[Solved] Palemoon instability since v19

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drivetheory

[Solved] Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by drivetheory » 2013-04-26, 14:31

ever since Palemoon transitioned from v18 to 19 and now to 20 it's given me problems... I'm not sure if it's an addon, a plugin (java, flash, etc), or what.

In version 18 with all my addons I had zero problems (yes, ZERO PROBLEMS), then version 19 came out and I started experiencing the quirk where I'd X-out of palemoon but the process would still be running (and process explorer details would always show 1 really busy thread with a plethora of cycles delta) forcing me to kill it via process explorer... mind you it was random, as in i'd see this behavior occur maybe once or twice every handful of days (so 1-3 times per 20+ hours of usage, or every 10+ launches of the program, can't give exact numbers sorry).

then with version 20 now I'm experiencing less frequent of the above error, but now palemoon will randomly lock up / become unresponsive, i think it's related to page rendering but can not be certain... sometimes it will freeze when scrolling, sometimes it will freeze when typing a web address in the address field, sometimes it will occur when opening the bookmark dialog...

I've since recreated my palemoon user profile, and tried testing via divide and conquer (disable 1/2 the addons, wait for crash/hang/freeze, disable 1/2 again, etc) but since the hang/freeze is so random i haven't been able to narrow it down yet... and i think the latest flash player is problematic since videos now hang/freeze then quickly speed-up to catch up (like almost as if there was a traffic jam on my ISP and all the packets just arrived at the same time... or they were all stuck in a buffer or something...) but that's a different problem since the hangs & freezes don't occur in correlation to flash player (the container process never hangs, only palemooon.exe)

anyhow, aside from addon divide and conquer and swapping flash player versions in and out is there a better way i can troubleshoot this problematic behavior? like if some code executing is looping or in a wait state or whatnot is there a way i can go about testing/checking this? Palemoon never crashes.... it just gets quirky.. I haven't had a process hang in days but it did freeze for a couple seconds on me maybe 2 hours ago when i was trying to enter text into the address bar while a webpage was loading...

attach windbg and......? or (insert some programming related task i can try to fumble through here)?

drivetheory

Re: Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by drivetheory » 2013-04-26, 18:02

so, I posted the above, then i disabled another couple addons and checked for updates to the rest of the addons (which there were a few) then went to close palemoon and sure enough it hung. First hang I've had all week...

so i took a screenshot of some useful info (i hope) and attached it here.

also threw adplus @ the palemoon running process, 7z'd the results except the .dump file since it's too large to be attached.

any and all information i can provide just ask please
Attachments
screenshot of process threads and stack
screenshot of process threads and stack
Palemoon_hang_adplus.7z
zipped contents of adplus results
(29.12 KiB) Downloaded 56 times

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Moonchild
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Re: Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by Moonchild » 2013-04-26, 19:00

OK, odd to begin with that you say you used Pale Moon 18 - it doesn't exist.

As far as the hang is concerned, I'll have to have a look at this in more detail when I get back home so please be patient.
At first glance it hangs in the JS subsystem which most likely means there is a hang in one of the javascript processes. This could likely be chrome related since it doesn't release the thread, but that still leaves the possibility of internal UI, or theme, or addon, so it doesn't narrow it down much.

Try running without addons for a while to see if that solves your issues.
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite

drivetheory

Re: Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by drivetheory » 2013-04-26, 19:13

was a misnomer on my part re: the v18 bit. having been troubleshooting this problem for a while now my memory lapsed at the version number, yeah, i should have posted earlier when the problems first started happening but i thought i could figure it out on my own...

oh no worries, i've got plenty of patience = )


EDIT: looking at my browser history im seeing palemoon 15.4.1 (x64) as the version i had previous to 19 (can tell by the EXE filename downloaded)

drivetheory

Re: Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by drivetheory » 2013-07-30, 09:45

previously i posted about this, but that was an old pc and an old install of the OS, and i never finished ruling out extensions (was without a PC for about a month, long story, blame lightning + humorous CATV grounding specifications in the electrical code).

