Brave Crashes on Program Initiation

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1

Description of the issue:
I installed Brave, but when I try to start it, it crashes.
How can this issue be reproduced?

  1. After I reinstalled my operating system, I reinstalled Brave
    2 When I click on the icon in the task bar or in the program menu the program begins to start, evidenced by a pane opening in the taskbar
  2. Within a second the program crashes and the pane in the taskbar disappears.

Expected result:
I expected the browser to work, it always worked before on this OS. Everything else on the OS is working.

Brave Version( check About Brave):
Shows as 1.76.74-1 in my package manager
Additional Information:
Using openSuse Tumbleweed. I installed Brave using the commands given on the Brave website.

2

Usually, in a Linux OS command line, you can start Brave Browser with one of the following commands:

brave -n --args --incognito --no-experiments --disable-extensions --disable-gpu --enable-leak-detection --crash-on-failure 2> $HOME/Desktop/brave_console_out.txt

or

brave-browser -n --args --incognito --no-experiments --disable-extensions --disable-gpu --enable-leak-detection --crash-on-failure 2> $HOME/Desktop/brave_console_out.txt

For that command string, the switches are intended to:

  • Start up Brave Browser, showing a New Private Window [--incognito]
  • Disable all experiments at brave://flags [--no-experiments]
  • Disable extensions [--disable-extensions]
  • Disable hardware (GPU) ie Graphic Acceleration [--disable-gpu]
  • Enable leak detection and if that failure occurs, then crash the browser [--enable-leak-detection --crash-on-failure are a combo]
  • Produce error/log output to a file named ā€˜brave_console_out.txtā€™ on the Linux OS Desktop

IF / WHEN BB is running, go to brave://settings/clearBrowserData Advanced tab

Time range: All time

ENABLE:

  • Browsing history
  • Download hsitory
  • Cookies and other site data
  • Cached images and files

Click Clear data

In Brave Browser Settings, DISABLE ALL extensions added by the user. ā€œALLā€ means all of them, added by the user ā† who sometimes will cling to some extensions, and thus fail to properly test the issue.

ENABLE the following, so Brave receives info:

05_Privacy_and_Security_003_Data_Collection
05_Privacy_and_Security_003_Data_Collection1229Ɨ469 62.6 KB

Exit / Quit BB. Test a normal start.

How do I manually submit crash reports?

https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/22281484910221-How-do-I-manually-submit-crash-reports

After you click the ā€œSend Nowā€ button, return to brave://crashes and gather up the Crash ID numbers. Post the numbers, here, in a new reply.

3

It didnā€™t go quite like we hoped. Hereā€™s the results, starting as user, not root:

brave -n --args --incognito --no-experiments --disable-extensions --disable-gpu --enable-leak-detection --crash-on-failure 2> $HOME/Desktop/brave_console_out.txt
brave: command not found

~> brave-browser -n --args --incognito --no-experiments --disable-extensions --disable-gpu --enable-leak-detection --crash-on-failure 2> $HOME/Desktop/brave_console_out.txt

In the second set of commands, nothing happened and the browser didnā€™t start.

Just a thought. When I reinstalled, I formatted root ā€œ/ā€ and reinstalled the operating system. I left ā€œ/homeā€ alone, didnā€™t format it and mounted it. Could Brave have left some configuration in /home from before I reinstalled the OS that is preventing the current install of Brave from launching?

4

@munguanaweza this is way beyond my specialization but I decided to test AI and see if it might be helpful. Response is below on some of its ideas, with it running with the assumptions you tried what 289wk mentioned earlier:

Sure! Hereā€™s a response that builds on what they said without repeating their steps:

It looks like youā€™ve already tried running Brave with debugging flags and checking for issues related to extensions and cached data. Since the issue persists, here are some additional steps that might help:

  1. Check for leftover configuration files
    Since you retained your /home directory when reinstalling the OS, old Brave configurations might be interfering with the new installation. Try renaming the configuration folder and launching Brave again:

    mv ~/.config/BraveSoftware ~/.config/BraveSoftware_backup
brave-browser

    If Brave starts without crashing, the issue was likely caused by corrupted settings or extensions.

  2. Verify Brave installation and dependencies
    Ensure that Brave is correctly installed by running:

    zypper info brave-browser

    If there are issues, try reinstalling it:

    sudo zypper refresh
sudo zypper install --force brave-browser

  3. Check for system errors related to Brave
    If Brave crashes immediately, system logs might have useful information. Run:

    journalctl -xe | grep brave

    Look for any error messages that might indicate whatā€™s going wrong.

  4. Test with a new user account
    If the issue is related to your user profile, a new user account should allow Brave to start normally. To test this:

    sudo useradd -m testuser
sudo passwd testuser
su - testuser
brave-browser

    If Brave works under the new user, the problem is likely related to your current profile.

  5. Ensure openSUSE Tumbleweed is fully updated
    Since Tumbleweed is a rolling-release distribution, package updates can sometimes cause conflicts. Running a full system update might resolve the issue:

    sudo zypper dup
1 Like
5

The above reply aside, I do want to say it would be nice if you can get any crash report info like 289wk had mentioned. Go to brave://crashes and copy/paste any Uploaded Crash Report ID that you can. But of course, to get to that you would need Brave to launchā€¦so may not be possible at this time.

Iā€™ll also tag in @Mattches for now in case he has any better guidance.

6

Thanks for everyoneā€™s help. I had a feeling that there might be some leftover config files in my /home partition that could be causing a problem. But I didnā€™t know where they were located. You pointed me to them, and I deleted the config files for Brave, expecting to just have to reinstall Brave afterwards to generate new config files. After deleting the config files I tried to start Brave without reinstalling, and it started normally. Iā€™m using it now to post to this thread. It was a bit unexpected that I donā€™t have to reinstall Brave, but it works normally now so this issue is solved.

1 Like
7

I did go to brave://crashes to see what crash reports were available. Here is what I found:

Crash reporting is disabled.

Crash reporting is not available in Brave.

Crashes (0) Show developer details

You have no recently reported crashes. Crashes that occurred when crash reporting was disabled will not appear here.

8

@munguanaweza means you disabled it. Under brave://settings/privacy you have a toggle to enable or disable diagnostic reports, which is crash reports. That would have to be enabled for it to upload.

image

Anyway, thatā€™s more for future reference as you have issues as it helps get more specific information for the devs/support.

Glad to hear itā€™s resolved.