Vivaldi closing/crashing on startup

[DavyLJones]

In recent weeks I have noticed Vivaldi periodically closing on its own unexpectedly. I have grown to tolerate this behaviour because otherwise its an amazing tool.

Today though it closes on startup every time and I cannot open it at all. I launch Vivaldi from the dock or the applications folder, and just immediately after it opens, I get a glimpse of a webpage - so brief I cannot even tell what page it is - and then it shuts down.

There is no error message, it just closes.

Any idea what to do?

Vivaldi version: 6.9.3447.44
Mac: 11.7.10 (yeah I know its an old OS but for other legacy software I can't update right now)

[ryofurue]

@DavyLJones

You seem (to me) to have crashes. If you do, the simplest thing for you to do is to report it to the developers

https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/troubleshoot/reporting-crashes-on-macos/

and wait.

If you have more time or interest, you can search this forum for past threads discussing similar issues and try some workarounds posted there. But, causes of "similar" crashes can widely vary and past workarounds may not work.

[DavyLJones]

Thanks.

I followed the advice on the page but the folder where the crashlogs should be (~/Library/Application Support/Vivaldi/Crashpad/pending) is empty. Does that mean there was no crash?

[ryofurue]

@DavyLJones said in Vivaldi closing/crashing on startup:

the folder where the crashlogs should be (~/Library/Application Support/Vivaldi/Crashpad/pending) is empty. Does that mean there was no crash?

That is one possibility and another possibility is that an automatic crash report has been sent. In the latter case, you will (I think) find the crashlogs in

. . . /Crashpad/completed/

But I don't know whether this automatic crash report is always enabled. It wouldn't hurt if you send a manual crash report with a crashlog in the "completed" folder. The developers will know.

[DavyLJones]

chatgpt helped me. I had to delete the folder

~/Library/Application Support/Vivaldi/Default

and then manually re-add the relevant bits from it like preferences, history etc. Something had become corrupt but it works ok now!

thank you for trying to help me. I appreciate it - sharing this incase it helps others.

[ryofurue]

@DavyLJones said in Vivaldi closing/crashing on startup:

chatgpt helped me. I had to delete the folder

Nice!

Your experience indicates that chatgpt is faster than searching this forum. I'll try it next time. Thanks for posting how you solved the problem.

[DavyLJones]

further update - on analysis it was just the session and / or tab files in

~/Library/Application Support/Vivaldi/Default/Sessions/

I went a long way round - restoring one thing at a time to find the problemm but I now see that had I just trashed the session and tab files in that folder I could have solved the problem more quickly.

Down side is I have lost all my saved sessions and tabs, Not the end of the world I guess, even though I had tons. I would say it will teach me not to rely on that as a backup method and to definitely also bookmark things.