We should have something in the crash reporter/dialog that detects 2 or 3 (or more?) startup crashes in a row and throws up a different dialog with a "startup crash hotline" email address (and a link to a special live chat room that we monitor 24x7). It might also be helpful in this new dialog to give them the option of auto-submitting more detailed information for debugging (profile, list of files and checksums, other installed apps, etc). This would help us debug hard-to-reproduce startup crashes that make Firefox unusable.

Expanding on the detailed info, it is my understanding that some startup crashes are too early to get the list of extensions. If we had some other way to gather and send that info we would be a lot better off...

staffing a 24x7x365 for an effort like that might be a challenge. a quick count where "time since last crash" is less than 30 second helps to extimate what the numbers might look like I get 29,095 of such crashes on sept9 tops on the list are: 1221 RtlEnterCriticalSection 1066 \N 778 UserCallWinProcCheckWow 728 SkypeFfComponent.dll@0x440c3 685 js::Interpret(JSContext*) 661 nssTrustDomain_LockCertCache 490 nsFrame::BoxReflow(nsBoxLayoutState&, nsPresContext*, nsHTMLReflowMetrics&, nsIRenderingContext*, int, int, int, int, int) 436 _PR_MD_SEND 329 arena_dalloc_small | arena_dalloc | free | XPT_DestroyArena 285 nsWindowWatcher::OpenWindowJSInternal(nsIDOMWindow*, char const*, char const*, char const*, int, nsIArray*, int, nsIDOMWindow**) 247 nsHttpChannel::ContinueProcessResponse(unsigned int) 236 BaseThreadStart 228 connect 212 vksaver.dll@0x3064 200 _PR_MD_RECV 180 nsDocShell::EnsureContentViewer() 177 nsChromeTreeOwner::OnLocationChange(nsIWebProgress*, nsIRequest*, nsIURI*) 168 MultiByteToWideChar 161 nsComponentManagerImpl::KnownModule::Description() 151 cairo_d2d_present_backbuffer 150 Resize 123 strchr | XPT_DoCString 114 js_XDRBlockObject 112 compileBranch 110 nsTHashtable<nsCookieEntry>::s_HashKey(PLDHashTable*, void const*) 109 js_DeepBail(JSContext*) 107 sqlite3VdbeExec 106 Pltfrm.dll@0x3daf5 106 KERNELBASE.dll@0xb727 101 GoogleDesktopMozilla.dll@0x5512 96 _VEC_memzero 89 isPromoteInt 89 @0x0 | SkypeFfComponent.dll@0x440c3 88 js_InflateString 87 avgxpl.dll@0x23c54 Just looking at some of those top crashes we would be using interactive sessions to try and get people to update to latest skype, or tell skype to fix their crashers, and there would be 100's or 1000's of other sessions where the kind of input we might get back would be "it just crashed when I started", and not useful. I think we should also think about building in some kind of sampling or other checks on availability of people to help try and diagnose if we did something like this. That might be the only way for it to scale to the kind of community and paid staff that we could organize and sustain. Staffing to the level of just responding to people that are already putting comments and requesting or offering help in the current crash reports might be another way to start this. I think its probably a pretty good challenge just to respond to those and might help us to figure out the scope of a project like this. 17 people said "please help" yesterday time_since_last_crash signature comment \N nsPluginInstanceOwner::Paint(tagRECT const&, HDC__*) i was installing something then all of a sudden it crashed! | | please help me! \N sqlite3VdbeExec Please help 1 nsStyleSet::FileRules(int (*)(nsIStyleRuleProcessor*, void*), RuleProcessorData*, nsRuleWalker*) ça m'énerve un peu depuis quelques temps il fait des siennes | please help me thanks a lot 10 JS_ResumeRequest Hi, every time I start playing the mafia wars game by zinga in facebook the browser will crash. | Please help! 13 avgxpl.dll@0x23c54 I've repeatedly tried to start your program to no success. Please help! 24 F1641138502_________________________ it keeps crashing please help its never done it before please fix it thankyou. 28 XUL@0x7e970c Please help. The Firefox crashed and I can not get it back. I keep asking for it to restart but when it does there is only a BLANK page. No way to get into it. This is the second time that I've reported it. 42 mcbrwctl.dll@0x35d85 No idea why problem happend please help if possible 54 nsFrame::BoxReflow(nsBoxLayoutState&, nsPresContext*, nsHTMLReflowMetrics&, nsIRenderingContext*, int, int, int, int, int) Firefox is not working. The report says it had a problem and crashed. Please help us to fix it. 83 nsFrame::BoxReflow(nsBoxLayoutState&, nsPresContext*, nsHTMLReflowMetrics&, nsIRenderingContext*, int, int, int, int, int) I could not install new version of Mozilla Firefox, please help. 108 nsTHashtable<CategoryLeaf>::s_HashKey(PLDHashTable*, void const*) my mozilla firefox has stoped working please help me fix it 171 sqlite3Step for the last week Firefox has been crashing every 5 minutes or so, please help! 186 UserCallWinProcCheckWow Firefox is not known for this type of crashes. Each time I attempt another window, it crashes. Please help fix this. 220 nsFrame::BoxReflow(nsBoxLayoutState&, nsPresContext*, nsHTMLReflowMetrics&, nsIRenderingContext*, int, int, int, int, int) my program mozilla dont woriking.I dont know what can I do, please help me thanks!! 437 NPSWF32.dll@0xf3b08 fire fox crashed had some kind of problem please help the problem 600 nsChromeTreeOwner::OnLocationChange(nsIWebProgress*, nsIRequest*, nsIURI*) mozila has crashed please help me 2110 UserCallWinProcCheckWow please help 2821 wcscpy Why does Firefox keep crashing? I can't work like this. Yesterday, I had a McAfee rep uninstall and reinstall McAfee because there was some problem. They tell me now I should uninstall Firefox and reinstall. I don't have the time to be doing this every day! Please help. 3150 _PR_MD_SEND it just crashed please help thank you 4685 CFStringGetLength I started receiving this yesterday after four software updates which were: | | IWeb Update 3.0.2 | iTunes 10 | Safari 5.0.2 | MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.9 | | Please help as Firefox has all my stored favourites. | | Cheers | | David 7006 SocketSend Please help me get it back. I can't get on internet. Need for business. What is going on with Firefox? Fix!!!!!! 70128 Load I can't open mozila,please help me!!!! 75630 MWSBAR.DLL@0x46d27 oh please wont u fix this. every time im on fb farmville trying to send friends gifts, it crashes. and i do mean every time. its really getting old now. please help me. 87178 WrappedNativeMarker facebook.com | adobe flasher 10.1 is the problem always is crash with mozilla 10 times or more in 2 hours please help I reload the plugin and restart the adobe flash but nothing work please 141643 \N every time I log in firefox crashes please help... 2762135 agcore.dll@0xfced6 this is a reoccuring problem! How do I fix this??!! It just shuts off when I need it the most. It doesn't seem to matter which website I am on because it has been so random. please help!

