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Question
Tuesday, July 23, 2019 10:24 PM
Prob not place to ask but having a really odd issue on Windows 7 with Firefox. Just refusing to load. Runs but refuses to fully load. Try to kill it with Process Explorer and it never properly kills it. Despite showing it as still being a process running, you can uninstall it from Control Panel. Even if you don't do that and kill it with Process Explorer, it looks like its killed it but the process stays and you get funny errors in Process Explorer because it obviously can't view the stack of a process that isn't really running properly. I'm posting it here as not only is it odd behaviour by Firefox but odd that Process Explorer can't even kill the process properly and odd that it still shows some info on the process.
All replies (17)
Wednesday, July 24, 2019 9:10 AM
Once reinstalled it does its usual of sitting there doing nothing and never appearing on screen and I see this in the threads. The "unsigned" part looks worrying. And appears to be waiting for a key event?
Wednesday, July 24, 2019 9:26 AM
try taking a procmon trace of the start and share it..
HTH
-mario
Wednesday, July 24, 2019 10:50 AM
Will do thanks. It's annoying as when I kill it in Process Explorer, because it doesn't end properly, the only way I can attempt to start Firefox again to take a trace is reboot, then the process is properly killed.
I see this child when I run Firefox. I see "crash" is mentioned there so I wonder if its got itself stuck in a crash loop.
Not sure if these issues with Firefox are related to the issue of not being able to install Windows update KB507449
Wednesday, July 24, 2019 11:04 AM
Even PSKill can't kill it 
Wednesday, July 24, 2019 11:18 AM
yeah, looks like it crashed and is trying to contact the service process responsible to collect the crash dump (\.\pipe\gecko.crash.server)..
What version of Firefox are you running and what version of Windows exactly. open a command prompt and start ver.exe
Is there any firefox update available?
Wednesday, July 24, 2019 12:52 PM
Firefox 68.0.1 - The lastest
Windows 7 Ultimate
Version 6.1 (Build 7601: Service Pack 1)
After a reboot I don't get the child copy of Firefox run this time, just a single instances of Firefox but see this oddness when looking at the Threads of the Firefox process.
The Process Monitor trace of just Firefox and dropping filtered events.
Wednesday, July 24, 2019 1:10 PM
I see from the trace that when the second instance is started it loads 4 external dll.
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes\Anti-Malware\mbae64.dll
C:\Program Files (x86)\TeamViewer\tv_x64.dll
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live\WLIDNSP.DLL
C:\Program Files\Bonjour\mdnsNSP.dll
While the first one, load only C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes\Anti-Malware\mbae64.dll.
Can you try temporarily to get rid of Malware byte and Team Viewer? UNinstall them and try to see if that way Firefox works as expected..
There are no Access denied or file not found that may lead to think to something else.. So I would start eliminating third party injected dlls..
HTH
-mario
Wednesday, July 24, 2019 1:19 PM
I'll have a look. I odd see this connection to Adobe as well. Which doesn't actually go to Adobe, it's a loop back address as I was sick of Adobe Activate trying to phone home all the time with various apps unrelated to Adobe, such as Firefox.
Wednesday, July 24, 2019 2:00 PM
Then have a look also for some plugin/extensions which may cause the problem.. try without any plugin installed
Wednesday, July 24, 2019 2:09 PM
That's the main problem. I can't get it to load fully so I can't disable any plugins for Firefox. I can't get it to run in safe mode. I uninstall it, delete the old directory. Delete the directories in %appdata% and then reinstall and it just does the same all over again :(
Wednesday, July 24, 2019 9:06 PM
I've tried Windows in Safemode. Still does it. Taken another Procmon trace with no Teamviewer, no Malwarebytes and no Windows Essentials. Still won't load.
Then used Procdump to take a mini dump
Thursday, July 25, 2019 7:40 AM
So looking more likely it's a Firefox 68 issue. Installed 67 and runs fine. Annoyingly it instantly updates itself to 68 without asking and then fails again once you restart it.
Thursday, July 25, 2019 8:00 AM
This is the only thread which is not blocked waiting for some event..
