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This occasional bugcheck code 0x124 problem has been haunting my 64-bit Windows 7 since Firefox 3.6, going through all Firefox versions, till the latest one (10.0).

I followed all the steps described in this excellent guide to troubleshooting Stop 0x124:

  1. Ensured that none of the hardware components are overclocked
  2. Ensured that the machine is adequately cooled.
  3. Updated all hardware-related drivers.
  4. Updated the motherboard BIOS according to the manufacturer's instructions.
  5. Applied all Windows 7 updates.
  6. Stress-tested all hardware components.
  7. N/A
  8. Cleaned and carefully removed any dust from the inside of the machine.
  9. N/A

Yet, the system will continue to occasionally bugcheck with BSOD code 0x124 only when attempting to resize or scroll the Firefox browser window.

This problem never occurs in any other circumstances and never occurs even with Firefox itself when run in Ubuntu 8 or 10. It always happens only with Firefox.

The actual BSOD dump is meaningless because it always leads to ntoskrnl.exe!

Which leads me to suspect that there might be a bug in Firefox that triggers a bug in ntoskrnl.exe?

Do you know of any such other report that may shed some light on this mystery?

Update: This problem is so weird that I started to suspect perhaps malware? This is despite the fact that I scanned my system with Malwarebytes and found no malware whatsoever. I decided to give Microsoft's Security Essentials a try. And look what it discovered after a 1/2 night run:

  1. Exploit:AndroidOS/CVE-2011-1823
  2. Exploit:Java/CVE-2010-4452
  3. TrojanDownloader:Java/OpenStream.BD
  4. Exploit:Java/CVE-2011-3544.AA
  5. Rogue:Win32/Winwebsec

This is mind boggling... I thought that Malwarebytes is good enough but apparently not. On the other hand, so many Java exploits... Could they really be responsible for the BSODs?

I will be tracking this and report back if I have new findings.

Update 2 weeks later: After the above cleanup, the problem went away. But then I disabled Microsoft's Security Essentials because it slowed down my computer too much... Sure enough, the problem returned today and so I ran Microsoft's Security Essentials full scan again. This is what it found this time:

  1. TrojanDownloader:Java/OpenConnection.PK
  2. Exploit:Java/CVE-2011-3544.BF

Interesting.

Update the next day, after I got another such crash: This time MSE was on all the time, so I was intrigued by the possibility that this isn't caused by malware after all? I performed a full scan by both MBM and MSE and didn't find any malware. Back to □ 1.

Eternal Learner
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1 Answers1

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Some other troubleshooting tips:

1) Try in Firefox safe mode: may be the problem comes from an add-on or a plug-in (some plug-ins are not installed in the Linux Firefox version...)

If the problem disappear you near to find the culprit: a plugin or add-on

2) Try with another Firefox Profile

If the problem disappear this way just create a new profile and transfers your old profile informations to the new (check in the Ff help)

3) Try with another Windows user account

If the problem disappear at this stage, there's some setup or parameter of your profile in cause. (A security utility or some "eyes candy setup" for example...)

4) Try in Windows safe mode

If the problem disappear here, it's probably not an hardware problem (beware: this is not always true: say at 75%...)

How to delete a Firefox plug-in (not only disable) if needed.

In Firefox about:config set the plugin.expose_full_path parameter to TRUE

In Firefox in about:plugins you'll have the full address of the installed plugins

If a disabled plugin (in safe mode or otherwise) is suspected it's possible to delete the plugin (if needed) by deleting the file related to this plug-in (a "dll" for example...).

Hope this help. Let us know.

climenole
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