20-596750170624 bp-2625deca-2518-4703-b09f-feeed0170624 bp-c1e4e29f-215a-4fa9-bb1d-6d3ba1170624

EDIT: I see my a last crash report - which happened when I had to shut down the browser - mentioned "NtAllocateVirtualMemory". Is this a problem with my virtual memory settings? It's currently set to let Windows automatically manage it. It's currently set for 3,509 MB for the total paging file size for all drives. Is this too small?

sorry, at this point the only remedy left i can think of is to cleanly set up your os again...

philipp said

sorry, at this point the only remedy left i can think of is to cleanly set up your os again...

So, yeah, at this point this is a bridge too far. Thanks for the help, anyway.

Since the fourth:

bp-784ad3fd-6112-46fc-9321-a104f1170703 bp-00c5ffab-978f-4080-afb3-c44a10170703 bp-9653aaa5-cb18-4376-aebb-f88120170703 bp-619d9ab0-c3b8-4359-89ec-5f5d20170704 bp-00fe7f79-3aac-45f5-b4a9-ecbd61170705 bp-b3799c88-e519-40ca-8529-191010170706 bp-b361d6e3-3e29-4da5-bc9d-aaf320170707 bp-2e48391a-20f0-40f3-aa2c-d3be30170707 bp-46334146-f0f1-47c8-a284-9f7591170707 bp-5d1927a1-ce6d-4398-ac31-85baf0170708 bp-adecf9c7-0013-421c-a3c2-618961170708

EDIT 7/8/2017: Just got through closing out a Google Maps tab, and got a hang. Closed out the browser, reopened and got this crash report:

bp-c7ebe051-2f7b-4774-b06d-6f7d70170709

Is this ever going to be fixed? I can't even navigate google maps without getting a crash.

Since your latest crashes indicate a missing symbol issue with regard to msmpeg2vdec.dll, I would suggest to make sure you have installed this update from Microsoft even though this may look like a security update only. A quick local check for this file (in \windows\system32) should show version 12.0.9200.17037 and a 2,285,056 bytes file size, dated 08 Dec 2015. Typically it’s best to install all available Windows updates if possible, including those for (and including) IE even if you don’t even use IE itself.

I would also recommend running a System File Check (sfc.exe). Also run dxdiag.exe to find any issues or warnings.

Your display driver already seems to be up to date (v8.15.10.2993), but the fact that starting Windows in Safe Mode does not cause the issue may indicate this is related to Windows using default display drivers instead of specific ones. Also note that hardware acceleration on Intel integrated GPU chipsets is tricky, so I would not be surprised if you needed to disable that in FF (which you already did temporarily), and leave it disabled as long as the issue keeps occurring. I’ll save you the long story for my card, but to summarize, the driver required fro my system (v8.15.10.2869) does offer hardware acceleration but got blacklisted for D2D in Firefox, and I think yours is too. I keep getting issues when enabling hwa in Firefox however, though they don’t result in crashes. Your installed driver appears to be an update not suitable for my chipset, but it may still have unresolved issues.

Of course, make sure the v8.15.10.2993 driver installed is the proper one for your chipset, or try to install the one provided by your motherboard manufacturer. If you are sure you got the proper driver, you could also try to revert to a previous version temporarily - the latest one may contain a new or rare bug.

Also check to see layers.acceleration.force-enabled is false (default) in about:config, and try toggling layers.acceleration.disabled to true (user set) if not set already - the latter is set to true in my copy, probably automatically as it happens in any new profile. Perhaps that should happen for yours too and it may fail.

Note that a lot of your crash reports are still issues with inter process communication (IPC).

Do you still have multi-process enabled? What kind of crash reports do you get with multi-process disabled?

You can try to increase this pref on the about:config page to 30 seconds or more:

