flash and Firefox crashes

[OldBobjr]

I have been having Flash issues since the flash update a week or so ago..even the Windows update did not improve things.  I have had several suggestions from Firefox, cleaning things and even a reset..and even here on adobe..deleting the flash folder etc..but Firefox still locks up upon exit or change to another flash site mostly..Today it is even worse.  I cannot sign onto zyngagames.com via my facebook account as when you sign it..flash crashes..and locks up Firefox..upon opening again..some thing happens.  I have a new HP laptop and have never had this issue .  W10 64bit and I use Firefox...Any other suggestions. I have sent crash reports several times.  so frustrated.

[jeromiec83223024]

Report a Flash Player crash or error

[OldBobjr]

I followed your link to report a bug and I filled out all lines/attached all files in last submitted crash report to the best of my ability  but when I get to the bottom, the submit bug will not let me submit..get no error message or any indication of what is wrong or missing from my report

[jeromiec83223024]

Feel free to just put that information in this thread.  I'll be happy to file it on your behalf.  I really just need the crash dumps, or the links to the Mozilla crash reports...

[OldBobjr]

I think I did it finally..do you need the number?

FP-4198922

I could not find a file ending in .dmp so I attached all..hope you go what you need..I did my best..let me know if you need anything else

[jeromiec83223024]

Yeah, please take a look at that guide on filing an actionable crash report.  I can't do anything without a crash dump or a link to a Firefox crash report.  I left a more details comment in the bug.

Also, if you haven't rebooted since you started experiencing crashes, that's step one.  If the problem goes away, the machine is just in a bad state.  If the problem persists after a reboot, then crash dumps are a necessary next step.

[OldBobjr]

I do not see any instructions on an actionable crash report..only to enter about:crashes and save the last submitted report which I did and copied all the files in that folder on the bug report.  I guess I am not savie enough to help you help me.  Sorry. I have rebooted several times and issue continues.  I guess I will just have to keep just closing windows and reopening Firefox to play my games that use flash  and hope others have this issue and you can resolve it generally that will help me.  Thank you for your time.

[jeromiec83223024]

I don't see any attachments or links in the bug.  Feel free to just put them here.

[OldBobjr]

I tried again and it said I added a couple of files..hope it is the one you need

[jeromiec83223024]

Here's a direct link to the crash report for posterity:

https://crash-stats.mozilla.org/signature/?product=Firefox&signature=hang%20%7C%20NtUserMsgWaitForMu...

It's technically a hang, not a crash in the true sense.  Interestingly, Flash Player isn't visibly involved when this happens.

The heart of the issue is that Firefox and Flash are exchanging messages and one side either fails to deliver a response, or it's getting dropped or sent out of order in a way that causes the conversation to fall apart.  Execution then gets stuck until Firefox's hang protection kicks in, at which point it kills the Flash process and you see the crashed plugin message.

It's low-volume.  There are 179 reports.  All of those reporters are using Windows 10 and AMD processors, but I see a bunch of unique reporters – it's not all the same machine.  It's probably a problem that only happens with very specific timing, which is why you see this 100% correlation to this very small audience with the same set of very specific hardware.

On the bright side, you probably wouldn't run into this on any other browser.  That's probably your best workaround – just play Farmville in a different browser.

This issue is interesting, but it's some really subtle misfire in an interaction that happens at the intersection of two distinct software products.  It's not going to be a thing that gets fixed quickly.  It's very likely that it's an issue on the Firefox side of things.

Because this is hardware specific, it's unlikely that we're going to be able to reproduce this, and Mozilla's policies don't allow them to share the raw crash dumps (.dmp files) with us.  In this particular instance, it would be really helpful to get some actual minidumps that we can look at, but there's not necessarily a guarantee that they'll be actionable.  (See that crash reporting link for details on how to grab the actual minidumps – but you'll probably need to reproduce the crash again before you can follow them).

[OldBobjr]

I am impressed..thank you for all your patience with me.  Would it help

if I forwarded your comments to firefox??

