[SOLVED] Firefox freezes/hangs

[SMG]

I've been following the discussion at the Mozilla bug report page. I just had a freeze with gfx.webrender.software set to true (I'm on an AMD processor, Radeon graphics).

Figured I might give some of those suggestions a try.

Thanks for the heads up. I just changed mine about a half hour ago. I think the suggestions were technically for the original bug reporter, but as long as they are giving suggestions, I'll keep trying them and give my feedback.

Yesterday I nearly made it the entire day before it froze. Today I've had at least three freezes.

[bmbguy]

Now I'm trying the layout.frame_rate=60, though I don't have high hopes.

Thanks for stepping into the discussion on the bug report. I don't think there's much attention on this issue, mainly because (probably) there aren't a lot of people seeing it.

[bmbguy]

Froze with the layout.frame_rate set to 60. Weird how, on my machine, it freezes a lot on the newtab page. I'll click new tab, the newtab page will come up with all of the icons, and then I'll notice that the newtab page is not responding. Icons don't highlight, etc. In my case, that happens more often than just freezing on some web page.

[SMG]

Froze with the layout.frame_rate set to 60.

I just changed to that because mine just froze with gfx.webrender.software=true. I guess that means I should expect another freeze.

Weird how, on my machine, it freezes a lot on the newtab page. I'll click new tab, the newtab page will come up with all of the icons, and then I'll notice that the newtab page is not responding. Icons don't highlight, etc. In my case, that happens more often than just freezing on some web page.

The other day when I clicked + to open a new tab, it froze right at that time and did not open the tab.

I tend to do a lot of right-click to have the link open in a new tab, but I have FF set up to keep the focus on the current tab. I'll then let the other tab load while I am working on the current one. I'll try to keep an eye on whether or not the freeze relates to those right-clicks. If that is the case, I would think new tab functionality would be helpful in narrowing down the source of the issue.

[antikythera]

I like the way it asks you to tell them what is wrong with the browser when it detects it has crashed. What were you doing? Loading a web page...

[bmbguy]

Another somewhat interesting twist...

I had opened a link in a 'private' window. The main window froze a bit later, but the private window was still working. This is a bit in contrast to the other day when I tried to open another 'normal' instance of FF once the first one froze, but that didn't work.

I may try that again when I see a freeze, but try opening a private window from the command line instead.

[antikythera]

This is a bit in contrast to the other day when I tried to open another 'normal' instance of FF once the first one froze, but that didn't work.

I may try that again when I see a freeze, but try opening a private window from the command line instead.

Go home Firefox, you're drunk!

[SMG]

Another somewhat interesting twist...

I had opened a link in a 'private' window. The main window froze a bit later, but the private window was still working.

Did you continue working in private window after closing the main window?

This is a bit in contrast to the other day when I tried to open another 'normal' instance of FF once the first one froze, but that didn't work.

I had also once tried opening another "regular" window when the main one froze and that did not work. I did not attempt to open a Private Window. I will try that. I had the set layout.frame_rate=60 already freeze on me so I was looking for new ideas anyhow.

[bmbguy]

Did you continue working in private window after closing the main window?

Yes. Once I realized that the original window had died, I went back to the private window and typed in an address or two in a new tab to make sure it was still working.

I'm starting to suspect (will verify next freeze) that one can open a new private window and possibly a new instance of FF with a different profile after the first window has frozen.

But this kind of makes sense if the original instance has any file/database locks on files in the first profile when it 'freezes'. I'll test the theory by trying to open new instances from the command line next time I see a freeze.

[SMG]

Yes. Once I realized that the original window had died, I went back to the private window and typed in an address or two in a new tab to make sure it was still working.

Or maybe a workaround until this gets fixed is to always use private windows.

I want to try some tests before I mention the observation about the difference with private windows on the bug report.

[bmbguy]

Or maybe a workaround until this gets fixed is to always use private windows.

Depending on what the real cause is, the private window may eventually freeze as well. I had considered trying using just one single tab instead of multiple tabs to see if it mattered, but who wants to try using the web all day with only one tab open? That's a real throwback to the old days!

I want to try some tests before I mention the observation about the difference with private windows on the bug report.

That's reasonable. And I'm not so sure that it's any hint of what's going wrong. Might be more 'effect' than 'cause.'

[bmbguy]

Well, there. I got another freeze (and on the newtab page again). This time I did not already have a private window open. Tried to launch one from the command line 'firefox -private-window' - the window launched, but was not responding properly, was not usable, much like the original window.

However, I was able to launch another instance of FF with another profile (that I had created earlier for testing purposes) from the command line 'firefox -P profilename'. This instance launched properly, and worked fine.

Follow up: Another freeze (NOT on newtab), and this time I had a private window already open. When I went to it, it didn't want to work this time. I was pretty sure it had worked the previous time. This one didn't, much like when I tried to launch it from the command line mentioned above.

