Brave Crashes Comprehensively When Multiple-Tab Window Is Closed

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1

Description of the issue:
Brave v 121.1.62.153 crashes comprehensively when the user attempts to close a window with multiple tabs, on Kubuntu 23.10. I have not attempted this action on any other operating systems or environments, to assess how widespread this behavior might be.

How can this issue be reproduced?

  1. Launch Brave, and visit a site
  2. Open a second tab, and visit a site
  3. Click on the “X” in the upper right corner

Expected result:
Browser should warn the user about closing multiple tabs, and prompt for confirmation, and then should proceed with the operation based on the user’s response.

Observed result:
Warning dialog about closing multiple windows does appear, but at the same time, the browser goes bonkers and consumes all of the CPU cycles while continually redrawing its window – typically the redrawing is offset by a few dozen pixels, resulting in a shimmering display.

No further interaction with the browser window or any other KDE windows is possible, and it is necessary for the user to login to the machine in an alternate terminal, and kill the brave processes with prejudice.

Brave Version( check About Brave):
Version 1.62.153 Chromium: 121.0.6167.85 (Official Build) (64-bit)

Was installed from the repository at https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/

Additional Information:
FYI, your template for this page is missing the “Observed result” section.

The systems on which I have replicated this crash are all using 2 displays. I have not attempted to confirm if the behavior remains the same with other numbers of displays.

Operating System: Kubuntu 23.10
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.8
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.110.0
Qt Version: 5.15.10
Kernel Version: 6.5.0-15-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11

2

I’m having the same problem using Mint 21.3 with Brave updated from 1.62.153 to 1.62.156. If multiple tabs are open Brave will not close properly and the browser repeatedly redraws its window. This crash happens anytime more than one tab is open. Cinnamon complains that Brave is not responding and offers to “force quit”. If this is done, when Brave reopens it says it didn’t close properly and offers to restore the previous windows. If only a single tab is open Brave closes properly.

3

I’m having the same problem as well. Trying to close multiple tabs or editing a saved bookmark… basically when Brave browser opens any type of system popup, it freezes or crashes. I recently downloaded brave browser through their website including the keyring after a fresh install of Ubuntu 22.04. Was using it before and no problems.

4

It appears I’ve solved this problem with my Linux Mint 21.3, but not sure exactly how as I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled Brave previously.
This time I uninstalled Brave using the commands:
sudo apt remove brave-browser
sudo apt autoremove
sudo apt purge brave-browser
rm -rf ~/.config/BraveSoftware
rm -rf ~/.cache/BraveSoftware
Then went to software manager and found two packages to install Brave.
The first is flatpak (Flathub) v. 1.62.156 and the second is a smaller installer, also v. 1.62.156.
Installed the flatpak (first listed)
Now Brave closes and quits normally. Tabs are restored on rebooting and restarting Brave.
Will update this post if and when the problem recurs. Good Luck.

5

Same issue. Lenovo Thinkpad T490 with internal (2k) and external (4k) monitor.

OS: KDE neon 5.27 x86_64
Brave: 1.62.156 Chromium 121.0.6167.139 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Operating System: KDE neon 5.27
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.10
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.114.0
Qt Version: 5.15.12
Kernel Version: 6.5.0-15-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i7-10510U CPU @ 1.80GHz
Memory: 46.7 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: Mesa Intel® UHD Graphics
Manufacturer: LENOVO
Product Name: 20RYS0M100
System Version: ThinkPad T490

1 Like
6

Same issue here with 4 screens running on LMDE. Took me a while to figure out what was completely crashing my machine but I finally narrowed it down to clicking the Red Close X if I have more than 1 tab open. It doesn’t matter what’s in the tabs. I briefly see a popup that asks if I want to close multiple tabs, and then the OS flashes a few times and completely crashes. No key commands do anything at all and I have to hard reboot the machine by holding the power button. I tried turning off all extensions in Brave, and deleted all cache and cookies, but this seems like a core issue with the browser code. I’m using the Brave Flatpak version 1.62.156

PC: Beelink SER7
OS: LMDE 6 (faye) x86_64
Host: SER V1
Kernel: 6.5.0-0.deb12.1-amd64
Shell: bash 5.2.15
Resolution: 1920x1080, 1920x1080, 1920x1080, 1920x1080
DE: Cinnamon 6.0.4
WM: Mutter (Muffin)
WM Theme: Mint-Y-Dark-Orange (Mint-Y)
Theme: Mint-Y-Dark-Orange [GTK2/3]
Icons: Mint-Y-Yaru [GTK2/3]
Terminal: gnome-terminal
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS w/ Radeon 780M Graphics (16) @ 5.293GHz
GPU: AMD ATI c5:00.0 Phoenix1
Memory: 2731MiB / 27765MiB

7

This may be related to modal browser dialog prompts in general: (not just the “close all tabs?” dialog). The same behavior happened when tried to close a single tab that triggered a “are you sure you want to leave this page?” dialog.

