Firefox ESR Debian 12 Mate Crash Report [Solved]

[Alexzee]

I'm running Debian 12 Mate Stable and the crash report manager has launched several times.

@debian-box:~$ firefox
alex@debian-box:~$ ExceptionHandler::GenerateDump attempting to generate:/home/alex/.mozilla/firefox/5q0m9x36.default-esr/minidumps/1c7909cb-a8a3-1dd8-12a9-980db2bf6546.dmp
ExceptionHandler::GenerateDump cloned child 7869
ExceptionHandler::SendContinueSignalToChild sent continue signal to child
ExceptionHandler::WaitForContinueSignal waiting for continue signal...
ExceptionHandler::GenerateDump minidump generation succeeded

Checking or unchecking the "Tell Mozilla About" or "Include The Address" and selecting Restart Firefox doesn't restart the browser. Trying to launch FF from the panel just launches the Crash Reporter:-

I'm not entirely sure how to fix this. It looks like there is a complaint about a cloned child process. So, if any of you, my brothers here, have ideas or fixes please enlighten me.

 

[Condobloke]

Being an esr package, that's a bit of a worry, Alex. All that you have encountered is not supposed to happen !

Is this a default install?...comes with Debian 12 ? Any security settings "retightened" ?....if so can they be returned to default?

The link below won't help with fixing what you have, but gives you a .deb package to install through the apt repository

Client Challenge

 

[Alexzee]

Being an esr package, that's a bit of a worry, Alex. All that you have encountered is not supposed to happen !

Is this a default install?...comes with Debian 12 ? Any security settings "retightened" ?....if so can they be returned to default?

The link below won't help with fixing what you have, but gives you a .deb package to install through the apt repository

Client Challenge

Affirmative, this is the ESR that came with the fresh installation of Debian 12.
Negative on the security settings:-

Entering into Troubleshooting mode was useful.
There are 2 different settings for hardware acceleration. Unchecking the one that was current checked and selecting hardware acceleration for the system (system wide) worked.
Closing FF and relaunching it is going well so far.

Good instructions for the .deb from Mozilla, thanks!

Is it possible Condobloke, that the fresh installation that was performed last night (Spark Linux) on a separate M2 drive had/have an effect on FF ESR that came with Debian 12?

 

[Condobloke]

Is it possible Condobloke, that the fresh installation that was performed last night (Spark Linux) on a separate M2 drive had/have an effect on FF ESR that came with Debian 12?

I hope not !...if it does then we are all in trouble !...(maybe)

I doubt it, Surely not.

 

[Alexzee]

I hope not !...if it does then we are all in trouble !...(maybe)

I doubt it, Surely not.

So glad that you doubt it.

So far, so good no more issue's with FF.
In 7 years of running Debian stable I've never seen this before.

I hear from the Debian Security Team on a regular bases and there hasn't been any mention of this.

 

[Alexzee]

Looking here:

Information on source package firefox-esr​

Information on source package firefox-esr

Snyk Vulnerability Database | Snyk

CVE-2025-5263 in firefox-esr | CVE-2025-5263

security.snyk.io

 

[wizardfromoz]

Is it possible Condobloke, that the fresh installation that was performed last night (Spark Linux) on a separate M2 drive had/have an effect on FF ESR that came with Debian 12?

Alex, I would regard that as highly unlikely. I have Sparky and a number of Debian 12 in my stable and there are no problems with the FF-ESRs.

I have only a couple of 128.10s that have so far made their way to 128.11.

On

Looking here:

Information on source package firefox-esr​

Let us know if/when you have done that, any input welcome.

Cheers

Chris

 

[Alexzee]

Alex, I would regard that as highly unlikely. I have Sparky and a number of Debian 12 in my stable and there are no problems with the FF-ESRs.

I have only a couple of 128.10s that have so far made their way to 128.11.

On



Let us know if/when you have done that, any input welcome.

Cheers

Chris

From what I can tell the src pkg is good and the src pkg for bookworm (security) 128.11.0esr is fixed.