[bmbguy]

The 'mozregression' tool might just be our best bet. There is a GUI version at: https://mozilla.github.io/mozregression/install.html

Unpack it, run the GUI. The first icon (a scissors) lets you choose a profile, and then choose build limits by date or revision. Just for quick test, I'll choose 101 good and 102 bad. Once you picked those, it looks like it will actually generate/download and execute incremental builds between those two.

I"ll start on that today, but it may take a while to run a version and conclude it doesn't freeze... could be a long process.

[SMG]

The 'mozregression' tool might just be our best bet. There is a GUI version at: https://mozilla.github.io/mozregression/install.html

I will take a look at that, but the searching I did earlier seemed to indicate running from the command line with the options listed does something different than testing individual versions through the GUI version? I don't quite understand that yet which is why I have not yet done it. Additionally, the info I found said to run the command-line version inside an environment rather than globally on one's machine.

I watched a video on how the GUI version works which seems to indicate it would be an extremely long process for us because we can not force the problem to happen. I was hoping the command-line version given in the bug report might be a faster way if I could figure it out.

[bmbguy]

I'm going to play around with the GUI version and do some date checking on the nightlies between 101 and 102, if I can find it. Maybe we can specify short date ranges, and kinda pick halfway points between and hone in/binary search on the date range of failure. Or start at the later end and work backwards - in our case, something like that would be much faster.

I just did a full backup of my machine, so if I blow something up, I can get back here!

Added:
Firefox Version 102.0a1, first offered to Nightly channel users on May 2, 2022
Version 102.0, first offered to Release channel users on June 28, 2022

The GUI lets you easily pick 'single build' dates. I might start around June 1 and go from there...

Version 103.0a1, first offered to Nightly channel users on May 30, 2022

Maybe I'll look mid-May

Added 2:
Ahh - the mozregression tool does the 'bisection' automatically. Set release 'good' to 101, 'bad' to 102, starts with build from 5/16. Cool!

Added 3:
Build from 5/16 froze. Tool moved to 5/9.

Added 4:
Build from 5/9 froze. Tool moved to 5/6,

Added 5:
Build from 5/6 froze. Tool moved to 5/4.

Added 6:
Mon. night. Still running 5/4 build, no freezes since Sun. afternoon.

Update 7:
Tues. evening. Build from 5/4 still running. It's been a long time since I was able to run FF for 2+ days without a freeze.

[birdie]

This is tracked here:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1780972
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1781167

Has anyone found a surefire way to trigger the bug?

[bmbguy]

This is tracked here:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1780972
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1781167

Has anyone found a surefire way to trigger the bug?

One of the moderators here was posting on the 1167 bug, I did not know about the 0972 bug report - thanks for pointing it out. I also did not know about the mozregression tool, but it was mentioned in a reply to the 1167 bug, which is how we got here.

As far as triggering the bug, we do not have any surefire triggers that I know of. I am just using the same web site browsing pattern that I normally do, although changing sites more often and using 'new tab' frequently, since that's where I saw a lot of my freezes.

If the 5/4 build runs through today for me, I will likely move to the 5/5 build for testing tomorrow. Then I will repeat testing of 5/6, and whichever one of 5/4 or 5/5 turns out to be the last known 'good' version. At least that's where I'm at right now.

Oh, and I'm not on NVIDIA graphics (AMD processor, Radeon graphics). And IIRC, the moderator, who has also been experiencing freezes, is not on NVIDIA either.

[SMG]

Has anyone found a surefire way to trigger the bug?

I know if I use FF102 or newer that I will trigger the bug at some point. I have seen no pattern at all to what might trigger it other than it is more likely to happen when firefox.bin is using more memory. No correlations to how long Firefox has been open or how many tabs are open with the freeze occurs.

I do not know if maybe I installed mozregression (command line version) incorrectly or running it is just too much for my system to handle, but I was getting freezes for builds that should have been good. I'm currently back on FF101.0.1 and will try again with command-line version mozregression later this week.

[bmbguy]

I do not know if maybe I installed mozregression (command line version) incorrectly or running it is just too much for my system to handle, but I was getting freezes for builds that should have been good. I'm currently back on FF101.0.1 and will try again with command-line version mozregression later this week.

One of the reasons I decided to try the GUI was that it seemed simpler - unpack it and run. I wasn't sure I understood the whole Python-related installation of the command-line version.

[SMG]

One of the reasons I decided to try the GUI was that it seemed simpler - unpack it and run. I wasn't sure I understood the whole Python-related installation of the command-line version.

I had FF104 installed when I did it. It crossed my mind that perhaps that was part of the reason I was running into issues. Testing both FF100 and FF101 in mozregression resulted in freezes which makes no sense.

I had to go back to FF101.0.1 to make sure I hadn't imagined it working. All those freezes meant I had to keep re-doing tasks and I need to clear my backlog.