Solved Beware FireFox 4 crashes Nvidia drivers

[Maguscreed]

This machine is running on ATI, however my media machine in the den is running on a old 8800gtx. I am no longer experiencing this problem on that machine, I thought it had been fixed. The only way to stop it I know of is to turn off hardware acceleration in the browser. Though I'm curious why you are still experiencing the problem, I was under the impression it had been fixed. Given the vague nature of your hardware info , that's about all I can tell you.

 

[edilee012]

Hello, did this issue record some progress? I'm using FF6 now with HW acceleration and latest Nvidia driver and encounter random driver crashes occassionally followed by BSODs as well. I already had been complaining at Nvidia forum where I was instructed that this is known issue of FF. So where's the buried dog? Is there a known extension or workaround fixing this problem?

I started this thread a while back...shocked to see it still alive!

I just upgraded to FF6 as well and STILL get the same crash when I open Download Helper...specifically when it is asking where you want to save the file. Since I experience no issues except when I open DH I will assume DH is the problem.

I did submit a bug to FF and I got a very nasty response from them stating this was not a FF issue but an Nvidia issue which is false....if it is a driver issue it is because DH is interfering with the driver causing the crash.

Aside from that the only work around is when it asking where to save the file if I do it very quickly and click save and get the menu closed I can normally avoid the crash and the screen will only flicker instead of totally crashing. If I leave that menu open too long it will crash 100% of the time.

Just as a side note I will add that in 3 years I have NEVER had a video card driver crash other than these related to FF/DH so somebody has a bug that is not getting fixed. This issue was reported back in FF 4 beta and well known and it made it into the realease and all releases since then. Now DH is surely the problem but it seems between the peeps at FF and DH someone could get this fixed.

 

[Anakunda]

I just upgraded to FF6 as well and STILL get the same crash when I open Download Helper...specifically when it is asking where you want to save the file. Since I experience no issues except when I open DH I will assume DH is the problem.

I did submit a bug to FF and I got a very nasty response from them stating this was not a FF issue but an Nvidia issue which is false....if it is a driver issue it is because DH is interfering with the driver causing the crash.

Aside from that the only work around is when it asking where to save the file if I do it very quickly and click save and get the menu closed I can normally avoid the crash and the screen will only flicker instead of totally crashing. If I leave that menu open too long it will crash 100% of the time.

Just as a side note I will add that in 3 years I have NEVER had a video card driver crash other than these related to FF/DH so somebody has a bug that is not getting fixed. This issue was reported back in FF 4 beta and well known and it made it into the realease and all releases since then. Now DH is surely the problem but it seems between the peeps at FF and DH someone could get this fixed.

I really am confused about where the the bug lays. It is sure that the crashes only appear when GPU HW support in Firefox is enabled and when I'm working with Firefox ie. it is rendering the pages actually. Maybe it's related to some CUDA problem with my graphics card as I see some inproper spacing for a few pages when HW accel is on. The downloadhelper I have installed too bud am not sure if that's the cause as for me FF crashes when I don't do anything with that addon. So far I'm not getting any driver crashes when using GPU accleration in other situations like video playback using CUDA. I'd really appreciate if FF and Nvidia developers communicated this prblem and fixed it on one or both sides.

 

[Maguscreed]

I understand you feel some kind of loyalty or whatever to nvidia, but fixes in this kind of issue have always fallen on the graphics card maker.
Why else do you think you get 10 to 20 driver updates from nvidia and ati both every year.
They are almost exclusively to fix crash and corruption problems with games and apps.

Sorry it's just the way it is. I have an nvidia card on my machine in the front room it's no longer suffering this problem, and hasn't since ff5.

The only suggestion I will make is a complete wipe of the nvidia drivers/control panel and then a fresh reinstall.
This can't be achieved simply by uninstalling it. You'll need to use a third party tool like
Phyxion.net - Driver Sweeper
I wouldn't suggest going this route only the problem no longer occurs for me so I'm assuming nvidia has, in fact fixed the problem. You are probably still experiencing it because of a problem when updating the driver (they aren't always obvious)

Anyhow it's your call on how to proceed I can't promise you that fix will work, though it can't hurt anything either.

 

[rwolfman3000]

firefox still crashing nvidia graphics card

found these posts & thought I'd add my two cents...went out and bought a new system in July 2011...graphics card is the nvidia gts 450...

used firefox (...love the proggie & have about 1,000 bookmarks) but since my switch to IE-- no crashing issues.

when I leave the system on overnight with firefox running, upon waking the system from sleep mode, I got lots of colorized pixelations follow by the message that my nvidia graphics driver has crashed and then recovered.

Firefox is the definite culprit here.

 

[Maguscreed]

I'm still convinced it's the nvidia drivers as I get the problem on my nvidia rig, but not on my ati rig.

 

[Anakunda]

I was told at NVIDIA forums that that may be graphic card hw fault. Don't know however how to discover it, my GC behaves otherwise quite normally not producing any misbehaviour. The BSOD's only appear when PC is idle. I'm very often having some conversion or similar process running in background, never had the driver stopped responding during this. As soon as the conversion finishes and there are idle CPU resources, I'm starting to get these driver freezes, interesting.