DLA-4191-1

alex@Debiansparky:~$ firefox --version
Mozilla Firefox 128.11.0esr

$ cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="SparkyLinux 7.7 (Orion-Belt)"
NAME="SparkyLinux"
VERSION_ID="7.7"
VERSION="7.7 (Orion-Belt)"
ID=sparky
ID_LIKE=debian
HOME_URL="https://sparkylinux.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://sparkylinux.org/forum/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://sourceforge.net/p/sparkylinux/tickets"
VERSION_CODENAME=orion-belt
DEBIAN_CODENAME=bookworm

Booted into Sparky at the moment and all is well with FF.
I'll boot into Debian 12 sometime tomorrow and double check.

 

[Alexzee]

Fresh boot into Debian 12 and there haven't been any problems with FF so far.

alex@debian-box:~$ cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="12"
VERSION="12 (bookworm)"
VERSION_CODENAME=bookworm
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"
alex@debian-box:~$ firefox --version
Mozilla Firefox 128.11.0esr

After checking the logs and the journal I didn't see anything that stood out.

 

[Vimmer]

Looking here:

Information on source package firefox-esr​

Information on source package firefox-esr

Snyk Vulnerability Database | Snyk

CVE-2025-5263 in firefox-esr | CVE-2025-5263

security.snyk.io

Unfortunately that site doesnt seem to share much info on bugs...

 

[KGIII]

For openness sake: I've removed a post that uses a user's name (and potential gender) from what appears to be another site or some other real-world situation. We will not have that here. Your personal lives are your own and you're free to discuss them or not (though that's what profile posts are for).

It's not okay for a user to come in and reference a username/gender from another site.

In fact, if the harassment continues the user will be sent off on vacation, probably a long vacation as I don't have much patience for this.

 

[Vimmer]

Is it possible Condobloke, that the fresh installation that was performed last night (Spark Linux) on a separate M2 drive had/have an effect on FF ESR that came with Debian 12?

I think that's totally impossible, as software on a separate hard drive is totally isolated from software on a different drive. You can't be 100% sure if it's dualboot, but the notion an install on one drive effecting a different one is kinda ridiculous, unless there's something about electricity i don't get.

twilight zone music

anyways, one of the fist things i did when installing debian (and i did it recently) was totally remove ESR, and install the normal version.

 

[Alexzee]

Unfortunately that site doesnt seem to share much info on bugs...

I'm not sure if this was a bug it may have been. However; it very quickly vanished after putting FF ESR in 'troubleshooting mode' and changing the hardware acceleration to system wide mode.

Where would I look @Vimmer to find out if this is a bug?

 

[Alexzee]

I think that's totally impossible, as software on a separate hard drive is totally isolated from software on a different drive. You can't be 100% sure if it's dualboot, but the notion an install on one drive effecting a different one is kinda ridiculous, unless there's something about electricity i don't get.

twilight zone music

anyways, one of the fist things i did when installing debian (and i did it recently) was totally remove ESR, and install the normal version.

Thanks for the complete confirmation about the separate isolation.
In the past I've removed FF ESR before in Debian. I was only able to launch the newest version by double clicking the FF file from the directory to use it.

Making a desktop file or attempting to add it to the Menu didn't go well.

Do tell on how you were able to rm and than install FF non ESR.

 

[Vimmer]

Do tell on how you were able to rm and than install FF non ESR.

i don't remember exactly, i had to use ChatGPT to figure it out because it was kind of strange. Then chatgpt told me how to use flatpack to install the full-featured version. It worked

In absence of artificial intelligence, you can figure out the package name of firefox ESR, and then run this command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove <package-name>

And you can also manually look for any folders for firefox ESR, and remove them:

cd /
sudo find -iname firefox > search-results

That will create a file with the name of every file on your system containing "firefox", just be careful, as this is a more broad and destructive measure. There's nothing wrong with using search engines and chatgpt, they're both pretty safe even though you should always scrutinize code/commands that ChatGPT produces.

