(SOLVED) Browser keeps crashing on android + windows

Description of issue: my browser keeps crashing on my phone and my laptop, i’ll open it up and use it for a few seconds before it crashes and i can’t do anything with it, this started happening today and i have no idea why

Steps to Reproduce:

  1. open browser
  2. wait 10-15 seconds
  3. hard crash

Actual Result (gifs and screenshots are welcome!): on my phone, the “unfortunately, brave has stopped” dialogue pops up for a split second but i can’t interact with it because it closes by itself, on windows the browser just crashes

Expected result: using brave like normal to browse the web and watch youtube

Reproduces how often: every time i open the browser for the past couple of hours on either device

Operating System and Brave Version(See the About Brave page in the main menu): windows 10 version 21h2 build 19044.1741 and brave version 1.39.122 ; android 12 may security patch and brave version 1.39.120

Additional Information: the browser worked fine yesterday on both devices, but this has been going on ever since about 12pm pacific on both devices, however brave on my ipod is unaffected

@scrunchycrunch

Common factor possibility: Sync Chain

Are you willing to dismantle that?

I do not use extensions other than what are built into Brave Browser. But I wonder, if an extension for Brave Browser on your Windows OS machine, might have been automatically updated?

Or, an automatic update of some kind, for one of the devices in your Sync Chain (if that chain exists), might have upset the whole?

Of course, as much as you dare to clear cache, cookies, history, site and web data . . . then do so. (brave://settings/clearBrowserData - examine all 3 tabs, there)

Disable ‘Use secure DNS’ (brave://settings/security)

Test, using private windows, private browsing only.

Test: Turn OFF VPN - if using.

i’ll see what i can do regarding that, but if it was a sync issue wouldn’t it also affect my ios browser? out of all the 3i use it’s the only one that isn’t crashing. but it is a good suggestion though, i’ll see if it’ll even let me manage that before it crashes lol

i tried all of those steps, disabling the sync chain didn’t help and clearing the browsing data didn’t help, the browser still crashes in private mode, and i don’t have a vpn enabled so i’m at a bit of a loss for what to do now

@scrunchycrunch

Android and Windows OS are both using Chromium -based browsers. iOS (iPad) is not.

There are Brave Browser Component updates that occur, outside of the ‘normal’ routine updates of the browser itself.

The AdBlock Component for Brave Browser, is the ‘cffkpbalmllkdoenhmdmpbkajipdjfam’ folder, located at:

Windows OS

  • C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data\cffkpbalmllkdoenhmdmpbkajipdjfam\

Try . . .

  • Exit / Quit Brave Browser
  • Move the ‘cffkpbalmllkdoenhmdmpbkajipdjfam’ folder to the computer Desktop
  • Start up Brave Browser
  • Test your Brave Browser issue

Upon Startup, a new/replacement AdBlock Component will be installed - replacing that which you removed for the test.

no, that didn’t work either unfortunately

@scrunchycrunch

Test Disable / Remove for all extensions. Add back 1 extension at-a-time.

Particularly: Anti-Virus, Ad-Blocking -type extensions.

Particularly: ‘Internet security’ -type extensions.

Check for firewall blocking.

Try a new Profile

In the Believe It or Not category:

i’ve figured out what the problem is, it’s something to do with brave news, i turned it off on my phone and it’s working now, but i can’t turn it off on my computer because it crashes as soon as i get into the news settings. one of my sources must have been hijacked because it doesn’t crash my ipod, it just causes the newsfeed to not load

@scrunchycrunch

Try starting Brave Browser from the command line:

  • "C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\brave.exe" --incognito

but that doesn’t help me get into my settings to disable my news sources trying to figure out which one has gone rogue aside from doing a clean reinstall of brave on both devices to get rid of all the custom news sources i’ve added and losing all the bat i’ve generated so far

@scrunchycrunch

that’s somewhat close to my problem but i managed to figure out a solution completely by accident lol

a couple of my custom news sources got corrupted in a way that only affects chromium and causes it to crash, which is why my ipod wasn’t affected by it since every browser on ios is just safari in a funny moustache.
my laptop is a beat up old surface pro 3 and while i woke it up to use it my wireless driver crashed causing my wifi to stop working, but since it was offline i got the affected rss feeds removed and now the crashing has stopped. then i put my phone in airplane mode and got rid of them there and that’s also stopped the crashing. it’s frankly bizarre

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@scrunchycrunch

To be clear, “it crashes” refers to Brave Browser. Correct?

And, if you think of a more accurate topic title, given what you discovered and also solved, might you update your topic title?

Thank you for keeping after, finding a solution.

i should have been more clear, “it crashes” is talking about brave, yes.

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