Firefox crashes after some time of inactivity.

I have Vista Home Premium SP2 and the version of Firefox (ESR) is 52.9.0 32-bit.

 

Like the title says, when I don't do anything on the computer for awhile and have the browser running, it crashes. I do have multiple tabs oppened most of the time but it also happens with just a few. There are a few, odd moments when it doesn't crash but those are the exception. Also, sometimes, instead of browser crashing, it just happens to a tab (it happened now while I was writing this post ~_~. That shows though that this tab crash was unrelated to the whole inactivity thing).

I have to move the mouse every now and then to avoid the crashes.

 

Any ideas/suggestions? Also, if there are Vista users who use previous versions with no problem, please post them so I can have some sort of a back up plan.

 

Something that most likely is useless: My OS is in english while FF is in my native language. I don't think this has to do with anything but, who knows.

 

 

Edit: I forgot a detail that might help. When I'm not doing anything, the browser starts using more memory from what I've seen in the task manager. Also, sometimes, when I use the browser after not doing anything (and hasn't got to crash yet) the browser is slow at best (or I can't click on tabs etc at all) and sometimes it shows black where the webpage should be seen.

 

Sorry for the delayed info.

Edited by Flyingshark, 22 January 2022 - 02:22 PM.

In later versions of Firefox you could start it in Trouble Shooting Mode. Which disables  all add-ons.
I don't recall how to do that in your version. But you may know and once you have done that then

add back one or two extensions / plugins back at a time to check if one of those is the problem.

In windows Vista locate your profile for Mozilla - https://www.howtogeek.com/255587/how-to-find-your-firefox-profile-folder-on-windows-mac-and-linux/

And rename the one there as something else but preferably add .old to current one. Restart Firefox and it'll be as if just freshly installed and troubleshoot from there.

Thanks for the replies and suggestions! I'll try those and I'll let you know if anything worked or not.

buddy215, I've never heard of that mode but, who knows, maybe it'll work if I disable my add-on on my own. It's an adblocker though so I hope that's not it. x)

 

I'll let you guys know, thanks again!

I've seen several problems similar to yours being caused by an ad blocker on Firefox.

 

Sure...disable add-ons...reboot Firefox...check to see if the problem still exists. Having only one or

two add-ons makes that easy.

Hi Flyingshark:

 

If you view your Firefox crash reports at Help | More Troubleshooting Information | Crash Reports for the Last 3 Days (or enter about:crashes in the address bar) they might have some information about the module that causing your browser to crash.  See the Mozilla support article Mozilla Crash Reporter for more information.

I recall one issue I had back in April 2019 where my Firefox ESR v52.9.0 browser would occasionally crash, and when I clicked the Report IDs ("bp-e4c7e559-cf5a-432-a-9367-77de90190527" in the sample image below) to open the full crash reports I discovered that most of my  crashes had the signature ipseng32.dll | js::HelperThread::handleParseWorkload.  At the time I was using Norton Security Deluxe v22.15.2 as my antivirus and my browser crashes were traced back to a buggy Intrusion Prevention driver (IPSEng32.dll v17.1.0.147) update that was injected into my browser as part of the Norton Browser Protection feature.  See my 28-May-2012 post in the Norton thread Loading Circle on Cursor about the IPSEng32.dll v17.1.0.222 update that fixed my Firefox crashes.

 

 FF ESR v52_9_0 Troubleshooting Crash Reports 27 May 2019.png   6.86KB   0 downloads

 

 FF ESR v52_9_0 Crash Report IPSEng32_dll 27 May 2019.png   27.21KB   0 downloads

 

I rarely boot up my Vista SP2 machine these days since I purchased a new Win 10 laptop but I've always used Adblock Plus as the ad blocker in my Firefox ESR v52.9.0 browser.  The latest version is currently v3.11.4 (rel. 23-Nov-2021) and is still compatible with Firefox ESR v52.9.0.
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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox ESR v52.9.0 * Malwarebytes Premium v3.5.1.2522-1.0.365
HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3 GB RAM, 256 GB WD SATA HDD, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
 

Hi Flyingshark:

Have you made any progress finding the cause of your Firefox ESR v52.9.0 crashes?

