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Description of the issue:
The browser crashes, causing all tabs to be permanently destroyed. There is seemingly no record of them existing or working way to recover or see what they were.
This happens when opening several tabs quickly (e.g. opening 5 pages in the background). Youtube is provided as an example but other unoptimized sites can also do this for images or even text in some cases. I think it’s related to how heavy the site is, so lots of javascript worsens the problem, which is often more present on desktop versions of sites compared to the lighter mobile version. However mobile sites can still crash.
How can this issue be reproduced?
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Must use an iPad, NOT iPhone.
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Navigate to e.g. Youtube, preferably in desktop mode for recreation purposes
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Click on a video thumbnail and open it in a background tab
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Repeat step 3 approximately 10 to 20 times
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Observe the browser MAY start displaying visual glitches, clicking on thumbnails might take longer or start selecting instead of opening a context menu, and general slowness might be noticable
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Observe the browser quickly close
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Re-open brave browser on the ipad
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Normally there is a popup in the top right allowing you to restore tabs in this situation due to a crash. However, this popup may not exist. If it DOES exist, go ahead and try to restore tabs.
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In both diverging paths of step 8, observe the same conclusion in step 9: No tabs are restored in either normal or private tabs
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Try to restore previously closed tabs on the ipad.
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Observe tabs from the crashed session are not restored.
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Note, the rest of these steps are optional for more debug info: ON A SEPARATE DEVICE THAT IS CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET AND linked to the sync chain…
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From step 12: observe there is no recoverable tab information.
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Refer again to setup of step 12 on yet another new device that does NOT actively have brave browser open as the primary (syncable) view… DISABLE ALL NETWORK COMMS including wifi, cellular, (bluetooth, airplay, etc.)
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Observe, before it can refresh the sync information, that there was verified sync data available
Note, this also appears to happen sometimes when happy path upgrading brave browser through the apple app store as well. Sync chain remains active, but session data is unrecoverable destroyed.
Unverified note: Destroyed data might be missing from history in some instances. This is absolutely not confirmed yet but is a suspicion I’m trying to test. This gets confusing because of multi device syncing in my setup and how history timestamps are written and recorded by brave.
Expected result:
- (Difficult fix) Browser can avoid crashing better. Iphone brave appears to not have unrecoverable crashes.
- (Significantly easier workaround) Browser tabs are stored in a way that can be recovered in the event of severe crashes.
- (Workaround 2) Sync chain data can be recovered in the event of a severe crash, possibly using a bookmark-like feature
- (Workaround 3) A toggleable-in-settings warning is displayed to the user for manual action such as bookmarking all tabs when Brave app detects an imminent crash
Brave Version( check About Brave): Version 1.75 (179)
BraveCore 1.75.179 (133.0.6943.98)
Device iPad14,10 (iPadOS 18.3.1)
Mobile Device details
iPadOS 18.3.1 (22D72)
iPad Air 13-inch (M2)
Additional Information:
I could not recreate on multiple iPhone installs or multiple windows, mac, linux installs of Brave. This is only reproducable on iPad where it frequently occurs when quickly opening several tabs (between 5 and 50).
This occurs more quickly when opening tabs quickly. Taking long pauses between opening tabs is more stable. As a result, I think this might be performance-stability related.
I have recreated this in private browsing and normal browsing.
I have recreated this with adblocking disabled.