Is this an opera bug that you can reproduce on Windows?

Does Opera crash on you when/if you do these two things at the same time?
(latest Opera version 46.0.2597.39)

0. Create three duplicate default Opera shortcuts
1. This works alone to bring up Opera in private-browsing mode:
Change the "Properties" of the "Target" in the first Opera shortcut:
from: C:\Program Files\Opera\launcher.exe
to: C:\Program Files\Opera\launcher.exe -private
2. This works alone to bring up Opera in the "Clear Browsing Data" page:
Change the "Start" page (opera://settings/startup) of Opera to
opera://settings/clearBrowserData
3. Put them together on the 3rd shortcut causes Opera to crash every time.

Does that happen with you?
Is it a bug?

RS Wood wrote:

Does Opera crash on you when/if you do these two things at the same time?
(latest Opera version 46.0.2597.39)

0. Create three duplicate default Opera shortcuts
1. This works alone to bring up Opera in private-browsing mode:
Change the "Properties" of the "Target" in the first Opera shortcut:
from: C:\Program Files\Opera\launcher.exe
to: C:\Program Files\Opera\launcher.exe -private
2. This works alone to bring up Opera in the "Clear Browsing Data" page:
Change the "Start" page (opera://settings/startup) of Opera to
opera://settings/clearBrowserData
3. Put them together on the 3rd shortcut causes Opera to crash every time.

Does that happen with you?
Is it a bug?

I don't use Opera but I have to wonder about trying to display an
internal web page for a mode that deliberately doesn't cache anything.
How can you clear a cache that doesn't exist?

What happens when you:
- Load Opera in its private mode (use the -private switch).
- Then enter opera://settings/clearBrowserData in its address bar.

While in its private mode, will Opera load that internal web page?

By the way, Opera does have its own newsgroup. It's over at ---.
..---------------------------------------------------------------'
'--- opera.general

On 7/23/2017 10:55 PM, RS Wood wrote:
Does Opera crash on you when/if you do these two things at the same time?
(latest Opera version 46.0.2597.39)

0. Create three duplicate default Opera shortcuts
1. This works alone to bring up Opera in private-browsing mode:
Change the "Properties" of the "Target" in the first Opera shortcut:
from: C:\Program Files\Opera\launcher.exe
to: C:\Program Files\Opera\launcher.exe -private
2. This works alone to bring up Opera in the "Clear Browsing Data" page:
Change the "Start" page (opera://settings/startup) of Opera to
opera://settings/clearBrowserData
3. Put them together on the 3rd shortcut causes Opera to crash every time.

Does that happen with you?
Is it a bug?

I see 3 to 4 large white rectangles (but never a proper browser) quickly
flash then disappear. In the task manager I see 1 to 4 opera.exe, then
temporarily 3 or 4 opera_crashreporter.exe, then the crash reporters
disappear and I see 1 to 3 iterations of opera.exe, but no brwoser
windows visible.

windows 7 x64 Ultimate

Version: 46.0.2597.57 (PGO) - Opera is up to date
Update stream: Stable
System: Windows 7 64-bit (WoW64)

RS Wood wrote:
Does Opera crash on you when/if you do these two things at the same time?
(latest Opera version 46.0.2597.39)

0. Create three duplicate default Opera shortcuts
1. This works alone to bring up Opera in private-browsing mode:
Change the "Properties" of the "Target" in the first Opera shortcut:
from: C:\Program Files\Opera\launcher.exe
to: C:\Program Files\Opera\launcher.exe -private
2. This works alone to bring up Opera in the "Clear Browsing Data" page:
Change the "Start" page (opera://settings/startup) of Opera to
opera://settings/clearBrowserData
3. Put them together on the 3rd shortcut causes Opera to crash every time.

Does that happen with you?
Is it a bug?

To save you some work, this is the wrong
way to do it.

*Never* trust the "clearBrowserData" function of a modern
browser. At one time, there was only the Cookie file, and
as users we used to laugh and thumb our noses at the
advertisers, who just had their Cookies deleted. The
function included in the browser back then, was an honest
one. It did what it said it would do. The users were happy.

Well, the advertisers got even. When they say "Please leave
your cookies enabled", in fact they don't store anything
in the Cookie file. Because their feelings were hurt,
when we deleted the Cookies on them.

Instead, they use the DOM storage space. And the files associated
with that, many of them are an assortment of database files.
They can also use Adobe Flash storage space, which contains
similar storage silos.