 

[Maguscreed]

A good stress test for graphics is the heaven benchmark.
Cool to look at too if your card supports dx11
though it works with dx10 too.
Heaven DX11 Benchmark | Unigine: real-time 3D engine (game, simulation, visualization and VR)

It's also free.

 

[severedsolo]

It's actually nvidia, not firefox. The issue is basically this. When a card is idle, it is undervolted, because it isn't working very hard and as such can power down because basic usage doesn't tax it. This is basically the same principle as Intel's Speedstep or AMD's Cool N Quiet.

Now hardware accelleration makes the GPU work, but because it isn't hard work, the card doesn't power itself back up again. It can't draw enough power, and so crashes. The 200 series suffered from this for a while, but driver updates fixed it. If it was firefox, it would happen on all cards, so the issue is with drivers.

 

[Anakunda]

After all I stick to conclusion that it's software fault, not HW. I have sent the laptop where the problem was observed to service with request for performing thorough GPU hardware diagnostics, the result was negative (graphic card didnot exhibit any faults during the tests). So either it's a problem of Nvidia driver which isnot able to handle specific HW acceleration operation, or Firefox which requests unauthorized HW operation at Graphic driver.

 

[Keith2468]

If you can 100% fix the problem with a software change it is a software problem not a hardware problem, and that is the case with the Firefox crashes.

If you have other problems, not just Firefox, then you have some other problem -- so start your own topic.

nVidia GTX460, never over-clocked, and it crashes Firefox with any version of the nVidia WHQL drivers later than version 275.33.

Anyone wanting proof that this problem is caused by nVidia is invited to install the 275.33 drivers and see that this particular problem goes away.

I'm shocked. I pointedly advise everyone to stay away from nVidia because nVidia has been so incredibly intransigent in its refusal to admit the problem is its drivers.

I've done clean installs, even installs with DriverSweeper, all the WHQL versions since 275.33, as clean as is possible without re-formatting and re-installing Windows, and it just does not help.

But you know, if a clean install did fix it, it would still be a bug in nVidia's code because requirements for clean installs are due to bugs in install scripts.

Anyway, clean installs don't fix it. You can only fix it by going back to an earlier nVidia driver, (one that doesn't have the optimization for SkyRim, the game I'm waiting to play).

nVidia's corporate attitude on this is a disgrace.

 

[Anakunda]

I'm testing Firefox 8 on Ubuntu with accelerated latest Nvidia driver. It didnot crash yet and the hw acceleration is ON.
Also I get graphic driver crashes on Windows on high CPU load -> it doesnot depend if CPU idle or utilized, just in loaded state it looks the driver is less likely to crash. This is really hard nut to diagnose but well, turning off hw acceleration in Firefox would probably eliminate the problem completely.

Is there w way to benchmark page render speed with and w/out hw acceleration?
If the speed gain of GPU acceleration is none or only small then it's not worth using this feature.

 

[Keith2468]

We could do a lot of things, go to a lot of effort, but you know ... it would all be pointless since none of us is in a position to fix nVidia's code.

And it would be difficult too, since we don't know what their code is supposed to do.

Clearly any so-called fix that involves installing old drivers, turning off hardware acceleration, switching to google chrome or changing from Windows 7 to Umbutu, OS/x, or whatever, is not really a fix but a bypass.

All we can really do, as nVidia customers and former customers, is to make a proof positive case that it is nVidia's drivers or install script that are the root cause of this problem.

I think it is very likely it is something nVidia is failing to test, and since I have a pretty vanilla Dell, Core i7-9600, 12 GB, McAfee and nothing weird, I think the most likely area they'd fail to test properly is the install.

Surfing the web with FF, none of the 8 "CPUs" (or PUs in the CPU if you prefer) goes about 50%, and usually 6 are just about totally idle.

Which is why I think it is likely an error in their install scripts, not the actual drivers, a bug in the install script that leaves incompatible modules or registry entries. But of course that is a blind guess.

To document that the error is nVidia's code:

1. Simply be one of the people who has the problem where FF crashes with the nVidia drivers (with no other video issue).
2. Change driver versions and nothing else.
3. Test it for a couple of days.
4. Most importantly, document your test results here in this topic.

If you do not have this issue and you want to help you could do so by:
1. Installing last winter's or last spring's drivers.
2. Installing the newer drivers from this summer or the latest drivers. Do this using only the standard update script provided by nVidia as an innocent computer user would do (nothing special, nothing custom).
3. See if just by doing that you can replicate the problem on your computer.
4. Most importantly, document your test results here in this topic.

Document your test results by stating whether you were able to create or eliminate the problem by changing driver versions. Also give your FF version, CPU, windows version, memory size, anti-virus. I can't think of anything else relevant, but if you can that would be good too.

a) Was able to create and eliminate the crashes by changing nVidia driver version with FF 6 through 8. 275.33 and earlier drivers work okay for me, all the later drivers cause a crash with FF.
b) Core i7-960.
c) 6 and now 12 GB.
d) McAfee.

 

[Anakunda]

Look here: NVIDIA Windows Desktop/Internet Browser TDR Troubleshooting - NVIDIA Forums - Page 40
Some users reported to eliminate the crashes with beta test driver.
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=215256&view=findpost&p=1355202