Now I have new PC, with a new install of the OS (win7x64), a new install of Palemoon (20.2.1-x64), and a new profile (except i did import a bookmark backup)
Installed just over a dozen extensions , some big (NoScript), some small (Open Image in New Tab)...
and after a couple days palemoon finally hung. so for the past couple days i've systematically disabled all the extensions 1 by 1 until they were all disabled.
Palemoon hung on closing about 20 minutes ago with all extensions disabled (the window went away as always, but when i tried to relaunch it a few minutes later the popup about it running but not responding appeared).

What can i do to help you help me stomp out this bug/quirk/problem/etc?

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Re: Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by Moonchild » 2013-07-30, 10:07

If you could use whatishang on your new install with everything in add-ons disabled when you get the hang, I can compare it with your previous submission and see if there are parallels or if this is a separate problem.
What are you using for system software in terms of firewall, antivirus, internet security and similar? Any processes that might interfere with system run-time operation for Pale Moon?
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite

drivetheory

Re: Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by drivetheory » 2013-07-30, 10:21

palemoon is currently hung as i type this. using google chrome to post.
last thing i did in palemoon was rename a bookmark and click the X to close the program, lol
whatishang does not list palemoon as hanging...
no av atm, nothing should be interfering with palemoon while it's running
Last edited by drivetheory on 2013-07-30, 10:36, edited 1 time in total.

drivetheory

Re: Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by drivetheory » 2013-07-30, 10:29

screenshot of WhatIsHang & Procexp.

I do have windbg installed if that helps...

palemoon.exe+0x2a60 stack:

Code: Select all

ntoskrnl.exe!KiSwapContext+0x7a
ntoskrnl.exe!KiCommitThreadWait+0x1d2
ntoskrnl.exe!KeWaitForSingleObject+0x19f
ntoskrnl.exe!NtWaitForSingleObject+0xde
ntoskrnl.exe!KiSystemServiceCopyEnd+0x13
ntdll.dll!ZwWaitForSingleObject+0xa
KERNELBASE.dll!WaitForSingleObjectEx+0x79
nspr4.dll!PR_MD_WAIT_CV+0xf2
nspr4.dll!PR_GetPrimordialCPU+0xcc
nspr4.dll!PR_Wait+0x69
xul.dll!XRE_AddJarManifestLocation+0x3dd7
xul.dll!XRE_AddJarManifestLocation+0x5964
xul.dll!XRE_AddJarManifestLocation+0x564c
xul.dll!XRE_AddJarManifestLocation+0x62e6
xul.dll!NS_ShutdownXPCOM_P+0x20e
xul.dll!JSD_IsUnlocked+0x80d
xul.dll!XRE_GetBinaryPath+0x4bda
xul.dll!XRE_main+0xe6
palemoon.exe+0x18eb
palemoon.exe+0x1d68
palemoon.exe+0x142c
palemoon.exe+0x29ff
kernel32.dll!BaseThreadInitThunk+0xd
ntdll.dll!RtlUserThreadStart+0x1d

going to leave palemoon hung and keep refreshing forum page hoping you see this and reply, lol
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screenshot
screenshot

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satrow
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Re: Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by satrow » 2013-07-30, 12:25

Moonchild wrote:What are you using for system software in terms of firewall, antivirus, internet security and similar? Any processes that might interfere with system run-time operation for Pale Moon?
101 processes listed there, can you list/screengrab them, please?

drivetheory

Re: Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by drivetheory » 2013-07-30, 13:34

and about 90% are windows + driver related software
not sure what the entire 101 were in that screenshot
the attched screenshot has 95, so im gonna guess and say missing are probably notepad++, photoshop, thunderbird, a 2nd instance of palemoon.exe and whatishang, maybe 1 or 2 other similar type windows, note sure, don't remember.

