Warning: Microsoft Edge 88.0.705.68 crashes since today

[German]A brief message for users of Microsoft Edge – version 88.0.705.68 (current is 88.0.4324.182). I received several reports from German users, facing browser crashes. Here is a rough overview of what is going on and a workaround.

Microsoft released Edge 88.0.705.68 five days ago, as colleague Valdet Beqiraj reported in this German blog post. It's a bug fix update, but I haven't addressed it here on the blog. Strangely, though, the issue of browser crashes has only popped up since today.

Edge Crashes: First reports on Facebook

A few minutes ago I received a private message asking about browser crashes and then the following information about the Edge problem.

We have since today the problem that Edge crashes when clicking on the favorites list. Does anyone else have this ? Maybe an update?

Another report from an IT supporter says:

I just had a customer, since today it disassembles the Edge, when he enters something in the URL line, no matter what, after two to five letters makes "Plopp".

If I click on the bottom left, everything goes, even inputs in the Bing line.

Quick remedy was to turn off the suggestions from the bookmarks, suggestions from the history can be left on – so the bookmarks seem to be the central problem.

A trainer confirms this in the way "unfortunately I can also confirm the issue. Just had to switch to alternative browser in training."  

First hint for a remedy

Shortly after that Jörg S. sent me the following hint in a private message, which was posted by a user in a Facebook group:

Edge closes suddenly

Hello everyone, perhaps briefly to the vote or then also remedy.
For us and many customers, the Edge browser suddenly closes when used.
For me it didn't help that I uninstalled updates or tried different Edge versions.
Then I deactivated the synchronization with a Microsoft account. Apparently it runs stable again.
This also explains why not all customers are affected.

Can you confirm this, or do you have a different level of knowledge? Thank you!

From my gut feeling I would say: Updates don't do anything, this is a server-side story, which is indicated by the deactivated synchronization with a Microsoft account.

Another reader's report

Blog reader Gregor S. is responsible for the Edge in an enterprise environment and wrotes me the following in an email that arrived an hour ago:

Dear Mr. Born,

in our company environment we experience crashes directly after opening Edge after updating to the current Edge version (stable) 88.0.705.68. As soon as several tabs are opened or the address bar is written, the browser crashes.

The event log did not give any real hint at first and the *_crashinfo.txt cannot be found in the respective user profile under AppData\Local\Temp.

Error bucket , type 0

Event name: crashpad_exp

Response: Not available

CAB file ID: 0

Problem signature:

P1: msedge.exe

P2: 88.0.705.68

P3: msedge.dll

P4: 88.0.705.68

P5: 23665604

P6: browser

P7: 0xc00005

P8: 0

P9:

P10:

Uninstalling current Windows updates did not bring any improvement either. Also clearing browsing history etc. or resetting the browser completely, also reinstalling did not bring success.

With 88.0.705.63 this problem did not exist, could reproduce it again.

This is already accurate information – it affects version 88.0.705.68 of the Chromium based Microsoft Edge browser.

There is a workaround

Gregor experimented and found a workaround for his environment, that he also has sent me via mail(merci).

The solution was to disable the logout of the Edge user profile or the login in the browser via group policy to solve the problem quickly for all devices.

If this GPO is undone after some time and one logs in again, e.g. with the business account, the crashes seem to be passé. Would have to be equivalent to a complete removal of the Edge user profile.

Are you aware of this phenomenon?

Only affects client OS, no problems on server OS.

W10 2004/20H2 in use with current WUs installed. Build 19042.804 and 19041.804 respectively.

Any of you affected? Does the above workaround help you? Update: I received reports, that this issue has vanished automatically – so it's a proof of my suspicion, that this was server-sided.