Brave crashes immediately upon startup

[QuestioningAttitude]

Description of the issue: Brave (Version 118.1.59.117 according to the file folder) on Windows 10 (Version 10.0.19045 Build 19045 according to the System Summary) crashes immediately upon opening. When opening Brave a white program screen appears as if it is opening, then closes and disappears without loading anything. I have tried reinstalling Brave with no change apparent. This issue also persists when opening the program in administrative mode.

How can this issue be reproduced?

1. Double clicking icon shortcut.
2. Clicking toolbar icon shortcut.
3. Double clicking .exe icon in file folder.
4. Right clicking any of the above and starting in administrative mode.

Expected result: Open browser window with ability to access brave settings and the internet.

Brave Version( check About Brave): Version 118.1.59.117 (unable to check About Brave due to windows closing immediately. Information gathered from File Folder)

Additional Information: I have tried re-installing, updating, and re-downloading. My other browsers work fine for now. I wanted to reiterate that trying in administrative mode has not worked, and I’m unable to try to launch new windows in any other modes as the program doesn’t load beyond an initial white screen before crashing. Now crash reports have been generated either. Also apparently the Desktop Support section does not allow the Crash tag, so I’ve tagged it with Windows. I guess that’s right?

I look forward to any help.

[steeven]

Thank you for reporting. Have you added any new extensions? Do you know what Brave version you updated from?

Can you please go to brave://crashes and

• if you have automatic crash reporting is enabled (Settings --> Privacy/Security --> Automatically send diagnostic reports), please respond back here with the crash report ID
• If Automatically send diagnostic reports is not enabled, ensure you click Send on these crash reports listed on the page, then reply here with the crash report ID

Thank you!

[QuestioningAttitude]

I have not added any new extensions that I can think of.

I had not updated before the crashes started. When I right click on the Application (.exe) file, click Properties, and look at the Previous Versions tab it says “There are no previous versions available” and nothing else. I’m not sure where else to look for previous versions unfortunately.

I had Automatic crash reporting enabled, however no crash reports have been generated. The crash reports folder is empty.

I believe I also had Automatically send diagnostic reports enabled, again however, the crash reports are not being generated. The crash reports folder is empty.

Unfortunately I cannot access the Settings options, as the program does not actually open at all beyond a white screen which immediately closes.

[Saoiray]

@QuestioningAttitude Can you try the steps below?

Step 1 (try this first)

The #1 issue in the majority of cases ends up being because of extensions. A good way to kind of help rule this out is to open in a private window. As long as you have never authorized extensions to run in private window, they are disabled by default. So I’d say try opening a private window and see if it remains open.

You can do this by right clicking on Brave on your taskbar, assuming you have it pinned there.

You just would right click and choose New private window.

If that opens and stays open, you’ll likely want to navigate to brave://extensions and see if you can disable/remove them.

Step 2 (if the above isn’t possible or doesn’t work)

Go to your desktop shortcut for Brave and right mouse click and choose Properties.

You’ll see something like below:

On the Target line you’ll see something like "C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\brave.exe" --profile-directory="Default"

Change the word Default to Test Profile So it would end up being something like:

"C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\brave.exe" --profile-directory="Test Profile"

Click Apply and then you can hit Ok. When you open that desktop shortcut, it should open your browser in a new profile, where the page will look like below:

From here you should be able to navigate to brave://crashes and see if there are reports. If so, hopefully can upload like I instructed before (remember, if it says Send Now you will need to click it and then close the browser for 10-30 seconds to it can upload) and be able to share Uploaded Crash Report ID.

If this new profile works well without crashing, might yet have to make some changes to get rid of your extensions and all. Might test to see if switching back to your primary profile will crash right away or if it might stay up a bit longer to change settings in it.

[QuestioningAttitude]

Step 1 that you listed was not an option for me. Right clicking on it does not bring up the option to open a private window.

Step 2 did work however, and I was able to go to brave://crashes and see 50 crash reports. I clicked Send now on all of them. I don’t see an Uploaded Crash Report ID, but when I click Show developer details it gives me a Local Crash Context. I can list those if that would help.

That being said there were two new extensions that I was previously unaware of, one for Adobe and one for my antivirus for price shopping apparently. I’ve removed both of them, and currently show no other extensions.

Switching back to my primary profile immediately crashes the program still. I’ve tried just clicking on it, and also clicking the Other Profiles cog settings button, followed by the three dots on the primary profile, followed by Edit. Unfortunately both attempts ended in crashes.

EDIT: It took a minute for the Uploaded Crash Report ID to generate. These are the most recent ones with the newest at the top. The top four are the most recent to occur after attempting to switch back to the primary profile. I’ve separated them to make it a little easier.

Uploaded Crash Report ID’s

b9b20000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
b7b20000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
b5b20000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
b4b20000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000

81aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
80aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
7eaa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
7caa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
7baa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
7aaa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
79aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
77aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
74aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
73aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
71aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
6faa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
6daa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
6baa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
6aaa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
68aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
61aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
62aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
64aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
60aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
5eaa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
5caa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
56aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
53aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
51aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
50aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
4faa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
4daa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
4baa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
4aaa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
48aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
47aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
44aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
42aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
41aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
40aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
3eaa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
3daa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
39aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
38aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
31aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
34aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
33aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
32aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
35aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
30aa0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000

[Saoiray]

@QuestioningAttitude okay, so we’ll have @steeven perhaps follow-up with you tomorrow. If nothing else he’ll be able to try to pass those crash report ID to the devs and be able to see what shows up.