• dom.ipc.tabs.shutdownTimeoutSecs

Tonnes said

Since your latest crashes indicate a missing symbol issue with regard to msmpeg2vdec.dll, I would suggest to make sure you have installed this update from Microsoft even though this may look like a security update only. A quick local check for this file (in \windows\system32) should show version 12.0.9200.17037 and a 2,285,056 bytes file size, dated 08 Dec 2015. Typically it’s best to install all available Windows updates if possible, including those for (and including) IE even if you don’t even use IE itself. I would also recommend running a System File Check (sfc.exe). Also run dxdiag.exe to find any issues or warnings. Your display driver already seems to be up to date (v8.15.10.2993), but the fact that starting Windows in Safe Mode does not cause the issue may indicate this is related to Windows using default display drivers instead of specific ones. Also note that hardware acceleration on Intel integrated GPU chipsets is tricky, so I would not be surprised if you needed to disable that in FF (which you already did temporarily), and leave it disabled as long as the issue keeps occurring. I’ll save you the long story for my card, but to summarize, the driver required fro my system (v8.15.10.2869) does offer hardware acceleration but got blacklisted for D2D in Firefox, and I think yours is too. I keep getting issues when enabling hwa in Firefox however, though they don’t result in crashes. Your installed driver appears to be an update not suitable for my chipset, but it may still have unresolved issues. Of course, make sure the v8.15.10.2993 driver installed is the proper one for your chipset, or try to install the one provided by your motherboard manufacturer. If you are sure you got the proper driver, you could also try to revert to a previous version temporarily - the latest one may contain a new or rare bug. Also check to see layers.acceleration.force-enabled is false (default) in about:config, and try toggling layers.acceleration.disabled to true (user set) if not set already - the latter is set to true in my copy, probably automatically as it happens in any new profile. Perhaps that should happen for yours too and it may fail.

Thank you so much for this. I will try all of this out (though, I fairly regularly run sfc.exe). This is more detailed help than I've received here in requests prior.

EDIT: It seems I have the latest msmpeg2vdec.dll, though the size is a bit different. But in case I want to reinstall it, which one of those downloads would be the correct one for my Windows 7 OS? There are 10 different files to choose from. I believe my system is 32-bit, but that still leaves five files to choose from.

Ran dxdiag.exe with no errors found.

Checked layers in about:config, the first set to false and the second set to true.

Of course, make sure the v8.15.10.2993 driver installed is the proper one for your chipset

Honestly, I don't know what I have. If this is something I can find in my Troubleshooting information, you let me know. I'm pretty illiterate as this stuff goes. My computer was a gift and pieced together, so it's a mash of things all of which seem to work for everything else I do.

Update: Got this crash when a drop-down ad came on at detnews.com

bp-11365e15-ca4d-4310-80db-3ca2a0170712

Can not seem to see anything in the way of programs you are running. Could you please submit a list of running software ie what firewall, AV and others also please. Thank You.

For someone else following these are these correct  ?

browser.startup.homepage: yahoo.com browser.startup.homepage_override.buildID: 20170413192749 browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone: 53.0 browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2: true browser.urlbar.autocomplete.enabled: false browser.urlbar.daysBeforeHidingSuggestionsPrompt: 2 browser.urlbar.lastSuggestionsPromptDate: 20170413 browser.urlbar.suggest.bookmark: false browser.urlbar.suggest.history: false browser.urlbar.suggest.openpage: false

The thread is quite long, so I can imagine you may have missed it. I believe I did post some of that information already. Anyway, you'll probably have to be more specific about what I'm running exactly since OS's run tons of things at once. As far as Firewall, it's the firewall that comes with Windows. As for anti-virus, Microsoft Security Essentials and Stinger Real Protect run in the background.

What I will say is that I've disabled - even uninstalled - all of these at one time or another to see if that's what was causing this, and I haven't been able to find a correlation between my AV/anti-malware/firewall and the crashes.

Anyway, I was going to include my troubleshooting information, but it won't let me post all of it. Let me know if you need anything from that.

In the off chance that a Windows file is corrupted can you please try this :

Repair System Registry and Files

Run the Windows Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) and System File Checker (SFC) tools as Administrator. The DISM and SFC tools scan the integrity of the Windows image and all protected system files replaces corrupted, damaged and incorrect versions.

To run the DISM command use the Windows key + X keyboard shortcut to open the Power User menu, then select Command Prompt (Admin). Type "DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth" (without quotes or copy/paste) and press Enter. While running DISM you may notice the process will appear to pause at 20%. After a few minutes the operation will continue.

To run the SFC command use the Windows key + X keyboard shortcut to open the Power User menu and select Command Prompt (Admin). Type "SFC /SCANNOW" (without quotes or copy/paste) and press Enter. For more information on using SFC, please refer to the Microsoft KB: Use the System File Checker tool to repair missing or corrupted system files

Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.

I run SFC regularly; it brings up no errors. I'll try the other program.

Just tried running DISM and got Error: 87

If I remember correctly, it might have something to do with my version of Windows (7).

I wrote this a few days ago and forgot to submit it, sorry. Not to say the last advice is bad (on the contrary) but these were my thoughts at that point (half of it may not be applicable at all):

Well, I would recommend running sfc.exe as a first step. This will tell you if any files are damaged, not paticularly outdated. Performing checkdsk.exe could also do no harm.