Now, the sad part, is *some* modern browsers, when you select
"clear private data", they do sweet **** all. Absolutely
nothing is deleted. It's all still there.

*******

To put a stop to this, that's why CCleaner and BleachBit
were invented. By using third-party cleaning tools, they're
not nearly as bashful about cleaning out DOM storage for you.

So you should really be writing a short script or BAT file
of some sort, which includes a cleaning step first, followed
by a regular URL open operation.

I don't bother with the automation as described, and
I just remove stuff by hand - to stay in practice.

One day, I got a little too carried away, and managed to
delete all the bookmark icons on a browser. Those are
the perils of the game... At least I didn't blow up
the bookmarks themselves. It's been a while since I
exported all the bookmarks, for safe keeping. Even MSEdge
can Export bookmarks now.

Paul

Paul wrote:

*Never* trust the "clearBrowserData" function of a modern
browser.

That's good advice Paul but I'm trying to accomplish something deeper (and
far more important) than what you've ever heard anyone ever do before (who
is seemingly just clearing their cache).

Maybe you can help me help us?

Unless someone here knows something I don't know, there is no other known
way to force SurfEasy to regenerate the Opera unique "Device-ID" than to
delete the "Third party services data".

Similarly, I hope someone knows far more than I do, but if they don't, then
there is no other known way to force the Opera domain to regenerate the
Opera unique "Subscriber-ID" than to delete both the "Browsing history" and
the "Cached images and files" data.

https://www.surfeasy.com/terms_of_service/
http://help.opera.com/opera/Windows/...ivate.html#vpn
http://www.opera.com/privacy
http://www.opera.com/privacy/computers

I know that some people, not you Paul - but those who can't hope to solve
technical problems - will instantly say to never use Opera - but Opera has
unique value that no other browser has, and, anyway, if we never solved
privacy problems with browsers, we'd have zero browsers to use.

Mike S wrote:

I see 3 to 4 large white rectangles (but never a proper browser) quickly
flash then disappear. In the task manager I see 1 to 4 opera.exe, then
temporarily 3 or 4 opera_crashreporter.exe, then the crash reporters
disappear and I see 1 to 3 iterations of opera.exe, but no brwoser
windows visible.

windows 7 x64 Ultimate

Version: 46.0.2597.57 (PGO) - Opera is up to date
Update stream: Stable
System: Windows 7 64-bit (WoW64)

Thank you for reproducing the crash and for delving deeper than I could
into what else was happening.

I saw exactly the same flash and crash and I was on Windows 10 64 bit with
the latest Opera installed.

VanguardLH wrote:

I don't use Opera but I have to wonder about trying to display an
internal web page for a mode that deliberately doesn't cache anything.

Opera has two unique ID strings, one generated by the Opera domain, called
the "Subscriber-ID" and the other generated by the SurfEasy domain, called
the "Device-ID", both of which are "reset" by clearing the cache.

How can you clear a cache that doesn't exist?

The goal is to reset the Opera unique "Device-ID" which is only cleared
when you wipe out the "Third party services data" and the Opera unique
"Subscriber-ID" which is only cleared when you wipe out both the "Browsing
history" and the "Cached images and file" data.

What happens when you:
- Load Opera in its private mode (use the -private switch).
- Then enter opera://settings/clearBrowserData in its address bar.

Works fine.

You can test it by starting Opera and typing control+shift+n to open a new
window in private browsing mode, and then by going to the URL
opera://settings/clearBrowserData

While in its private mode, will Opera load that internal web page?

Nope.
In private mode, that stuff is still being saved while you're using it.
I don't know exactly what is not saved when you close private mode though.
But you don't have to check anything for this to happen.
Or you can check everything, and this will still happen.

I was just curious if it was only me.

RS Wood wrote:

While in its private mode, will Opera load that internal web page?

Nope.
In private mode, that stuff is still being saved while you're using it.
I don't know exactly what is not saved when you close private mode though.
But you don't have to check anything for this to happen.
Or you can check everything, and this will still happen.

I was just curious if it was only me.

To clarify, Opera has no problem loading that internal settings page
opera://settings/clearBrowserData

Whether you're in private mode or in regular mode.

But if you put them together, with a bit of automation (as described in the
OP), then Opera flashes and crashes on both Windows 7 x64 (thanks Mike S.)
and Windows 10 x64 (my test).

