Brave on macOS crashes regularly

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1

Hi folks,
as requested just the facts:

Description of the issue:
Brave was crashing by itself after ~a day of working fine. This happens in the evening (20:00 - 21:00 CET). Restarting just shows me the warning whether the previous window should be re-opened and crashes again. Recently it started to crash by itself also during the day. I couldn’t find a scheme in it (not on the same websites, no special action (sync etc.)

Steps to Reproduce (add as many as necessary): 1. 2. 3.
Not possible 'cos it is too irregular. But I can send a crash report.
It does NOT have something to do with visiting certain websites!

Actual Result (gifs and screenshots are welcome!):
???

Expected result:
Just open as expected

Reproduces how often:
Daily, if not every few hours.

Operating System and Brave Version(See the About Brave page in the main menu):
macOS 10.13.6
Brave 1.2.43
But also happens with the latest Brave Browser Nightly

Additional Information:
I do not use Braves bookmark sync but floccus https://github.com/marcelklehr/floccus
All extensions:
Tabs to Front v2
floccus 3.5.3
uBlock Origin 1.24.2
Nimbus Screenshot & Screen Video Recorder 9.0.3
Adblock Plus 3.7
But disabling them doesn’t fix the problem!

It CAN be fixed by restarting the whole computer and clearing the whole SYSTEM CACHE (starting in Safe Boot by holding down Shift, then restart immediately).
So it seems to me that Brave is storing something in Cache which either becomes too large or can’t be read by Brave at a certain point.

These are the Crash report-IDs:
5ade982b-93b0-4378-9106-1749c11a3c7e
19f236e8-1927-455d-a977-8ff6adae8873
a0d80cf2-0cf0-4cb0-99eb-07ecc5c9fb2c
6344841f-1cdf-488a-8b98-b01d8067e6f1
129bec63-2cf5-4284-877c-e0d7fa74aa14
but I’m not sure what “(upload requested by user, not yet uploaded)” means…

My Questions

  1. How can I clear Braves cache w/o restarting the whole System (I mean the one which is set by Brave but cleared by Safe Boot)
  2. How can I nail down the issue?
  3. Is there a “Safe mode” as in FF where the Browser starts temporarily w/ extensions of and cache cleared?

I’d be grateful if you could shed some light into my darkness! I’d love to use Brave!

2

Hi @Aa-ron - would you be able to take a look at this when you have a moment?

1 Like
3

@Aa-ron: May I ask you if there is any chance to get a feedback?
Brave is crashing now after 1-2 hours watching video.

The only way to reset it is described above. This makes Brave useless!

4

Hi @pixi,

Apologies for the late reply, we appreciate your patience.
If you go to brave://settings/clearBrowserData, you can set Brave to clear data on exit. Can you try to run Brave using a private window?
Brave does not have a safe mode, however, you can try opening a private window or creating a new profile, that’ll give you a sort of ‘safe mode’ start in terms of no history/extensions.

5

Hi @Aa-ron,
thank you for your response.
I’m already clearing all caches on exit, except Login and Auto-Fill data.
I will test a whole day with Private winsows only and report back.

Best
pixi

1 Like
6

@Aa-ron: After various attempts w/ private windows etc. I figured out that Brave is not deleting all Cache files, as I would assume. The ~/Library/Caches/BraveSoftware folder remains, no matter how Brave is configured.
Removing that folder doesn’t fix the problem (B still crashing), but removing that folder AND logging out and back in works!
This means it is (still) a caching/memory issue.

I also send new crash reports:
a6a8300f-6dce-47f8-8df2-1cd25865a43f
5c9dfdea-81f5-4f2d-8233-c7bf3725c212
c7462efd-d86d-4cd9-b217-d1f0d008c731

Does all that help you to fix that problem?

7

@steeven @Aa-ron Sorry to bump you but did you have the time to look into that? Are the crash logs of any help?
I have the impression Braves behaviour get’s worse and worse. It doesn’t start anymore after the first Quit, no matter how long I used it.

8

Hello,

After trying to isolate this issue for months now, I think, I stumbled on it.

Brave crashes on my mac when accessibility keyboard is enabled.
This happens consistently and is reproduceable every time.

1/ Enable Accessibility keyboard in mac Settings
2/ Open Brave
3/ Brave crashes (give or take a few seconds)

But if I disable the accessibility keyboard in mac Settings, then Brave works just fine, as I am typing this on Brave with the accessibility keyboard disabled.

I am going to find all the reports regarding this issue and paste this response, hoping that the Devs would notice this and do something about it, as it looks like the mac crash issue is being summarily ignored.

I’m new to Brave and I’ve been trying to use this browser for more than a couple of months now.
This is the first time that Brave hasn’t crashed within a few seconds (currently accessibility keyboard disabled in settings).

Brave version: 1.4.95
Macos Catalina: 10.15.3

Kindly acknowledge that someone is working on this issue, I’d like to know whether I should give up on Brave even before I can use it.

9

@randomshear The " accessibility keyboard "issues has nothing to do with this topic!
The crashing as described is memory/cache related and despite plenty of asking again and sending crash reports and PNs I got no answer by neither @Aa-ron nor @steeven

This is really dissappointing!

EDIT: This was closed due to readable reasons. Discussion continues here: Brave on macOS crashes regularly - Still!