In the meanwhile, I’d say to try to continue in with the new profile and see if it works fine. If it continues running, it might just be an idea of where we’ll have to get you to edit files (such as for your extensions) or something. But at least from what we’re seeing, there’s something going on in your initial profile that is causing the crash.

[QuestioningAttitude]

Sounds good! Everything seems to be working alright under the newer profile, but I’ll keep trying to switch to the other one like you said and keep a log of the crash report ID’s just in case. Thank you for your help so far!

[Ren9722]

Hello, @Saoiray. I am having the same issue with my browser on Windows 11. So far I have tried the second solution that you proposed in this post by creating a second profile. I can now access the crash reports, but if I switch back to my old profile it crashes immediately on the opening. Could I send the crash reports IDs so that you can check them?

[Hakaan]

I have the exact same problem. Trying to load my main profile always crashes Brave at startup, but my second profile loads correctly.
So, I suppose it’s related to an extension, but I didn’t install any new extensions before it crashed. My main profile has years of data and customizations, and I really don’t want to lose it.
In my extensions i have : a extension for better viewing of img, tiny url, speed reader, dark reader, google traduction, thereadme (vocal synthesis), reader view, and others i don’t remember

Is there a configuration file for disabling extensions on a profile?

[Saoiray]

@Ren9722

Could I send the crash reports IDs so that you can check them?

@Ren9722 you can copy/paste the Uploaded Crash Report ID here. When Mattches and Steeven check on this tomorrow, they’ll see that information.

@Hakaan

I didn’t install any new extensions before it crashed.

@Hakaan it doesn’t require new extensions. There’s a lot of code between the browser, extensions, websites, etc. All it takes is one of those things to make some sort of change (such as Brave’s new update today, or if perhaps one of the extensions had a recent update) and they can have conflicts with each other that causes crashes or other performance issues.

@Hakaan

Is there a configuration file for disabling extensions on a profile?

Well, extensions are stored C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Default\Extensions on Windows by default. So it’s possible you could just go there and delete to remove it.

There may be other alternatives on trying to figure out your issue, but at least I wanted to try to answer you on that.

[Ren9722]

@Saoiray Thanks for your help. Here are the Uploaded Crash Report IDs:
c4ee0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
c0ee0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
11e30000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
c6e20000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
c2e20000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
c1e20000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
d2df0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
cfdf0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
cddf0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
cadf0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
c7df0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
c4df0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
c3df0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
c1df0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
bbdf0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
b4df0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
4fdd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
4ddd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
4bdd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
4add0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
48dd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
46dd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
44dd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
42dd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
41dd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
40dd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
3edd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
3bdd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
39dd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
34dd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
33dd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
32dd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
32dd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
2fdd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
2edd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
2ddd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
2add0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
26dd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
25dd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
23dd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
21dd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
1fdd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
1edd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
1cdd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
0add0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
08dd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
07dd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
03dd0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
e6dc0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
e4dc0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000

[goodgoodedgood]

Hey all.

Same issue here. None of the above fixes worked for me.

Issue’s occurring on my second profile. Default profile working fine.

Two crash IDs:

94dc0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000
99dc0000-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000

Also, C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Default\Extensions doesn’t seem to exist for me.

For me it’s C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser and within that is only Application folder. If I navigate further into C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\118.1.59.117\Extensions there’s only an extension_extensions.json file.

Hope this issue can be resolved. Blocked on a bit of work.

[Saoiray]

@goodgoodedgood

Also, C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Default\Extensions doesn’t seem to exist for me.

@goodgoodedgood to be clear, username part of it would be your username. So like for me, it was C:\Users\saoir\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Default\Extensions

You saying you don’t have that pathway? Because you should…

[Hakaan]

@Saoiray

Well, extensions are stored C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\Default\Extensions on Windows by default. So it’s possible you could just go there and delete to remove it.

Oh yaaaaah, it worked! You saved my profile. Many thanks!
Now, I just need to reinstall each extension to find out which one is causing Brave to crash. I will let you know if I find

edit : I fixed all extensions one by one, and I no longer have any crashes.

[goodgoodedgood]

Yep apologies, jumped the gun on not locating the folder.

Was aware of the need for my specific username, but I’d neglected to check if Show hidden folders was turned on in File Explore settings. My bad.

Attempting to delete extensions on Profile 2 now. Will report back.

[goodgoodedgood]

Right! It turns out it was the Retrowave browser theme from the Chrome store that I’d installed ages ago.

Discerned by deleting extensions folders one by one until the Profile opened again.

Thanks for your help Saoiray!

[Ren9722]

@ Saoiray, seems that my issue was with one of the extensions as well. I have now fixed it. Thanks for your help.

[Zydrate]

Saved me several hours of frustration. A theme was all it took to cause my brower to break. Thought I’d have to figure out half of the work I had up again from my own memory. Thank you.

[Lonny]

@Saoiray

brave://extensions

I have the same issue. The same version 118.1.59.117.

I cannot open in normal window, but I can open in Private Window.

Though I can open in private window, but I cannot navigate to brave://extensions. The browser will crash right after I navigate to brave://extensions.

My uploaded crash report ID: 3f6e0100-29ee-dc0a-0000-000000000000

[madals]

Same issue as others with instant crashing on load.

I am able to load up a private browsing window and a window with a new profile. Attempting to open the extensions tab via the settings or brave://extensions results in a crash.

brave://crashes can be loaded, below are the IDs

a639245e-a811-4482-a0c7-4dc79499b9de
119892db-4b9b-4a80-8e2d-2a553c2ce461
358f9305-cd19-4d32-8d29-cf7234c1058e