# Child-SP Return Call Site Source
0 00000000009cba48 000007fefd11b0b9 ntdll!ZwDeviceIoControlFile+0xa
1 00000000009cba50 0000000076ee587f KERNELBASE!DeviceIoControl+0x75
2 00000000009cbac0 000007fee0154ca6 kernel32!DeviceIoControlImplementation+0x7f
3 00000000009cbb10 000007fedf107d2b xul!`anonymous namespace'::GetHDDInfo+0x316 z:\task_1563383129\build\src\xpcom\base\nsSystemInfo.cpp @ 158
4 00000000009cbea0 000007fedf106c23 xul!nsSystemInfo::GetProfileHDDInfo+0xbb z:\task_1563383129\build\src\xpcom\base\nsSystemInfo.cpp @ 1109
5 00000000009cc000 000007fee0183e7d xul!nsSystemInfo::Init+0xb23 z:\task_1563383129\build\src\xpcom\base\nsSystemInfo.cpp @ 808
6 00000000009cc570 000007fee01957f0 xul!mozilla::xpcom::CreateInstanceImpl+0x2aed z:\task_1563383129\build\src\obj-firefox\xpcom\components\StaticComponents.cpp @ 11208
7 00000000009cc610 000007fedefcd6c1 xul!nsComponentManagerImpl::GetServiceLocked+0x200 z:\task_1563383129\build\src\xpcom\components\nsComponentManager.cpp @ 1384
8 00000000009cc6a0 000007fee08477d3 xul!nsComponentManagerImpl::GetServiceByContractID+0x271 z:\task_1563383129\build\src\xpcom\components\nsComponentManager.cpp @ 1571
9 00000000009cc760 000002b0e5b8a1c4 xul!xpc::CIGSHelper+0x283 z:\task_1563383129\build\src\js\xpconnect\src\XPCJSID.cpp @ 0
a 00000000009cc840 00000000009cd1c8 0x2b0e5b8a1c4
b 00000000009cc848 0000007681f8a840 0x9cd1c8
c 00000000009cc850 00000000009cd1c8 0x7681f8a840
d 00000000009cc858 000002b0e5b875f1 0x9cd1c8
e 00000000009cc860 00000000009cc8b8 0x2b0e5b875f1
f 00000000009cc868 00000000009cc870 0x9cc8b8
10 00000000009cc870 0000000000000000 0x9cc870
As you can see it is trying to get some info from the HDD and it is sending some DeviceIOCOntrol command to the disk.. probably your disk do no support those command and the kernel remain stuck on those.
00000000771598fa ntdll!ZwDeviceIoControlFile+0xa
000007fefd11b0b9 KERNELBASE!DeviceIoControl+0x75
0000000076ee587f kernel32!DeviceIoControlImplementation+0x7f
000007fee0154ca6 xul!`anonymous namespace'::GetHDDInfo+0x316
000007fedf107d2b xul!nsSystemInfo::GetProfileHDDInfo+0xbb
000007fedf106c23 xul!nsSystemInfo::Init+0xb23
000007fee0183e7d xul!mozilla::xpcom::CreateInstanceImpl+0x2aed
000007fee01957f0 xul!nsComponentManagerImpl::GetServiceLocked+0x200
000007fedefcd6c1 xul!nsComponentManagerImpl::GetServiceByContractID+0x271
000007fee08477d3 xul!xpc::CIGSHelper+0x283
What kind of disk do you have on your PC?? I think that modern SSD or PCIex module should be supported.. Maybe because you are on Windows 7 you are missing some third party driver in order to answer that call??
Probably on Windows 10 it works like a charm.. time to move? :-)
HTH
-mario
Thursday, July 25, 2019 8:28 AM
Trying to avoid moving to Windows 10 :) Its OK but I like Windows 7 as pretty much all the games I play via Steam will work on it :)
But with the KB update also constantly failing, I might be forced to. Or I'll just reinstall Windows 7 :)
Thursday, July 25, 2019 7:34 PM
The drive Firefox is installed on, along with Windows is a corsair force gt 240GB
Thursday, July 25, 2019 7:56 PM
try looking on their site if they have a driver for windows 7.. may be that way firefox would not hang..
The reason why you can't kill it even with Process Explorer is just because the process is stuck in a call to a kernel driver which is not returning.. Probably the deviceiocontrol they send is specific and only the driver from the vendor could answer that.. the generic ssd driver for windows 7 is not able to answer and so you are practically in hang..
Other alternatives are use another disk or if you have two disks and the second one is a traditional hard disk try installing it there.. or change the ssd with another model fromanother vendor.. SAmsung, sandisk or whatever..
HTH
-mario
Monday, July 29, 2019 2:51 PM
PC is out of action at the moment while I redecorate the room. However, I grabbed a copy of the reg before I turned it off and loading it into a VM to see if I get the same issue.