Brave browser keeps crashing on Mac OS

[thaitea]

Hello,

My Brave browser started crashing and when I reopen it, it’ll crash again within minutes.
I tried to use Apple’s Crash Report Console to see any error messages but there aren’t any crash reports. I am able to see something in Apple’s “system.log” Console when the browser crashes. Not sure how helpful they are but here it is the moment the browser crashes:

Jun 25 13:47:37 V-MacBook-Pro Brave Browser Helper[2068]: Libnotify: notify_register_coalesced_registration failed with code 9 on line 2835
Jun 25 13:47:37 --- last message repeated 16 times ---
Jun 25 13:47:37 V-MacBook-Pro Brave Browser Helper[2069]: Libnotify: notify_register_coalesced_registration failed with code 9 on line 2835
Jun 25 13:47:37 --- last message repeated 16 times ---
Jun 25 13:47:37 V-MacBook-Pro com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (application.com.brave.Browser.12896487934.12896488895[2034]): Service exited due to SIGABRT

Steps to reproduce:
It randomly crashes even when I’m not using it. I could leave a blank tab open and it’ll randomly crash. I found a way to reproduce it but it doesn’t cause it to crash all the time:

1. Open a new tab of the Dashboard
2. Scroll down to see “Brave News”
3. Crashes immediately
   Again, scrolling for Brave News doesn’t crash it every time. I would say 2 out of 5 times. Other 3 times, it’ll load Brave News without issues.

Reproduces how often:
Scrolling for Brave News would cause a crash ~2 out of 5 times. Other than that, it’s random crashes.

Operating System and Brave Version(See the About Brave page in the main menu):
OS: macOS Big Sur 11.2.1
Brave Browser: 1.39.122

Additional Information:
I’ve tried to turn off “Use hardware acceleration when available” which seem to have reduced the number of times it crashes but it still happens few times a day. Please help! I don’t want to go back to Chrome.

[289wk]

@thaitea

Please DISABLE ‘Brave News’.

–

In a Brave Browser > New Window, go to: brave://settings/security

• DISABLE: Always use secure connections (HTTPS ONLY toggle switch)
• DISABLE: Use secure DNS

–

Clear DNS cache:

Using a Brave Browser > New Window, go to: brave://net-internals/#dns

• Click on: Clear host cache

Close idle sockets and Flush socket pools:

Go to: brave://net-internals/#socket

• Click on: Close idle sockets
• Click on: Flush socket pools

Exit / Quit Brave Browser.
RESTART your Mac.

–

Notes re what are:

DNS cache:

• ‘https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-a-dns-cache-817514’

Socket pool:

With pooling, instead of closing a connection after it is used, we can keep it idle while it waits to handle another request. This saves the resources required to create a new connection.

• Ref. : ‘https://betterprogramming.pub/build-a-tcp-connection-pool-from-scratch-with-go-d7747023fe14’

–

TEST YOUR ISSUE.

IF not fixed, then proceed:

–

Go to: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v1.40.107

Download the installer for your Mac’s architecture (M1 arm64 or Intel x64), to your Mac’s ‘Downloads’ folder.

–

In a Brave Browser > New Window, go to: brave://settings/clearBrowserData

For tab Advanced:

• Set: Time range:All time
• Enable: Browsing history
• Enable: Download history
• Enable: Cookies and other site data (Signs you out of most sites)
• Enable: Cached images and files
• DISABLE: Passwords and other sign-in data (When Enabled DELETES PASSWORDS)
• DISABLE: Autofill form data
• DISABLE: Site and Shields Settings (When Enabled DELETES Shields Settings and RESTORES default: Shields UP for site-specific Shields [Lion icon] panel)
• Enable: Hosted app data

Click on the ‘Clear data’ button.

(The ‘Clear data’ button also saves the selections.)

–

Return to: brave://settings/clearBrowserData

For tab On exit:

• Enable: Browsing history
• Enable: Download history
• DISABLE: Cookies and other site data (Signs you out of most sites)
• Enable: Cached images and files
• DISABLE: Passwords and other sign-in data (When Enabled DELETES PASSWORDS)
• DISABLE: Autofill form data
• DISABLE: Site and Shields Settings (When Enabled DELETES Shields Settings and RESTORES default: Shields UP for site-specific Shields [Lion icon] panel)
• Enable: Hosted app data

Click on the ‘Save’ button.

–

Exit / Quit Brave Browser.

Make a backup of your ‘BraveSoftware’ folder located at:

• `/Users/username/Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/

I suggest that you drag-copy that folder to an attached external drive - so your backup copy of the ‘BraveSoftware’ folder is outside of any Brave Browser installation path.

Locate the existing ‘Brave Browser.app’ at: /Applications/Brave Browser.app and drag that to the Trash.

RESTART your Mac.

Run the installer that you downloaded.

–

TEST YOUR ISSUE.

–

[thaitea]

Thanks @289wk .
I tried your first suggestion all the way up to:

• Click on: Flush socket pools
  Clicking on Close idle sockets and Flush socket pools didn’t show anything so hopefully that’s expected.

How do i disable Brave News? I disabled Brave Private Ads in brave://settings/rewards
My browser auto updated to v1.40.107 and i also disabled my extensions if that matters.

I will report back whether it still crashes randomly or not. I’ll try your other suggestion if it does crash.

[289wk]

@thaitea

Disable Brave News > Go to: brave://flags/ and Disable both:

• Enable Brave News
• Brave News prompts on New Tab Page

–

When you were at: brave://net-internals/#socket and clicked on Close idle sockets . . . that was all. Then, next, you needed to Exit / Quit Brave Browser and RESTART your Mac.

The idea, there, is to clear away stale connections. Because, Brave News probably has updates (I do not know the cycle period time - minutes / seconds.) And possibly, the news updates might be stumbling into/over existing (pooled) connections. So, stop using Brave News for now, and clear away old connections.

And then, see if Brave Browser will ‘keep crashing’.

–

[thaitea]

Thanks! Will report back in 1-2 day!

[thaitea]

So far so good!
Will continue to monitor

[thaitea]

It just crashed on its own for the first time since my previous reply
I’ll try your other suggestions if it randomly crashes couple more times

[thaitea]

@289wk It’s definitely crashing less often. Maybe once every few days so far.
I just followed your 2nd set of instructions to run the installer. Hopefully this will fix the random crashes all together.

[thaitea]

It’s still crashing randomly. I’m trying to pull some better logs.