If not, the Mozilla support article Troubleshoot and Diagnose Firefox Problems might have some helpful hints.  Note that a browser refresh / reset (Step # 5 - Help | Troubleshooting Information | Refresh button) will create a new Firefox user profile (i.e., remove your add-ons and reset your custom browser settings back to their defaults) but it will retain your bookmarks, cookies, and browsing history - see Refresh Firefox - Reset Add-ons and Settings for more information.  Creating a new Firefox user profile as suggested by cryptodan (Step # 6 - I normally use the Firefox Profile Manager for this task) goes one step further and creates a clean profile without retaining any personal settings like bookmarks, etc.  Before creating your new profile you can backup your bookmarks (Bookmarks | Manage Bookmarks | Import and Backup | Backup) and then import them back into your new Firefox profile one it's created, but if you forget to do that you can still recover your bookmarks from your old profile.

If you haven't already done so, it might also be a good idea to run a Threat Scan with Malwarebytes Free v3.5.1 (the legacy version for Win XP and Vista available at https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/malwarebytes-anti-malware/dl/383/_legacy) to see if it can find any PUPs (potentially unwanted programs like browser toolbars, adware, etc.) or PUMS (potentially unwanted registry modifications) missed by your antivirus that might be causing your browser to crash.  If you haven't used Malwarebytes Free before see the hints for first-time users in MarcoHaidar's November 2021 thread Startup Pop Up in the Microsoft Answers Vista board where I post as user Great White North.

If you ever need to reinstall your Firefox ESR v52.9.0 browser note that the full offline installers for all languages and regions are available at https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/52.9.0esr/win32/ (note that both 32-bit and 64-bit Vista should use the 32-bit installer). If you want the English-US version, for example, click the en-US/ directory to browse to https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/52.9.0esr/win32/en-US/ where you can download the Firefox Setup 52.9.0esr.exe installer.
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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox ESR v52.9.0 * Malwarebytes Premium v3.5.1.2522-1.0.365
HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3 GB RAM, 256 GB WD SATA HDD, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS

Edited by lmacri, 26 January 2022 - 09:47 AM.

Firefox ESR 52 is outdated. Its JavaScript engine dates back to 2017, and growing numbers of websites are using recent JavaScript (not to mention Google Web Components) that it simply cannot cope with. It will become less and less useful as time goes by, and btw it has many unpatched vulnerabilities.

Why are you attempting to use Windows Vista in 2022? There are now four newer versions of Windows (all of which are supported by major browsers, at least for the time being), not to mention smartphones, Chromebooks, etc. But I do understand your attachment to Vista, since I was still attached to it just a couple of years ago. FWIW the Windows XP diehards at MSFN (and perhaps 2 or 3 Vista users) are increasingly turning to modern Chromium forks originating in China as the shortcomings of browsers based on old Firefox code (including roytam1s browser builds) become increasingly apparent.

Regarding your immediate concern and actual question, is there some compelling reason why the browser must be left open when it is not in use? If you think there is, then with a little experimentation you could probably determine which specific tabs cause the browser to crash if they are left open too long. Once this has been determined, just dont leave those tabs open! Use bookmarks instead.

First of all, thank you for the replies and sorry for the delay!

 

@buddy215

I tried turning off the adblocker (it's the "Adguard Adblocker") but I can't remember if I rebooted. I got too busy trying to make it work when reactivating it. lol  Maybe I'll try it again. I was kinda getting worried with the possibility I'll be left without a functional blocker to be honest

 

@cryptodan

I haven't tried your suggestion yet exactly because I'm worried that I might lose the configuration of the blocker and, without them, it's not really good. I don't even what I did back then to make it block ads properly to be honest.

 

@imacri

Thanks a bunch for your help as well! I tried the about:crashes, there's a bunch of report IDs but when I click on them (actually, just clicking doesn't work for me so I open then in a new tab) it says this:

 

You're seeing this page because the crash report you selected was held back from submission. For statistical purposes, we don't need every crash report and sometimes we decline the submission of a crash report as a form of throttling. If you'd like to see your crash report, type about:crashes into your location bar and your report will be automatically submitted to our server where we'll give it priority processing.

My antivirus is the free version of MBytes 3.5.1 so I don't have active protection.

 

I'll try again buddy215's suggestion and if it fails I'll try adblock plus (in case it's the plugin's fault after all).

I only read your second post briefly. If I won't solve the problem, I'll come back to follow what you've written there (thank you very much!).

 

@Abzyx

There are several reasons for sticking to Vista but even if I wanted to make the switch now, it costs money.

 

Mostly I want it open so I can listen to online radio but there are other reasons as well. Downloading something? I gotta be here and move the mouse every now and then. Leave the comp for any reason (telephone for example)? The same. Watching a video on youtube? Sometimes I forgot about the mouse and the browser crashes.

 

I didn't know about the Chromium forks. I'll keep that in mind. Thanks!

