[SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

gameslayer · 2021-12-14 09:33:03

Hi I just want to report that a couple updates ago Firefox was working and now if I try and launch it Firefox will instantly crash and will want to report the issue to Mozilla crash reporter.

Here is the log when I launch the latest Firefox 92.0.1-1.0 in the terminal .

[corey@Fujitsu-Laptop ~]$ firefox
ExceptionHandler::GenerateDump cloned child 3717
ExceptionHandler::SendContinueSignalToChild sent continue signal to child
ExceptionHandler::WaitForContinueSignal waiting for continue signal...
Exiting due to channel error.
[corey@Fujitsu-Laptop ~]$

Last edited by levi (2022-06-28 07:51:23)

levi · 2021-12-14 13:47:45

Already logged here. It's fair to say that I still have little idea what I did that helped. Do you have the testing repos enabled, or are just on stable? If the latter, I'd try installing icu69 and hope that's enough still.

gameslayer · 2021-12-16 02:57:30

levi wrote:

Already logged here. It's fair to say that I still have little idea what I did that helped. Do you have the testing repos enabled, or are just on stable? If the latter, I'd try installing icu69 and hope that's enough still.

I don't have any repos other than the default stable repos that come with Arch32, I sorry but am a little confused at what that post has to do with this issue and what the actual solution is.

Last edited by gameslayer (2021-12-16 03:14:05)

levi · 2021-12-16 05:38:54

Yeah, I probably should have started a new thread for that post. The solution basically is to start downgrading everything from your last pacman -Su.

FWIW, what follows is a list of all the packages I downgraded to the previous version. I have the testing repos enabled, so some of this may be not relevant to you if you don't have the same version as listed here installed. I think before this which I didn't log I downgraded icu and I think harfbuzz-icu at the same time. After trying to install the icu69 (probably the best way to resolve that conundrum), I'd recommend starting trying to downgrade packages from the bottom end and up because I downgraded the last six packages the last time I rebooted (before it all started working again for me), but on the reboot before I did those six it still wasn't working.

boost-1.76.0-2.1-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
icu-70.1-1.0-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
gtk3-1:3.24.30+90+g20be04f7ac-1.1-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
nodejs-lts-erbium-12.22.7-2.0-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
guile-2.2.7-2.6-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
qt5-declarative-5.15.2+kde+r41-1.1-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
librsvg-2:2.52.4-1.1-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
glslang-11.7.1-2.0-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
gegl-0.4.32-2.0-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
boost-libs-1.76.0-2.1-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
gettext-0.21-1.7-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
nss-3.73-1.0-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
spirv-tools-2021.3-1.1-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
libxml2-2.9.12-3.0-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
npm-8.1.3-1.0-any.pkg.tar.zst
xfsprogs-5.14.0-1.0-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
pcre2-10.39-1.1-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
sdl2-2.0.18-1.0-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
suitesparse-5.10.1-2.0-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
libical-3.0.11-2.0-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst
libsoup-2.74.2-1.1-pentium4.pkg.tar.zst

abaumann · 2021-12-16 06:56:44

Could be that it has something to do outside the realm of firefox and icu: I see it starts, opens a window and then immediately crashes.
I think it's maybe a rendering, mesa or sandboxing issue.
Currently I cannot rebuild firefox, as I cannot rebuild rust (rust cannot compile itself), bootstrapping rust from rust-bin also failed, the
resulting rust compiler is not able to compile a simple rust file.

abaumann · 2021-12-16 06:57:41

https://archlinux32.org/buildmaster/ shows tons of failing packages, there is a long way to recover from this...

levi · 2021-12-16 07:31:09

Yes, the firefox issue is not in firefox and not in icu. I already downgraded icu back to 69 and firefox still failed to start, and there's not been a firefox update since release 92. As I say, with the current evidence I suspect one of the last six packages I downgraded is involved, but there's no evidence there's not more to this issue.

abaumann · 2021-12-16 08:57:27

I see some strange errors and something about I should use 'libcurl and not curl' (or vice versa). This is all really strange behaviour.

abaumann · 2021-12-16 11:19:18

Ah, the curl message is the crash reporter (which also has bugs?).

abaumann · 2021-12-16 11:19:28

Maybe some gtk3 issues?

levi · 2021-12-16 17:19:37

Yes, that's one of the packages I downgraded, but that alone wasn't enough to get firefox running again.

mrfu · 2021-12-16 19:20:14

Same problem here. Firefox crashes due to channel errors. First occurence had been at 2021-12-08 with testing repos. Switched to stable and everything had been ok. Simple solution until today. Same behaviour of firefox, same errors.