EDIT:
in case you are wondering, the screenshot is a merged image of 2 screen caps
VivaldiFramework.exe is associated with the MegaRAID Storage Manager
PnkBstrA.exe is related to anti-cheat protection for video games
everything else has descriptions and company names so...
(and, yes, palemoon is still sitting there hung, waiting)
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process list
process list

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Re: Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by Moonchild » 2013-07-30, 14:44

Please check the pale moon plugins. it seems you have a daemon tools shel extension dll loaded in your pale moon process which makes me think you may have an issue with plugins not properly releasing. and in fact it's not a hang, since whatishang doesn't show anything, it just won't terminate the process (not an application hang) as it's waiting for a proper shutdown of a component.

Disable any plugins in the browser you don't need enabled, and try again.
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite

drivetheory

Re: Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by drivetheory » 2013-07-30, 17:07

interesting... I see what you are talking about in that screenshot, DTShl64.dll
how could it get there?

i restarted palemoon to have a look
at the moment, that dll file isn't loaded, and as the screenshot shows, it's not listed as a plugin (nor is it an extension)


EDIT:
I "think" i just found how it it's getting there.... seems it's a problem with the Daemon Tools name space extension (even though i have it disabled...), when i save a file from the web browser to the pc that DLL gets loaded into the palemoon process

ideas why it doesn't affect other 64-bit EXEs i save files from (photoshop, opera, etc) but only palemoon?
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current plugins & threads
current plugins & threads

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Re: Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by Moonchild » 2013-07-31, 13:54

drivetheory wrote:ideas why it doesn't affect other 64-bit EXEs i save files from (photoshop, opera, etc) but only palemoon?
Pale Moon doesn't work like other applications. In many respects it's event driven, and uses a lot of "internal communication" because of the way it is built on top of the Xul library (it's a just very advanced xulrunner application, all in all). If an external hooked-in component doesn't respond to a shutdown request, the application can keep waiting on the nonresponsive component (while the visual part has already unloaded) and the application never shuts down as a result.

You could say it's more courteous in how it handles component shutdown by waiting for components and not forcing a shutdown. It's odd anyway that the shell extension gets hooked in even when it should be disabled, so I gather part of the problem at least is a half-initialized library on DTs behalf.

All of this is educated guesswork, i may be wrong, but it seems the most likely reason.
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite

drivetheory

Re: Palemoon still hangs...

Unread post by drivetheory » 2013-08-08, 12:59

fascinating explanation, very interesting, always love obtaining new knowledge to enhance my understanding of these things, i truly appreciate it.

anyhow, i've had daemon tools shell extension disabled since i last posted.

palemoon just decided to hang the same way it has before.

the notable things of interest that i did while using palemoon was drag n drop shortcuts from address bar to the desktop, as well as open a .torrent file from the brower straight to utorrent (Black Mesa half life mod, if it matters)

attached is a screencap of the current threads of the palemoon process.

i thank you for humoring me through this process of troubleshooting this curious quirk that keeps happening to me.

also, feel free to recommend any other more useful tasks i can do to gather more info on palemoon when it hangs like this, got windbg (and ads) and can download any other tool that might be useful, whatever i can do to get better information to solve this problem i'm all for. should i just run ads.exe on palemoon when it hangs or windbg.exe or what? what can i do to be more effective in solving this problem?

please excuse my ignorance, just brainstorming, but is there a way to log/debug the shutdown requests palemoon sends to the hooked in components to see which ones reply/shutdown/etc?
Attachments
palemoon threads.png

drivetheory

Re: Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by drivetheory » 2013-08-08, 13:17

palemoon hung when i tried to close it after posting above.... seems the problem all relates to palemoon user driven file system interaction (downloading file, uploading file, drag n drop shortcut, etc). just an observation
Attachments
threads again.PNG

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Re: Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by Moonchild » 2013-08-08, 13:50

Both your latest hang reports show it's hanging in JSD_GetValueForObject at the same address.
Please grab http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/what_is_hang.html and report on what it says about the hang? Process explorer really doesn't give the details I'm interested in.
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite

drivetheory

Re: Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by drivetheory » 2013-08-08, 16:12

my apologies, forgot about nirsoft's whatishang.