For the MS patch: you should be able to see if it’s installed in the Windows Update History - I think this is KB3124901, though it could have been superseded by another one and no longer show up. A different size and timestamp than reported on that page (? - Expand "File information" there and scroll down) may be a leading point - the file should have that exact timestamp and size if the system is up to date, according to what I see on Win 7 32-bit. But rather than focusing on this patch only and how to obtain it, it may be best to let Windows check for all available updates if it does not do so automatically if configured or in case it has been a while since that happened manually.

Firefox however appears to create multiple crashes with various reasons, so the above may be a false lead and was only given after removing MalwareBytes due to its mbae.dll error. But knowing there are no crashes in Windows Safe Mode, that would mean it’s software or drivers allright. The trouble is that they are random, but pointing to ntdll.dll, kernel32.dll, kernelbase.dll and ole32.dll lately.

Comparing some crash reports and particularly the ntdll.dll entries, I think updates ares handled automatically since the first crash reported shows version 6.1.7601.23714, the crash reported at May 14 shows 6.1.7601.23796 (similar to mine) and the one reported June 14th shows 6.1.7601.23807. I didn’t trace back this file in recent and official updates from Microsoft - you could do so if you want - but would assume these changes should be official and perhaps even fix a corrupt copy. Note that ntdll.dll errors don’t mean the file itself is busted, but the more I read about this, the more I find sources that tell display drivers can cause them, and the @ @0x0 | __RtlUserThreadStart | _RtlUserThreadStart crashes could indicate graphics issues too, as they did for Flash.

I would ignore any crash reported as Shutdown crash for now since those have been an issue in Nightly versions for a while and I think they show up rather as a result of shutting down than a cause. That doesn’t mean they should show up for release versions but they may just be triggered by other issues, or rather, provide the false reason. I would also ignore multi-process as well as profiles other than a default one to be a cause, simply because they should not cause crashes, and certainly not randomly. Personally I’m not even interested in what the actions that caused a hang or crash were, however developers probably are.

Simply put, I don’t trust your Windows install. There would be 2 approaches:

• Either revert to the basics first, meaning you should make Windows behave as if it was just installed and is as close to Windows Safe Mode as it can be, so remove any security related and other software and drivers (you could even think of an OS reinstall), OR
• Eliminate factors from the current point to there (so backwards) by removing/changing everything in the opposite direction, but that could take longer.

Don’t worry about security software when choosing the first approach, unless your machine is directly connected to the internet. Speaking of: "running multiple anti-malware and anti-virus programs every day" is overkill and a known cause for issues - you should never use more that one program for similar features and in my opinion don’t even need it (at least not enabled for interception or real-time use) when behind a router and using your brains, since they only slow down. But if you want it, removing it temporarily for testing purposes will not be a problem at all. Remove any instance of Flash, Avast, Skype, and especially external software for display drivers that were used (instead of doing so in Device Manager) such as the Intel Graphics media Accelerator Driver, or Nvidia software that may have been left behind.

As someone suggested, a Windows reinstall would be the best and probably quickest option, even if you don’t like it. Knowing you got the machine as a gift and it was pieced together (but without knowing what the disk or Windows history was), Windows may just be "polluted" in some way if this is an older laptop that may have had some software installed that wasn’t removed properly, even if you never encountered issues in other programs before. That could be unremoved or replaced libraries for instance, or false dependencies, or Radeon software in case such a graphics card was installed previously, to name a few.

Some basic and advisable steps can be found this thread at MS. Take note of every step, including and perhaps especially the ones for checking memory, even if you don’t suspect your issue to be hardware related. I would suggest to follow everything described there first and then follow up here afterwards. There is probably no use posting new crash reports here unless they show very different crash reasons, and I even doubt it those are useful - if you already experience random ones, chances are others will follow.

The bottom line is that we should be able to find out what causes Windows normal mode to differ from its Safe Mode and is affecting Firefox. Again, display drivers is one and an important thing, and to answer your last question: if you know your machine’s make and model, you should be able to find the exact graphics chipset, or if it’s an external card, opening it up and checking the card’s brand and type is the best method. It’s reported as Intel(R) HD Graphics (by 0x8086 and 0x0046 in Troubleshooting Info) and I would expect Windows to recognize it properly - looking at the Device Manager (ideally not showing any errors) under Display adapters is easy. Perhaps starting by removing the current display driver and allow it to use the Windows default display driver - since there could be doubts about it using the proper driver - is a first step, but I think there are just more issues. Keep in mind that even reinstalling drivers can solve issues.

