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Firefox crashes - "Firefox had a problem and crashed. We’ll try to restore your tabs and windows when it restarts."

  • 7 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by TimSoCal

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I had been using FF in the evening, and when I came back in the morning, the laptop had shut down. Upon restart, I was unable to get FF to launch. I get a crash window with the error message in the title of this post. I have searched for resolution and have attempted the following: 1. Launching in safe mode - same error 2. Refresh Firefox - Upon relaunch, same error 3. Uninstalling and reinstalling, including the delete of the Firefox folder in the Apps folder of the C; drive 4. Scanned with several applications for viruses and malware. This is a corporate asset so has a very robust anti-virus suite also.

I have been unable to launch to FF and have to resort to using IE. :(

I had been using FF in the evening, and when I came back in the morning, the laptop had shut down. Upon restart, I was unable to get FF to launch. I get a crash window with the error message in the title of this post. I have searched for resolution and have attempted the following: 1. Launching in safe mode - same error 2. Refresh Firefox - Upon relaunch, same error 3. Uninstalling and reinstalling, including the delete of the Firefox folder in the Apps folder of the C; drive 4. Scanned with several applications for viruses and malware. This is a corporate asset so has a very robust anti-virus suite also. I have been unable to launch to FF and have to resort to using IE. :(

All Replies (7)

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Hi, it may be your organization's AV software that is causing the problem. For example Old versions of Websense cause startup crashes in Firefox.


In order to assist you better, please follow the steps below to provide us crash IDs to help us learn more about your crash.

The crash report is several pages of data. We need the report numbers to see the whole report.

  1. Enter about:crashes in the Firefox address bar and press Enter. A Submitted Crash Reports list will appear, similar to the one shown below.
  2. Copy the 5 most recent Report IDs that start with bp- and then go back to your forum question and paste those IDs into the "Post a Reply" box.

Note: If a recent Report ID does not start with bp- click on it to submit the report.

(Please don't take a screenshot of your crashes, just copy and paste the IDs. The below image is just an example of what your Firefox screen should look like.)

aboutcrashesFx29

Thank you for your help!

More information and further troubleshooting steps can be found in the Troubleshoot Firefox crashes (closing or quitting unexpectedly) article.

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hi TimSoCal, if it's in a corporate environment and your "very robust anti-virus suite" is websense/forcepoint endpoint then this is probably also the cause for your problems with firefox.

please get in contact with your it department to make sure that websense is fully up to date, as it has the tendency to crash newly released firefox versions until they adapt accordingly.

another option would be to install an esr version of firefox: Old versions of Websense cause startup crashes in Firefox

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Question: If FF will not launch, how do I enter "about: crashes" in the address bar?

The 2 applications in my system tray are: 1: System Center Endpoint Protection Antimalware Client Version: 4.7.214.0 Engine Version: 1.1.13407.0 Antivirus definition: 1.235.1383.0 Antispyware definition: 1.235.1383.0 Network Inspection System Engine Version: 2.1.12706.0 Network Inspection System Definition Version: 116.72.0.0 Policy Name: Default Client Antimalware Policy Windows 10 Production Policy Applied: 1/30/2017 at 1:44 PM


2: Forcepoint triton AP-Endpoint Version 8.2 Build 2332 Policy Engine Version: 8.1.0.151

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You are right, it could have been clearer; for your specific type of crash the instructions are in the above link and here -

  1. On the keyboard, press [Windows] The image "Windows key" does not exist. + [R]. This should bring up a Run window that contains a text field.
  2. In that text field, type %APPDATA% and press Enter. An explorer window should open.
  3. From that explorer window, double-click on the Mozilla folder, then double-click on Firefox and then on Crash reports. Double-click on submitted.
  4. Now, you should see a list of files that contain reports. Go to View > Arrange Icons by > Modified to get the most recent files at the top of the window.
  5. Open the most recent 5 files with a text editor and copy the IDs.
  6. Paste each ID with bp- into the reply window on the forums.

From what you've posted, it does look as if Forcepoint/Websense may be the culprit, but a crash report will help.

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Here they are, sorted by most current at the top. thanks for simplified explanation :)

Crash ID: bp-50b9d4bf-116a-4c6b-a651-5c5272170128 Crash ID: bp-fd326ccf-d587-41c9-8b9d-112532170128 Crash ID: bp-aa47503b-1133-46c2-939d-40c4d2160122 Crash ID: bp-73602caf-90f8-4a21-bc43-6fc3c2150923

Modified by TimSoCal

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thanks for those reports, as anticipated those crashes are triggered by forcepoint endpoint unfortunately - please get in contact with your it department about this and point them to Old versions of Websense cause startup crashes in Firefox

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Thank you all for the assist. I will work on it on my side. Since FF is not part of the corporate image, I doubt that I will get very far....  :(