Also, here's a third method that might work, i would recommend trying it first because it's the easiest and safest:

-open up "synaptic package manager", it's honestly a pretty awesome graphical software installation tool.
It will ask you for your root password, enter it. It's located under "system -> administration" in your top bar.

-find firefox-esr

-click the check box next to the name, and it will show you an option to mark for remove and complete removal. Select one of them, then hit "apply" in the top bar, and click your way into completion.

For the Firefox ESR logo to disappear, i had to restart my computer for that change to take effect.

Where would I look @Vimmer to find out if this is a bug?

So it's obviously a bug, based on what you said, i wonder why that dialogue box uses comic-sans as that's really strange. Security vulnerabilities are all about bugs, like that site you posted, but it doesn't have much information.

Making a desktop file or attempting to add it to the Menu didn't go well.

learn how to make .desktop icons if you want to do that, that's what i've done for google chrome on debian. Weirdly enough, for the new version of debian, the display of the chrome icon didn't work, but i can still double click it to start the program. Debian always decides what to add to its menus on mate. Some things get added, and others don't.

 

[Alexzee]

i don't remember exactly, i had to use ChatGPT to figure it out because it was kind of strange. Then chatgpt told me how to use flatpack to install the full-featured version. It worked

In absence of artificial intelligence, you can figure out the package name of firefox ESR, and then run this command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove <package-name>

And you can also manually look for any folders for firefox ESR, and remove them:

cd /
sudo find -iname firefox > search-results

That will create a file with the name of every file on your system containing "firefox", just be careful, as this is a more broad and destructive measure. There's nothing wrong with using search engines and chatgpt, they're both pretty safe even though you should always scrutinize code/commands that ChatGPT produces.

Also, here's a third method that might work, i would recommend trying it first because it's the easiest and safest:

-open up "synaptic package manager", it's honestly a pretty awesome graphical software installation tool.
It will ask you for your root password, enter it. It's located under "system -> administration" in your top bar.

-find firefox-esr

-click the check box next to the name, and it will show you an option to mark for remove and complete removal. Select one of them, then hit "apply" in the top bar, and click your way into completion.

For the Firefox ESR logo to disappear, i had to restart my computer for that change to take effect.


So it's obviously a bug, based on what you said, i wonder why that dialogue box uses comic-sans as that's really strange. Security vulnerabilities are all about bugs, like that site you posted, but it doesn't have much information.


learn how to make .desktop icons if you want to do that, that's what i've done for google chrome on debian. Weirdly enough, for the new version of debian, the display of the chrome icon didn't work, but i can still double click it to start the program. Debian always decides what to add to its menus on mate. Some things get added, and others don't.

Using Synaptic is much easier.
Yeah, I've seen that in Mate some things like you said get added and some don't.

I'll have to work on this over the next day or so. I'll let you know how things go:-
Thanks for the instructions.

 

[KGIII]

sudo apt remove --autoremove <package-name>

If I'm following along properly, then purge might be the better solution.

 

[Vimmer]

If I'm following along properly, then purge might be the better solution.

yeah i think that one is shorter, but that's what i remember off the top of my head.

 

[KGIII]

yeah i think that one is shorter, but that's what i remember off the top of my head.

The use of 'purge' is because it removes your configuration files.

If you install App-X and configure it, it can/will store things like your configuration files on your computer. If you reinstall App-X after using the above command, those config files will still be there.

If you use 'purge', then it should remove those config files.

This is by design and is the intended behavior.

The 'autoremove' just deals with dependencies, AFAIK. The goal here is a clean slate, if I'm reading correctly. So, it's likely to be best if they remove their existing config files.

 

[Vimmer]

The 'autoremove' just deals with dependencies, AFAIK. The goal here is a clean slate, if I'm reading correctly. So, it's likely to be best if they remove their existing config files.

Im just extremely anal about uninstalling software, and i prefer to get rid of dependencies if they aren't system-wide libraries being used by multiple programs. It's a little unnecessary given how cheap consumer-grade hard drives are these days, but eliminating variables is pretty important if you want to be a technician.