[jeromiec83223024]

No, we work closely with those guys (and there are a lot of Flash alumni over there).  At the point that we have a real technical analysis (which we really need a .dmp file for), we'll either fix it, or file a bug with a detailed analysis so that they're able to deal with it with minimal hassle.

Thanks!

[OldBobjr]

ok..I will work or trying to get you those mini dump files if I can.  FYI, I have an intel processor  and if I use Edge as the browser it also "crashes" and I get the exclamation point and that is why I changed to Firefox.

I did find a crash dump file in Window C>Users>Me>AppData>Local>Crash Data but there is nothing after 9/16/2018. so I bet I am in the wrong place.  I just cant follow the instructions to see how I can create and locate these "Mini"  dump files on Firefox.  .  All I know i I left Internet Explorer and Edge years ago because Flash would not work properly there and went to Firefox and it has been faithfully accurate and flawless for me for over 1.5 years.  All this started with the last Flash update so in my novice mind it must have something to do with flash or communication as you expressed..I am just so confused and frustrated.  What in the heck am I missing?

In the meantime, On Firefox, if am playing a flash Zynga game, if I go to my Home page and let it fully load I can then go to another flash game without a problem so I guess that is what I will have to do until this issue can be fixed (if it can)..

[jeromiec83223024]

The exclamation point is the "Out of Memory" icon.  We occasionally use it as a shortcut to bail out when we see something really low-level that we think is sketchy from a security perspective, but those are conditions that you should really never run into with legitimate content.  If you're hitting it on a game, you're probably running out of memory.  If you think it's suspect and want us to look at it, just give me instructions on how to reproduce it.

When you submit crash dumps to Firefox, those files get deleted.  You'll need to wait until you run into the crash again, and then grab the files before you submit them.

[OldBobjr]

will they apear in the link i mentioned above?  How do I save them as there are a few older crash dump files there and there is no option to save or save as. 

[OldBobjr]

I browsed at that crash report link you sent before and it truly is way above my computer Knowledge.  I did however see something that peaked my interest and a comment you made that my issue was mostly with AMD processors.  One of the tabs said I had (or just the issue had and now me) Architecture of AMD,   This laptop has a label that says I have intel Core i5 7th generation processor.  I thought a processor was either Intel i5 or some type of AMD.  Why did the crash report say I had (or it referenced) AMD?  I am just curious to learn.  If you have time to explain I would appreciate it..I am 73 yrs old but still like to learn.  Thank You

[jeromiec83223024]

That's a really good question for Firefox.  They're definitely logging the architecture as amd64.  They use a Google library called CrashPad for the actual crash logging, and their own project called Soccoro for analysis and aggregation.  That stuff is pretty mature.  It's hard to know whether it's a problem with the actual crash data or in how it's getting stored or displayed.  They'd have to dig into it, but it's interesting.

If it's an Intel CPU, I'd expect to see it log x64.  Seems like a bug on their side, but it also seems super weird and like something that would get noticed pretty quickly.

It gave me a good excuse to say hi to an old colleague, so I shot him a link to your crash report as a head's up. 

[OldBobjr]

Thx So how do I send all this to Firefox?

Sent from my iPhone

[OldBobjr]

Is there any way you can just submit it to them snd reference our conversation?

Sent from my iPhone

[jeromiec83223024]

Already did. 

[OldBobjr]

Thank you..its better you two can techie talk than thru me. I am  sure Intel  I attached  a capture of my properties  says Intel i5

[jeromiec83223024]

Cool.  I stand by the assertion that it's timing-related, but it's important that the instrumentation we're depending on for post-mortem analysis is accurate.  I'm curious to see what's going on there, but I expect it to be pretty limited in scope.

[OldBobjr]

Ok I will await your next post. Again thank you !

Sent from my iPhone

[jeromiec83223024]

Cool.  To be clear, because this is a low-volume issue that isn't easily reproducible, it's not going to be a high-priority thing.  You can probably work around this by using a different browser (e.g. Chrome). 

[OldBobjr]

I understand..I actually found the folder of the .dmp files from Mozilla that you wanted to see.  There are lots of them.    I went back to the beginning of this chat and found the bug report link and added a few dump files from Firefox..if you need more let me know.