Tor state is Disconnected in New Private Window with Tor tab

[stephendonner]

Description

Tor state is Disconnected in New Private Window with Tor tab

Steps to Reproduce

1. new profile on nightly
2. open File | Private Window with Tor
3. scroll down to the bottom of the tab
4. look at Tor Status

Actual result:

Logs:

May 18 11:53:42.000 [notice] Tor 0.4.5.8 opening new log file.
May 18 11:53:42.153 [notice] We compiled with OpenSSL 101010bf: OpenSSL 1.1.1k  25 Mar 2021 and we are running with OpenSSL 101010bf: 1.1.1k. These two versions should be binary compatible.
May 18 11:53:42.161 [notice] Tor 0.4.5.8 running on Windows 8 [or later] with Libevent 2.1.11-stable, OpenSSL 1.1.1k, Zlib 1.2.11, Liblzma N/A, Libzstd N/A and Unknown N/A as libc.
May 18 11:53:42.161 [notice] Tor can't help you if you use it wrong! Learn how to be safe at https://www.torproject.org/download/download#warning
May 18 11:53:42.162 [notice] Configuration file "C:\nonexistent" not present, using reasonable defaults.
May 18 11:53:42.163 [warn] Path for GeoIPFile (<default>) is relative and will resolve to C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser-Nightly\Application\91.1.26.22\<default>. Is this what you wanted?
May 18 11:53:42.163 [warn] Path for GeoIPv6File (<default>) is relative and will resolve to C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser-Nightly\Application\91.1.26.22\<default>. Is this what you wanted?
May 18 11:53:42.166 [notice] Opening Socks listener on 127.0.0.1:0
May 18 11:53:42.166 [notice] Socks listener listening on port 57149.
May 18 11:53:42.166 [notice] Opened Socks listener connection (ready) on 127.0.0.1:57149
May 18 11:53:42.166 [notice] Opening Control listener on 127.0.0.1:0
May 18 11:53:42.166 [notice] Control listener listening on port 57150.
May 18 11:53:42.166 [notice] Opened Control listener connection (ready) on 127.0.0.1:57150
May 18 11:53:42.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 0% (starting): Starting
May 18 11:53:42.000 [notice] Starting with guard context "default"
May 18 11:53:42.000 [notice] New control connection opened from 127.0.0.1.
May 18 11:53:42.000 [warn] Got mismatched authentication cookie
May 18 11:53:43.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 5% (conn): Connecting to a relay
May 18 11:53:43.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 10% (conn_done): Connected to a relay
May 18 11:53:43.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 14% (handshake): Handshaking with a relay
May 18 11:53:43.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 15% (handshake_done): Handshake with a relay done
May 18 11:53:43.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 75% (enough_dirinfo): Loaded enough directory info to build circuits
May 18 11:53:43.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 90% (ap_handshake_done): Handshake finished with a relay to build circuits
May 18 11:53:43.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 95% (circuit_create): Establishing a Tor circuit
May 18 11:53:44.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 100% (done): Done

General Info:

Tor Version:
Tor Process Id: 11772
Tor Proxy URI:
Tor Connection Status: Disconnected
Tor Initialization Progress:

Expected result:

Should say Initializing % until it's ready, at which point it'll read Connected under Tor Status

Reproduces how often:

It's not 100%, but it's pretty prevalent - @kjozwiak can give better insight as to how often this happens for him, as he's dogfooding on Windows

Brave version (brave://version info)

Brave	1.26.22 Chromium: 91.0.4472.57 (Official Build) nightly (64-bit)
Revision	e3443317fa07f1e9997e4a9c738eddfefc3c0292-refs/branch-heads/4472_54@{#6}
OS	Windows 10 OS Version 2009 (Build 21382.1)

[kjozwiak]

I see this pretty often whenever I launch a Tor window using Win 10 x64. It's rare that I see an actual "initialization". It stays "Disconnected" so I usually need to wait ~30s or so until it says "Connected" or just restart the window once again and try again.