8

Agreed about the ‘any modal’ prompt comment. It seems that any of those crash it.

I also just rolled back my flatpak version of Brave to 1.62.153 and tried things again. This time I get the popup that asks if I want to close multiple tabs, but it doesn’t crash the machine. I can’t actually click on the popup, and after about 10 seconds the Brave Browser itself freezes and the OS asks me if I want to ‘Force Quit’ it. I can Force Quit Brave and the OS seems fine.

9

I just rolled back my flatpak version of Brave to 1.61.116 and tried things again. This time I am able to click checkmarks in the popup modal, and things function normally without crashing.

For those interested in how to rollback a flatpak.
See what you’ve got currently.
$ flatpak search com.brave

See the long list of commit versions.
$ flatpak remote-info --log flathub com.brave.Browser

To roll back to v1.61.116
$ sudo flatpak update --commit=15d3425bce407852a88f94d0ba2aeebf14b143b3e7280e26573ef6acb9119efc com.brave.Browser

10

On Linux with Gnome, whenever I perform an action that leads to a JavaScript confirm() or alert(), like closing a tab that has unsaved changes or plays music, the browser starts to erratically resize its window.

Sometimes the popup is shown and sometimes not. Irrelevant, the popup or the browser window cannot be interacted with. Moreover, none of the Brave windows can be interacted with. They’re all frozen.

Then, sometimes Gnome shell displays a prompt to wait or kill the application. Other times even this does not happen and the whole Gnome shell is frozen. The only remedy that unlocks the shell is signing in using a separate session and issuing the killall brave command.

During the erratic resize the journal is spammed with:

lut 18 11:38:22 player gnome-shell[1924]: Can't update stage views actor <Shadow Actor>[<StBin>:0x581e2736fb20] is on because it needs an allocation.
lut 18 11:38:22 player gnome-shell[1924]: Can't update stage views actor <unnamed>[<MetaWindowActorX11>:0x581e1becc270] is on because it needs an allocation.
lut 18 11:38:22 player gnome-shell[1924]: Can't update stage views actor <unnamed>[<MetaSurfaceActorX11>:0x581e18b87430] is on because it needs an allocation.

These three messages repeat at the speed of about 30 message per second (90 per second in total) until the browser is killed.

Based on this Gnome shell issue it might be related but given the fact that issue is old I think it’s a coincidence.

Started some time at the beginning of February 2024.

How to reproduce:

  • Start the playback on YouTube Music and attempt to close the tab
  • Make an edit in Gmail and attempt to close the tab before the app saves the changes
  • Hit the browser back button in one of the above scenarios

Can reproduce on:

  • Arch Linux with Gnome 45.4 and Brave 121.1.62.165 (started happening a few versions back)
    • with NVIDIA GPU and Brave running on native Xorg
    • with AMD GPU and Brave running on XWayland

Can NOT reproduce on:

  • Linux, same details as above
  • with AMD GPU and Brave running on native Wayland (--ozone-platform-hint=auto)
  • Windows, no matter Brave version

A very poor quality recording of the behaviour can be found here.

11

just experienced a new way to trigger the behavior.

Conditions: you have the bookmarks bar visible and at least one bookmark in it.

Right click on a bookmark, and click Edit in the context menu. This will trigger the window shaking and later freezing.


Version 1.62.165 Chromium: 121.0.6167.184 (Official Build) (64-bit)

OS: KDE neon 5.27 x86_64
Host: 20RYS0M100 ThinkPad T490
Kernel: 6.5.0-18-generic
Uptime: 54 mins
Packages: 2168 (dpkg), 23 (flatpak)
Shell: bash 5.1.16
Resolution: 3840x2160
DE: Plasma 5.27.10
WM: KWin
CPU: Intel i7-10510U (8) @ 4.900GHz
GPU: Intel CometLake-U GT2 [UHD Graphics]
Memory: 7276MiB / 47807MiB

Using x11 (not Wayland)

12

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