dark_moon

Re: Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by dark_moon » 2013-08-08, 16:29

And if you use process monitor and look which operations make problems?

drivetheory

Re: Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by drivetheory » 2013-08-08, 16:32

... i dragged and dropped the favicon from the address bar to my desktop, overwrote the existing file.
closed palemoon, re-opened palemoon, couldn't since it was hung, took some screenshots, opened google chrome, added this post.

whatishang doesn't show anything (again)

i have a 75MB 7z file of the memory dump created with ads.exe i can send it to you if you want to see what is at that address.

attached windbg to pm and it took a couple stabs in the dark:

Code: Select all

0:011> ddp 0x3a8180
00000000`003a8180  00000000
00000000`003a8184  00000000
00000000`003a8188  0fcef000 00000000`384adf93
00000000`003a818c  00000000
00000000`003a8190  fffffff0
00000000`003a8194  00000000
00000000`003a8198  e757a8a5
00000000`003a819c  000007fe
00000000`003a81a0  003a8660 00000000`003a8860
00000000`003a81a4  00000000
00000000`003a81a8  e757991e
00000000`003a81ac  000007fe
00000000`003a81b0  003a8650 00000000`003a87b8
00000000`003a81b4  00000000
00000000`003a81b8  003a8680 00000000`05c7fffd
00000000`003a81bc  00000000
00000000`003a81c0  003a8660 00000000`003a8860
00000000`003a81c4  00000000
00000000`003a81c8  003a82f0 39353838`2d6f7369
00000000`003a81cc  00000000
00000000`003a81d0  003a850a 87f80000`07fef62d
00000000`003a81d4  00000000
00000000`003a81d8  003a8560 00000000`003a8650
00000000`003a81dc  00000000
00000000`003a81e0  e7579743
00000000`003a81e4  000007fe
00000000`003a81e8  ffffffff
00000000`003a81ec  ffffffff
00000000`003a81f0  10146360 2d393538`384f5349
00000000`003a81f4  00000000
00000000`003a81f8  003a8699 00000000`00003a87
00000000`003a81fc  00000000
0:011> dda 0x3a8180
00000000`003a8180  00000000
00000000`003a8184  00000000
00000000`003a8188  0fcef000 "..J8"
00000000`003a818c  00000000
00000000`003a8190  fffffff0
00000000`003a8194  00000000
00000000`003a8198  e757a8a5
00000000`003a819c  000007fe
00000000`003a81a0  003a8660 "`.:"
00000000`003a81a4  00000000
00000000`003a81a8  e757991e
00000000`003a81ac  000007fe
00000000`003a81b0  003a8650 "..:"
00000000`003a81b4  00000000
00000000`003a81b8  003a8680 "...."
00000000`003a81bc  00000000
00000000`003a81c0  003a8660 "`.:"
00000000`003a81c4  00000000
00000000`003a81c8  003a82f0 "iso-8859-1.isInternal"
00000000`003a81cc  00000000
00000000`003a81d0  003a850a "-..."
00000000`003a81d4  00000000
00000000`003a81d8  003a8560 "P.:"
00000000`003a81dc  00000000
00000000`003a81e0  e7579743
00000000`003a81e4  000007fe
00000000`003a81e8  ffffffff
00000000`003a81ec  ffffffff
00000000`003a81f0  10146360 "ISO8859-1"
00000000`003a81f4  00000000
00000000`003a81f8  003a8699 ".:"
00000000`003a81fc  00000000

EDIT:
will fire up procmon and let it sit in the background
Attachments
whatishang empty.PNG

drivetheory

Re: Palemoon instability since v19

Unread post by drivetheory » 2013-08-08, 16:45

interestingly enough, i am noticing that instead of palemoon opening my homepage all the time it instead on random occasion opens the last page i had open, not sure if that's related ot...

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