a slightly different way to approach this might be to develop a "smart crash analysis addon" that addon might look at the set of crashes submitted by a user then determine frequency and type of crash and collect up additional information that could help us to diagnose, then prompt the user for any extra commmets and then send n this additional layer of crash data. the addon would upload and pump this into a database (maybe test pilot?) for an extra level of statistical examination. once we worked out the process we could consider adding this as a default for all users. we should also try and get this project going that would add more context to each of the individual crash reports --> [Bug 574174] track garbage collection, memory use, as measures of user activity and send as part of crash reports. both of these together would help to fill in the gaps we have around understanding crashes.

more on the sampling idea in comment 2. 26 people said "please help" yesterday - 21 w/e-mail 55 people said "every time" -- 23 w/e-mail we could probably figure out how to mine similar comment statements to expand the set of "interesting people" to reach out to within the current set of data that we have.

One thing we're talking about during the SUMO workweek (we're crystallizing the idea so it's kinda fuzzy) is to have a repair utility built into the installer for cases like this. Adding support for analyzing crashes etc would definitely fit into that.

Mining comments may work. I don't think an add-on would help in the case I am thinking of. I want to specifically deal with start-up crashes, as those cause people to stop using Firefox and we get virtually no data other than crash reports and comments. So an extension wouldn't work in those cases. I'm not trying to solve the general "we need more information about a crash problem", just trying to allow people completely unable to use their browser to tell us about it (and hopefullt get their issue fixed) without switching to another browser (temporarily and/or permanently). I also understand with the scope we deal with it is probably unrealistic to expect humans to be super involved let alone 24x7 coverage...