I used a rather old android version of brave for a while and have amassed an extreme number of tabs (5 windows with 10000 tabs each). Previously, the browser has handled this large number with no issue.
However, I have decided to update to the latest one on the app store at the time of writing (1.86.140). It was a big mistake, since it can no longer store the tabs in a performant way and now crashes when I try to escape by getting the beta version and attempting to sync. I can’t even delete the tabs unless I want to delete the app’s data, including all the bookmarks and site history.
How should I move forward with this situation? Currently I am just on mobile beta and am manually setting up shop there.
You can try clearing the app cache on your Android system. This will not delete any saved browsing data like bookmarks, passwords, etc. Then test and see if the app performs any better.
Outside of that unfortunately I’m not sure there are many other options if you cannot access the main menu and/or browser settings. I just checked to see if there was a way you can access the settings via URL on Android (same way you would type brave://settings in the desktop browser) but could not find anything.
If clearing the app cache doesn’t improve performance in any way then you might have to consider simply un/reinstalling the browser. However, this would mean losing any/all data contained within the app, since you cannot access the Sync option in Settings to add your device/browser to a Sync chain.
Clearing the cache doesn’t seem to change anything. I think it is best if I open an issue on Github and wait until the situation improves. Like save now decrypt later, I guess.
Actually I might have a proposal to “update” the browser to what is actually an older version. I don’t know what it was exactly, but it still had a square main menu (no rounded corners). I tried to install an apk from the repo but it failed to install as the package installer said the “package appears to be invalid”
Hmm I managed to move to a new 1 tab window by being quick about things. However the freeze conditions still apply even though I am in a fresh window with only 1 tab. The browser seems to be meddling with the inactive windows which seems to be where the issue is coming from.
You’re welcome to do that but the real solution here is to not have 50,000 tabs open. I don’t think the browser (really any browser) is going to run optimally with that many tabs open.
If you can manage to make it to Settings --> Tabs & Tab groups you can tap on the Move to inactive section and select Never such that your open tabs will be automatically moved out of the Inactive tabs section which may allow you to access them. However, again, with so many tabs it might actually make the situation worse. Hard to tell.
That is understandable. My problem is something you’d only see in a math assignment! I did try going to the settings but unfortunately it seems to be directly coupled to the browser freezing. I’ll keep trying though.
Actually, from looking at the situation it seems that the browser is trying to load all these tabs as “active” after the update. I’m not sure if the issue would resolve if the 21 day window passes and they are automatically moved to “inactive”. However this doesn’t seem to explain why the app still gets problems if I open the app using a new window with only 1 tab. Do the background inactive windows still try to load these locally active tabs even though the window they are in is not being used? If the 3 month delete window for inactive tabs is enabled on the browser, which I can’t check, there could be a time limit on the 50,000 tabs!