Did anyone test on x32 Windows XP?

RS Wood wrote:

Mike S wrote:

I see 3 to 4 large white rectangles (but never a proper browser) quickly
flash then disappear. In the task manager I see 1 to 4 opera.exe, then
temporarily 3 or 4 opera_crashreporter.exe, then the crash reporters
disappear and I see 1 to 3 iterations of opera.exe, but no brwoser
windows visible.

windows 7 x64 Ultimate

Version: 46.0.2597.57 (PGO) - Opera is up to date
Update stream: Stable
System: Windows 7 64-bit (WoW64)

Thank you for reproducing the crash and for delving deeper than I could
into what else was happening.

I saw exactly the same flash and crash and I was on Windows 10 64 bit with
the latest Opera installed.

Does Opera upload the crash reports? For Firefox, and with reporting
enabled, you can retrieve the crash report to see what it says happened.

In Firefox, you go to about:crashes and click on a crash report ID
string which is a hyperlink to the online copy of the report. Or go to
about:crashes, copy the crash report ID string, and enter it in the
search box at https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/home/product/Firefox. The
option to submit crash reports was disabled when I installed Firefox so
there are several unsubmitted reports (so they won't be online). About
half a year ago, I decided to enable them. I've only had 2 crashes
since then and both were caused by the Flash plug-in (or perhaps the
plugin-container.exe process used to sandbox the Flash plug-in).

Does Opera have anything like that for crash reporting? Might be
something you have to enable in opera://flags. Or maybe under Settings
- Privacy & Security.

http://help.opera.com/FreeBSD/12.00/en/crash.html

That says you get a dialog prompting you to send the crash report.
Well, if Opera dies immediately on load then it probably cannot load the
code to present the dialog; however, maybe it is still capable of doing
the crash logging. I've read reports by other users on Opera crashing
on load but they noted the crash report dialog appeared.

Mike mentioned seeing crash_reporter.exe processes so Opera detected a
fault, started that ancilliary process, and tried or did a crash report
submit. When you load Opera (without trying to make it crash), does
crash_reporter.exe show up? Could be it's background process(es)
monitoring the opera.exe process(es).

VanguardLH wrote:

Does Opera upload the crash reports? For Firefox, and with reporting
enabled, you can retrieve the crash report to see what it says happened.
Yes. I think.
There is a "opera_crashreporter.exe" in the opera version directory
C:\Program Files\Opera\46.0.2597.57\opera_crashreporter.exe


Does Opera have anything like that for crash reporting? Might be
something you have to enable in opera://flags. Or maybe under Settings
- Privacy & Security.

This "opera_crashreporter.exe" seems to run when the crash occurs.

While nobody responded on the opera.general newsgroup, we can hope that the
opera developers have the crash report in their hands.

http://help.opera.com/FreeBSD/12.00/en/crash.html
That says you get a dialog prompting you to send the crash report.

I did not get a dialog though.

Well, if Opera dies immediately on load then it probably cannot load the
code to present the dialog; however, maybe it is still capable of doing
the crash logging. I've read reports by other users on Opera crashing
on load but they noted the crash report dialog appeared.

Since Opera flashes and crashes without actually ever coming up, I can't
tell you how far it gets into the reporting process.

Mike mentioned seeing crash_reporter.exe processes so Opera detected a
fault, started that ancilliary process, and tried or did a crash report
submit. When you load Opera (without trying to make it crash), does
crash_reporter.exe show up? Could be it's background process(es)
monitoring the opera.exe process(es).

I see the crash reporter "doing something" but it flashes quickly by so I
can't delve deeper. Mike seems to have a better handle on the issue which
is reproducible.

Since my goal is to clear the unique Subscriber-ID generated sequentially
by the Opera domain and to clear the Device-ID which is generated based on
hardware information by the SurfEasy domain, I have to choose one or the
other.

Either put Opera in private mode or delete all browsing data including the
three items that matter.

Clearing "Third party services data" resets the unique Device-ID which is
generated based on hardware by the SurfEasy VPN domain.

Clearing "Browsing history" & "Cached images and file" data resets the
Subscriber-ID sequentially generated by the Opera domain.

RS Wood wrote:
Paul wrote:

*Never* trust the "clearBrowserData" function of a modern
browser.