@StephenBass thanks for filing 👍

[Brave-Matt]

I have users seeing this on macOS but the Tor status never seems to connect:
https://community.brave.com/t/tor-disconnected-in-osx-continually-have-to-uninstall-and-delete-brave-application-data-and-re-install/255824/2
https://community.brave.com/t/private-tabs-with-tor-is-always-disconnected/248390/4
https://community.brave.com/t/new-private-window-with-tor-not-working/235213
https://community.brave.com/t/tor-broken-with-brave-1-23-75/241744/7

[stephendonner]

This should be helped quite a bit by the remediation fix(es) in #14518.

[Brave-Matt]

Users are still encountering this issue in v1.25.73:
https://community.brave.com/t/tor-broken-with-brave-1-23-75/241744

[Awnage]

I am still experiencing this on v1.26.74 (Win 10 x64). Tried turning off "Continue running background apps when Brave is closed" but that did not help either.
brave://tor-internals/ shows

Tor Version:
Tor Process Id: -1
Tor Proxy URI:
Tor Connection Status: Disconnected
Tor Initialization Progress:

and the "Logs" and "Tor Control Events" tabs have no content.

[stephenpassero]

Running into the same problem here, on v 1.26.77, on MacOS 11.4. Toggling the "private window with tor" setting does nothing. Same as @Awnage above, brave://tor-interals gives this:

Tor Version:
Tor Process Id: -1
Tor Proxy URI:
Tor Connection Status: Disconnected
Tor Initialization Progress:

and the other two tabs have no content

[kjozwiak]

@darkdh sounds like the above might also be fixed by brave/brave-core#9586? With Brave now removing the watch folder, assuming this state will be harder to get into? I ran into this a bunch of times on Win where launching a Tor window will start in the Disconnected state and would never start initializing. You would need to close/re-open a Tor window a few times.

[darkdh]

@kjozwiak yes, it would be fixed by that PR.

[Awnage]

One thing I noticed with this on Windows, not sure if it is relevant, but if I manually delete the tor directory, it is not recreated. If I manually create the tor/data directory, I can watch the data directory be deleted when I toggle the "Private window with Tor" but turning it back on does not restore the data directory. Interesting behavior. (v1.27.109 now)

[kjozwiak]

@kjozwiak yes, it would be fixed by that PR.

Thanks 👍 I'm going to move this into 1.28.x as brave/brave-core#9586 was uplifted via brave/brave-core#9612.

[kjozwiak]

@LaurenWags @rebron in case either of you check this one re: release notes, we can change this to release-notes/exclude and can just use #16924 to cover the following which were all fixed with brave/brave-core#9586:

• [windows] Crash in ChildProcessMonitor #16068
• "New Private Window with TOR" is not working in Brave Beta  #16924
• Tor state is Disconnected in New Private Window with Tor tab #15949

[Awnage]

Just tested again with Nightly. Still no dice.
Version 1.29.50 Chromium: 92.0.4515.131

[GeetaSarvadnya]

Reproduced the issue in Windows 10 x64 - 1.28.102

Brave | 1.28.102 Chromium: 92.0.4515.131 (Official Build) beta (64-bit)
-- | --
Revision | 6b8d6c56ce21e38a72f7c4becb5abc1fa5134f29-refs/branch-heads/4515@{#1933}
OS | Windows 10 OS Version 2004 (Build 19041.1110)

[kjozwiak]

Labelling this as QA/No as @GeetaSarvadnya opened a follow up via #17381. Appears that there's still an intermittent issue where sometimes the Tor window starts in a Disconnected state and never attempts to re-connect. I personally can't reproduce the issue using 1.28.103 Chromium: 92.0.4515.131 but seems like @GeetaSarvadnya @stephendonner and @Awnage can.

We'll address the above in #17381.