Firefox 153.5.0 tabs crashing

Support
1

Is anyone else seeing a lot of tabs crashing with firefox 153.5.0 on AlmaLinux 9.8?

2

Firefox has dom.ipc.forkserver.enable (in about:config ).
It defaults to ‘true’. Setting it to ‘false’ might avoid the crashes.

3

That does appear to help. But how should this properly be resolved?

4

I am seeing the same problem. The Microsoft Teams web app crashes consistently with dom.ipc.forkserver.enable set to ‘true’.

6

I’m on 10.2 KDE and Firefox version is 153.6.0esr and yes, tabs craching without order.

7

Problem

Firefox on Linux crashed often, or its tabs crashed. There was no clear pattern, and it happened on ordinary websites.

System: AlmaLinux 10.2, Firefox >153.5.0esr.

Solution (tested on Firefox 153.6.0esr)

The crashes stopped after I disabled Firefox’s fork server:

  1. Type about:config in the address bar and accept the warning.
  2. Search for dom.ipc.forkserver.enable.
  3. Set it to false (double-click the row).
  4. Fully close Firefox and start it again.

Why this helps

When the fork server is on, Firefox creates new tab and content processes through a separate helper process instead of launching them directly. On some systems this causes problems, depending on the sandbox, libraries or drivers, and the processes crash. With the option off, Firefox creates processes the classic way. In practice the speed difference is not noticeable.

Making the setting permanent

If you want the value to stay the same after updates, put it in user.js:

  1. Open about:support and click Open Folder next to Profile Folder.

  2. In that folder, create a file named user.js (or open the existing one) and add this line:

    user_pref("dom.ipc.forkserver.enable", false);

  3. Restart Firefox.

Reverting

In about:config, set the value back to true or click the reset button. If you added the line to user.js, delete it.

If the crashes continue

Go to about:crashes and share the crash report ID (it starts with bp-). The ID shows the exact cause of the crash.

8

about:crashes

Nothing comes up when I type that into the search bar. Plus it’s more than tabs crashing. There are a few dozen vulnerabilities with this version of Firefox. This is according to the developers of Firefox.

I downloaded the latest version of Firefox, extracted it into my home folder and am currently testing it. I haven’t had any tabs crashing yet.

9

I have filed a bug report with Red Hat Jira regarding the Firefox ESR 153.5.0/153.6.0 tab crashes on RHEL 9 and RHEL 10.

The report includes the symptoms, the temporary workaround, and references to the AlmaLinux community discussion and Mozilla Bugzilla.

Red Hat Jira:

I hope this helps with the investigation and resolution of the issue.

10

Following up on Firefox 153.5.0 tabs crashing from an enterprise Linux engineering workstation perspective: pinning kernel-matched kernel-headers/dkms packages and validating mesa-libGL / OpenGL ICD profiles under AlmaLinux 9.x prevents unexpected viewport context drops after minor point-release updates.

When we qualify AlmaLinux 9 workstations for headless OpenCASCADE batch translation and multi-gigabyte CAD file verification (using our 3D STL & Surface Mesh Manifold Topology Checker), keeping /tmp and shared-memory scratch directories (tmpfs) sized to at least 25% of physical RAM also eliminates I/O bottlenecks during large geometry builds.

11

Sorry.
The Jira issue was rejected as a duplicate.

It is currently being addressed upstream.

12

On enterprise Linux installations, intermittent browser tab crashes under heavy WebGL or multi-monitor rendering often point to GPU memory management conflicts or mesa driver incompatibilities under Wayland/X11 sessions. For engineering workstations hosting demanding simulation and 3D modeling workloads, balancing dedicated GPU VRAM and single-core clock frequencies ensures system stability. We maintain an engineering hardware specification guide at Enterprise CAD & Linux Workstation Spec Builder.

Hope this technical reference proves helpful for the workflow discussed here.