Your old settings will remain under the old profile. Just delete the new one and remove the .old from the old one and yiur setting will be restored.

... I tried the about:crashes, there's a bunch of report IDs but when I click on them (actually, just clicking doesn't work for me so I open then in a new tab) it says this:

You're seeing this page because the crash report you selected was held back from submission. For statistical purposes, we don't need every crash report and sometimes we decline the submission of a crash report as a form of throttling. If you'd like to see your crash report, type about:crashes into your location bar and your report will be automatically submitted to our server where we'll give it priority processing.

 

Hi Flyingshark:

 

Do you see a link or button labeled "Submit" or "Submit All" next to your recent crash reports when you enter about:crashes in your address bar?  As far as I know Mozilla is still processing crash reports for older versions of Firefox as long as the crash occurred within the last 6 months, but it's possible the reports for Firefox ESR v52.9.0 now have to be submitted manually.  I rarely boot up my Vista SP2 machine since I purchased a Win 10 laptop and don't have any pending Firefox ESR v52.9.0 crash reports that I can manually submit (submitted crash report have a Crash ID that starts with "bp-...") but I'll see if I can confirm that crash reports for older versions of Firefox are still being processed.  After I submit a crash report I usually wait about 30 min for the report to be processed and posted on the Mozilla Crash Report site at https://crash-stats.mozilla.org/home/product/Firefox.

In the mean time, if you have any crash reports that were submitted in the past 6 months (I think Mozilla purges older crash reports from their servers) you might be able to right-click, choose Copy Link Location, and then paste the link into your browser to view the online crash report.

 

 FF Crash Report IDs Copy Link Location.png   14.58KB   0 downloads

 

You might also be interested in reading echofilter's May 2014 thread Firefox Crashes After Extended Idle Period in the Firefox forum. In this particular case the crash reports pointed to either a hardware (graphics) acceleration problem (out-of-date graphics drivers are another common cause) or low system memory.  If you're leaving Firefox open and unattended for long periods of time to listen to online radio broadcasts it's quite possible you're running low on available memory - perhaps because of a memory leak from one of your browser extensions / plugins or from your Firefox program itself - that's eating up your system memory and causing your browser to crash. If the tab(s) you're leaving open in your Firefox browser have embedded videos or other media that plays in the background you could try disabling autoplay in your browser to reduce memory consumption - see my post # 9 in wither 3's July 2021 Firefox 52.9 Uses Too Much RAM in the VistaForums for further information about autoplay, but that thread has lots of other good troubleshooting tips.

 

The Mozilla support article Troubleshoot and Diagnose Firefox Problems I mentioned in post # 7 suggests reinstalling Firefox (Step #4) before you create a new user profile (step # 6) just in case your Firefox browser installation is corrupted.  Note that a clean reinstall of Firefox won't affect your Firefox user profile that contains your bookmarks, browser extensions / plugins, etc. - your Firefox ESR v52.9.0 browser is typically installed in C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox while your Firefox user profile is typically stored separately in the hidden C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ folder and won't be removed when Firefox is uninstalled.  You mentioned you use a non-English version of Firefox, so make sure you save the appropriate installer from https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/52.9.0esr/win32/ (all languages and regions) to your desktop first before you try a browser reinstall.

If you reach Step # 6 of those troubleshooting steps and need to create a new user profile, those instructions suggest using the Firefox Profile Manager.  When I create a new profile for testing with the Firefox Profile Manager I name it something like "New Profile Jan 2022", and if the new user profile doesn't solve my problem I use the Firefox Profile Manager to switch back to my old profile.

 

The Mozilla support article Troubleshoot Firefox Crashes (Closing or Quitting Unexpectedly) might have a few other helpful hints - note the distinction in that article between a hang (when Firefox stays open but won't respond) versus a crash (when Firefox closes or quits unexpectedly).
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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox ESR v52.9.0 * Malwarebytes Premium v3.5.1.2522-1.0.365
HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3 GB RAM, 256 GB WD SATA HDD, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS

Edited by lmacri, 30 January 2022 - 11:24 AM.

Why would Mozilla want crash reports from a version that has been out of support since 2018? There will be no bug fixes from them. True, this was the last major browser to support XP and Vista, which is why I mentioned the best possible solution (use a newer operating system).

It might be interesting to know how much RAM this Vista system has, and whether it is x64 or x86. (Of course Firefox is 32-bit, since 64-bit versions never supported anything older than Windows 7.)

If you want to leave internet radio playing, try closing all other tabs. If Firefox never crashes, try adding one favorite tab at a time until you find one that causes a crash.