That's good advice Paul but I'm trying to accomplish something deeper (and
far more important) than what you've ever heard anyone ever do before (who
is seemingly just clearing their cache).

Maybe you can help me help us?

Unless someone here knows something I don't know, there is no other known
way to force SurfEasy to regenerate the Opera unique "Device-ID" than to
delete the "Third party services data".

Similarly, I hope someone knows far more than I do, but if they don't, then
there is no other known way to force the Opera domain to regenerate the
Opera unique "Subscriber-ID" than to delete both the "Browsing history" and
the "Cached images and files" data.

https://www.surfeasy.com/terms_of_service/
http://help.opera.com/opera/Windows/...ivate.html#vpn
http://www.opera.com/privacy
http://www.opera.com/privacy/computers

I know that some people, not you Paul - but those who can't hope to solve
technical problems - will instantly say to never use Opera - but Opera has
unique value that no other browser has, and, anyway, if we never solved
privacy problems with browsers, we'd have zero browsers to use.

If the information is stored in a database, then you need the tool
that manipulates records in the database, to do whatever surgery
is needed. That's about all I can suggest. (That's how you'd
remove a "Subscriber-ID" without deleting "Browsing history".)

The hard part about databases, is they're cross-coupled. Some schema,
incorporate seven different database files as a "set". And if you
do surgery, it has to be done in a consistent way with respect
to the schema. And I don't know how to do that.

Paul

Mozilla lets me look at the crash reports for Firefox. I was hoping
Opera did, too, but I haven't found anything actually noting where to
find the crash logs and how to view them. The crash logs might be
stored something on the disk, like under an Opera user profile, but
often it helps to have a viewer to arrange the data so it is readable.
It's probably in XML so it is organized but reading XML can be tough,
even if you open an .xml in a web browser which all that does is show
the XML tags and colorizes them.

On Mon, 24 Jul 2017 05:55:43 +0000 (UTC), RS Wood wrote:
Does Opera crash on you when/if you do these two things at the same time?
(latest Opera version 46.0.2597.39)

0. Create three duplicate default Opera shortcuts
1. This works alone to bring up Opera in private-browsing mode:
Change the "Properties" of the "Target" in the first Opera shortcut:
from: C:\Program Files\Opera\launcher.exe
to: C:\Program Files\Opera\launcher.exe -private
2. This works alone to bring up Opera in the "Clear Browsing Data" page:
Change the "Start" page (opera://settings/startup) of Opera to
opera://settings/clearBrowserData
3. Put them together on the 3rd shortcut causes Opera to crash every time.

Does that happen with you?
Is it a bug?

Opera's dev team broke Opera Presto (Opera v12.x and earlier). Now they
broke Opera Blink (Opera v15+). They broke it gradually just like they did
with Presto.

On Mon, 24 Jul 2017 05:55:43 +0000 (UTC), RS Wood
wrote:

Does Opera crash on you when/if you do these two things at the same time?
(latest Opera version 46.0.2597.39)

0. Create three duplicate default Opera shortcuts
1. This works alone to bring up Opera in private-browsing mode:
Change the "Properties" of the "Target" in the first Opera shortcut:
from: C:\Program Files\Opera\launcher.exe
to: C:\Program Files\Opera\launcher.exe -private
2. This works alone to bring up Opera in the "Clear Browsing Data" page:
Change the "Start" page (opera://settings/startup) of Opera to
opera://settings/clearBrowserData
3. Put them together on the 3rd shortcut causes Opera to crash every time.

Does that happen with you?
Is it a bug?


HELP ! Someone clue me in, please. I've been using Opera since it
was in diapers (and don't tell me it still is). And all of RS Wood's
project is meaningless to me. What is the purpose? Privacy?
What for thou?

Regarding Opera, the only problem I experience is that rare sites
do not work with it, otherwise I love it.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

JJ wrote:

Opera's dev team broke Opera Presto (Opera v12.x and earlier). Now they
broke Opera Blink (Opera v15+). They broke it gradually just like they did
with Presto.

I tried the same thing with SWrware Iron, and it didn't crash.

This works alone:
1. Setting = chrome://settings/onStartup
2. Start page = chrome://settings/clearBrowserData

This works alone:
3. Target = c:\program files\swrware\iron\chrome.exe --incognito

Put them together and the incognito wins where it opens to a blank page
instead of the clearBrowserData page.

That seems to indicate that Chrome is smart enough to do one, or the other,
but not both at the same time.