After some digging in the repos found the one and only package causing firefox to crash due to channel errors!!
But does not have the skills to check why. It's Network Security Services from Mozilla

Workaround: Downgrade nss 3.73-1.0 to 3.72-2.0,

levi · 2021-12-16 20:17:59

I assume that's the 'nss' package. That is something I downgraded, but as I have stored in that log file, firefox didn't start with just nss and icu downgraded (and some other random stuff I'd also upgraded recently)

mrfu · 2021-12-17 08:31:12

I'm on archlinux32 stable (pentium4) and the only package I downgraded is nss to get firefox up and running. I cannot tell whether there is some icu related dependency. I have icu, icu67, icu68 and icu69 installed. So for me it had been just the nss package.

abaumann · 2021-12-17 09:21:24

Yeah, actually I start to suspect that this is the problem: https://bugs.archlinux32.org/index.php? … ask_id=218, because
that's the only critical think I hacked lately.

Not signing the NSS libraries might firefox think it's untrusted.

But the problem is, the signer for NSS is completely borked.

abaumann · 2021-12-17 09:42:26

Yes, confirmed: firefox works with nss-3.72-2.0, fails to start with 3.73-1.0).

abaumann · 2021-12-17 12:31:10

Ok, my plan here is to first rebuild python (aka rebootstrapping), otherwise more or less everything breaks (including building nss), then I'll have a look at nss,
so that old firefox versions work again. Rebuilding firefox and rust are second priority.

levi · 2021-12-17 17:02:50

abaumann wrote:

Yes, confirmed: firefox works with nss-3.72-2.0, fails to start with 3.73-1.0).

I knew firefox's logging to stderr was bad, but I didn't know it could be that obtuse

gameslayer · 2021-12-24 03:45:43

Ah so the issue is to do with nss? is this already being addressed or do I need to downgrade?

levi · 2021-12-24 04:40:39

I'm still not convinced it's only nss at fault here, but I guess at the end of the day it doesn't matter too much what i think. I'd try to help out resolving exactly which packages need to be reverted, but unfortunately I'm using this system as my primary computer still, so I don't have so much bandwidth to offer.

gameslayer · 2021-12-24 11:56:19

I'm happy to also help figure out the issue

abaumann · 2022-01-15 10:06:40

This is solved with nss 3.7.4-1.1 (details see https://bugs.archlinux32.org/index.php? … sk_id=218)

levi · 2022-01-15 16:02:14

I just want to drop a note to say thank you very much for the work you're doing to make arch32 good again.

gameslayer · 2022-06-28 06:11:40

Just had to report it has been fixed

levi · 2022-06-28 08:00:45

Yep, and since that we've even had a new firefox in extra, so we're no longer running on old firefox, but firefox 100. I note firefox 101 has been out for a month, and there are exploitable holes in this version at least if you allow javascripting full range, but it's a massive improvement over firefox 72.

Arch Linux

#1 2021-12-14 09:33:03

[SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#2 2021-12-14 13:47:45

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#3 2021-12-16 02:57:30

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#4 2021-12-16 05:38:54

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#5 2021-12-16 06:56:44

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#6 2021-12-16 06:57:41

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#7 2021-12-16 07:31:09

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#8 2021-12-16 08:57:27

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#9 2021-12-16 11:19:18

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#10 2021-12-16 11:19:28

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#11 2021-12-16 17:19:37

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#12 2021-12-16 19:20:14

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#13 2021-12-16 20:17:59

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#14 2021-12-17 08:31:12

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#15 2021-12-17 09:21:24

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#16 2021-12-17 09:42:26

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#17 2021-12-17 12:31:10

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#18 2021-12-17 17:02:50

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#19 2021-12-24 03:45:43

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#20 2021-12-24 04:40:39

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#21 2021-12-24 11:56:19

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#22 2022-01-15 10:06:40

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#23 2022-01-15 16:02:14

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#24 2022-06-28 06:11:40

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

#25 2022-06-28 08:00:45

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox no longer works, will instantly crash

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