Come to think of it: adding another user account in Windows for testing purposes is not the ideal way to impersonate a fresh install if I remember well, but could do no harm either, and if things work there, you could transfer everything from the other one. As for your bookmarks and the desire to keep using them meanwhile, you can just copy them from your current profile. If so, do so by exporting an HTML file rather than the json file, even though I think the latter should not cause random crashes in case of corruption.

Please remember that sfc an chkdsk are your friend and basics are important. Ever experienced a high CPU temperature due to a broken fan after spending hours or even days finding out what was wrong in Windows? That could even lead to ntdll.dll errors and occur in Firefox only due to short-time excessive CPU load for some other reason. I recalled that when looking at this thread which also mentions so-called CTDs (crash to desktop) and "heap corruption". Well well... another interesting story that may not be the cause of your issue, but it’s to show there are many many basic reasons to overlook, so it’s best to start from scratch in some cases while not skipping the basics. Loading BIOS defaults or optimal settings is another thing often overlooked. If all of them are not covered, things can be time-consuming as this thread has already proved, and for others to jump in may be hard - I had trouble reading all 4 pages just today. ;)

Added as follow-up to later replies: Note that after uninstalling any anti-virus or security software, it’s typically best to reboot the system in case you haven’t yet.

For the MS patch: you should be able to see if it’s installed in the Windows Update History - I think this is KB3124901, though it could have been superseded by another one and no longer show up. A different size and timestamp than reported on that page (? - Expand "File information" there and scroll down) may be a leading point - the file should have that exact timestamp and size if the system is up to date, according to what I see on Win 7 32-bit. But rather than focusing on this patch only and how to obtain it, it may be best to let Windows check for all available updates if it does not do so automatically if configured or in case it has been a while since that happened manually.

Anyway, looking at my msmpeg2vdec.dll file again it says it was created on January 12, 2016 (modified on December 8, 2015, huh?) and the size is 2,285,056 bytes. I guess I was reading the MB category incorrectly. Looks like everything is on the up-and-up with this file? If not, I still wouldn't know which of the five Windows 7 files to download from that page. And, to be clear, I run Windows Updates every single day.

Oh, and something else to clarify. The shutdown crashes are what they are because it's what I have to do when the page freezes: close out the browser. So, of course those are going to be shutdown crashes, because I can literally do nothing else when the browser freezes.

Also, the other crashes are when I use the crashfirefox.exe program suggested to me early on in this. I use that when the browser freezes and I need to keep some of my log-ins from that session. This allows me to restart the browser without losing all of what I was working on.

BTW, can I repair an installation without the Windows disc? Because I don't have one.

Update: Ran MRT. Seemed to show finding 1 error, but when it got to the end it said nothing was found. Either way, still getting the crashes. And, to reiterate, I don't have a windows disk so a reinstall is out of the question. But, it really does seem like check disk, sfc and the rest aren't finding any errors.

I got two hang-crashes just a few minutes ago loading Yahoo's homepage. My problems seem to happen most when closing out graphic-intesive pages, so what is basically the issue that can be found knowing this and the type of crashes I'm getting? What is Firefox geting hung on?

Has anyone looked into why this may be happening when I navigate to Yahoo!'s homepage later in a session? Got these exact same crash reports from this in the last few minutes:

bp-08ff6a62-3eb6-4bb1-bd67-28bf90170724 bp-27ec6849-0b82-4e3d-8f56-071b10170724 bp-85be2c6f-2d8b-4e6f-9d69-1f85b1170724

I've noticed that it's Yahoo, but basically any site that auto-plays any kind of graphic ad. This one just happened when I was at The Detroit News site opening an article. A drop-down add playd, and it froze.

bp-0f6c73c8-0944-4076-94e9-832ff0170727

Anyway word that if this is a Windows-based issue, which program at start-up/running the background has caused trouble for Firefox users? I feel like the solution to this will end up being very obvious and an easy fix, but I just have no idea. What I know is that I'm trying to stick with Firefox, but it's beyond annyoing losing your session every other hour. I went so far as to record a session in Developer Edition and never got anything back from that. It was a waste of my time.

You can grab a copy of Windows 7 from Microsoft themselves and burn it to a DVD or make a bootable USB from the ISO.

You can use the Windows & Office ISO Download Tool to download Windows. I'm assuming you have a genuine W7 install.

You can use Rufus to create a bootable USB.

bp-ce0d4206-a01c-4f8c-9d3c-5ca860170911

mbae.dll@0x2378b

mbae.dll@0x23da3

mbae.dll@0x23af3

Yes, this last report looks as caused by the Malwarebytes Exploit Protection feature.

Try this:

• Malwarebytes: turn off Real-Time Protection -> Exploit Protection

Turned it off from my taskbar. I'll report back to you after testing it out under this configuration.