@buddy215

I tried again, restarted mozilla but still it eventually crashes.

 

@cryptodan

I tried it but I couldn't start the browser after that. It was saying that my profile was missing or something like that. This reminded me that I can't make a safety back up of my bookmarks, I only can export them as HTML. Could it possibly be a faulty installation? I tried some time ago troubleshooting it on my own, unistalling it and installing....either the same version or a bit earlier one (can't remember). Also, in case it matters, it takes alot of time for the browser to work if I make the mistake of opening the bookmarks from the upper-left menu (it hangs for quite awhile before eventually opening them).

 

@Imacri

No, the only button there is for me is the removal of all the reports.

Now that I read your post, the possibility of a bad installation seems that much bigger. I think my next move should be reinstalling the browser, I should look up for help back when I first found out I couldn't make a safety backup of my bookmarks. I found a note I made about an earlier version I was using 2-3 years ago give or take? Maybe I'll give it a shot.

By the way, I do get hangs as well but I considered them, for the most part, the start of the upcoming crash.

 

I'll reinstall it tomorrow (but I'll check this thread before doing it in case there's a "heads up" or a new advice). To all: Thanks alot for your help!

 

... I tried the about:crashes, there's a bunch of report IDs but when I click on them (actually, just clicking doesn't work for me so I open then in a new tab) it says this:

You're seeing this page because the crash report you selected was held back from submission. For statistical purposes, we don't need every crash report and sometimes we decline the submission of a crash report as a form of throttling. If you'd like to see your crash report, type about:crashes into your location bar and your report will be automatically submitted to our server where we'll give it priority processing.

 

Hi Flyingshark:

 

...As far as I know Mozilla is still processing crash reports for older versions of Firefox as long as the crash occurred within the last 6 months...I'll see if I can confirm that crash reports for older versions of Firefox are still being processed...

 

Hi Flyingshark:

I learned that there is a known bug with the Mozilla Crash Report site where users who have had their Firefox crash reports held back from automatic submission (i.e., where the submission was declined "as a form of throttling") can encounter a failure when they try to manually submit their crash reports for processing as instructed.  See FredMcD's open 2021 Bugzilla bug report # 1662317 titled "About Throttling" as well as rick.mank's 09-Dec-2021 discussion <here> in the Firefox support forum about this bug.

I ran an advanced search on the Mozilla Crash Report site for Firefox ESR v52.9.0 for Windows (I filtered for the tag "52.9.0esr"; the tag "52.9.0 esr" with a space didn't return any results) and did find some crash reports for 2021, but almost 99% had the same "Crash in [@ OOM | small]" signature.  Most were related to a crash of the JavaScript engine when too many tabs are open (see the related Bugzilla bug report # 1737495) but I even found one related Bugzilla bug report # 1458221 specific to 32-bit (x86) operating systems with older versions of ru (Russian) builds of Firefox that crash while playing games on a specific site (I recall you said you use a non-English version of Firefox). I don't know for certain, but I suspect that Mozilla is rejecting most of the crash reports for older, unsupported versions of Firefox and only processing reports that have a crash signature that matches prevalent crashes in newer version of Firefox. We don't know the crash signature of your unprocessed reports so there's no way of knowing if your crashes also have this "Crash in [@ OOM | small]" signature.

 Mozilla Crash Report Site Advanced Search 2021 FF ESR v52_9_0 Crashes Two Signatures Found 01 Feb 2022.png   88.46KB   0 downloads

At this point I don't know if your Firefox ESR v52.9.0 browser is affected by the same bug reported in FredMcD's Bugzilla bug report # 1662317 titled "About Throttling" or if the Mozilla Crash Report site is deliberately rejecting your crash reports because Mozilla is only looking for very specific crash signatures that also affect newer versions of Firefox, but if the manual submission of your crash reports keep failing then I wouldn't worry about it for now.  That last sentence of your "throttling" message that "If you'd like to see your crash report, type about:crashes into your location bar and your report will be automatically submitted to our server where we'll give it priority processing" is misleading because it implies that all crash reports that are manually submitted will be quickly processed.

 

EDIT:

 

Be sure to let us know if any of the other troubleshooting steps suggested in this thread, like refreshing your Firefox browser or creating a new Firefox user profile, are able to fix your browser crashes.

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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox ESR v52.9.0 * Malwarebytes Premium v3.5.1.2522-1.0.365
HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3 GB RAM, 256 GB WD SATA HDD, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS

Edited by lmacri, 01 February 2022 - 12:11 PM.

Odd that Firefox didn't create a new profile as it should do so.