Brave crashes immediately after opening it

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1

Description of the issue: Everytime I open the Brave browser, around 5-10 seconds later, it suddenly crashes for no reason. I have used Brave for the past 5-6 months before this, and it was working fine.
How can this issue be reproduced?: Not sure exactly. The browser started doing this today, right after I had restarted my computer for another unrelated reason.

Brave Version( check About Brave): It appears to be 1.77.95. However, it says it is updating Brave during the brief time period when I can keep the Brave browser opened, before it crashes for no reason.

Additional Information: I use MacOS (version 13.5). I have no extensions on Brave, and it does not generate a crash report on brave://crashes for some reason. Additionally, opening a Brave private window doesn’t help. Using a test profile (opening through terminal) doesn’t work either.

2

@Calc99

Versions of Brave Browser stable releases:

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/blob/master/CHANGELOG_DESKTOP.md

Click on the latest Brave Browser version number; and in the resulting window:

Scroll down to and click on:

Screen Shot 2025-02-18 at 7.33.44 AM

BEFORE you run the installer, delete the following 3 items:

The BraveSofware folder at:

  • /Users/username/Library/Caches/BraveSoftware/

The com.brave.Browser folder at:

  • /Users/username/Library/Caches/com.brave.Browser/

The com.brave.Browser.savedState folder at:

  • /Users/username/Library/Saved Application State/com.brave.Browser.savedState/

Exit / Quit BB. And I would restart your Mac. Then try the installer.

Where Brave Browser has usually been installed on the Mac:

/Applications/Brave Browser.app

/Users/username/Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/

/Users/username/Library/Application Support/CrashReporter/Brave Browser ... .plist

/Users/username/Library/BraveSoftware/

/Users/username/Library/Caches/BraveSoftware/

/Users/username/Library/Caches/com.brave.Browser/

/Users/username/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Brave Browser ... .crash

/Users/username/Library/Preferences/com.brave.Browser.plist

/Users/username/Library/Saved Application State/com.brave.Browser.savedState/

And the “Brave Browser … .diag” reports within:

/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/

You might not find:

/Users/username/Library/BraveSoftware

. . . do not worry about that.

Anytime you want to start up and run Brave Browser (for MacOS) without burdens, use the following command in the MacOS Terminal.app window:

  • open -a "Brave Browser.app" -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 ‘brave_console_out.txt’ on the MacOS Desktop

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 “Send Now” button, return to brave://crashes and gather up the Crash ID numbers. Post the numbers, here, in a new reply.

You might monitor the Developer Tools window > Network tab, to see what might be hanging, looping, or stumped.

How to use Developer Tools:

Developer Tools > Network:

Developer_Tools_-Application-_Cookies__example_Amazon.com_00
Developer_Tools_-Application-_Cookies__example_Amazon.com_00545×248 43.7 KB

You might check the “Disable cache” box.

Monitor the MacOS Activity Monitor, and the Brave Browser Task Manager.

Brave causes MacOS to crash upon browser start - way to recover tabs/bookmarks/settings?
3

Hey - thanks for the reply. I did reinstall the browser’s latest version as you instructed, and I made sure to delete the folders before installing. However, it still crashes on startup. When I ran the below on terminal, nothing happened. The browser didn’t open.

Also, I do not see any crash reports on brave://crashes. What I see is below:

image
image1336×1240 112 KB

As can be seen in the image, no crash reports came today, when this problem started.

4

@Calc99 can you test the Beta build of the browser and see if this also crashes/closes after launching in the same way?

Browser not launching
5

Hey - the beta build does appear to be working without crashing! How can I get the main brave browser app to work given this?

6

@Calc99 is there browsing data that you need to keep from the original installation? I ask because you may need to delete the entire Brave browser data folder, as whatever is causing the crash could be contained within your browser profile.

7

No, I can delete any browsing data necessary. Though, I already did delete my original app and reinstall the app (making sure to delete cache) as to follow @289wk’s instructions.

8

Try uninstalling again and then also make sure to delete the Brave Browser folder in
/Users/[your user name]/Library/Application Support.

Let me know if this resolves the issue for you.

9

Hey - Yes, I believe Brave is working again. Thanks!

1 Like
10

You’re welcome, glad that did the trick :+1: