firefox defuncts if started from the xfce internet menu, works in shell

[Darko Veberic]

in xfce (did not check other desktops) clicking internet menu item for firefox produces defunct firefox. starting it from terminal works normally, apart from the messages:

** (firefox:4814): WARNING **: Failed to open webapp application path dir /usr/share/xfce/unity-webapps/userscripts: Error opening directory '/usr/share/xfce/unity-webapps/userscripts': No such file or directory

** (firefox:4814): WARNING **: Failed to open webapp application path dir /usr/local/share/unity-webapps/userscripts: Error opening directory '/usr/local/share/unity-webapps/userscripts': No such file or directory

workaround: kill the process /usr/lib/firefox/firefox; this removes the [firefox] <defunct> also; then start it from terminal...

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: firefox 17.0+build2-0ubuntu0.12.10.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-19.30-generic 3.5.7
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-19-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
AddonCompatCheckDisabled: False
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu6
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: darko 2042 F.... pulseaudio
                      darko 2082 F.... xfce4-volumed
BuildID: 20121120063459
CRDA: Error: command ['iw', 'reg', 'get'] failed with exit code 1: nl80211 not found.
Channel: Unavailable
CurrentDmesg: Error: command ['sh', '-c', 'dmesg | comm -13 --nocheck-order /var/log/dmesg -'] failed with exit code 1: comm: /var/log/dmesg: Permission denied
Date: Mon Dec 3 14:50:58 2012
ForcedLayersAccel: False
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-11-22 (11 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" - Release amd64 (20121017.5)
IpRoute:
 default via 193.2.120.254 dev eth0
 169.254.0.0/16 dev eth0 scope link metric 1000
 193.2.120.0/24 dev eth0 proto kernel scope link src 193.2.120.35
IwConfig:
 eth0 no wireless extensions.

 lo no wireless extensions.
MarkForUpload: True
MostRecentCrashID: bp-453331f2-2d2f-4a03-b744-e3bbe2110201
Plugins:
 Shockwave Flash - /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so
 Gnome Shell Integration - /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libgnome-shell-browser-plugin.so (gnome-shell)
 iTunes Application Detector - /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/librhythmbox-itms-detection-plugin.so (rhythmbox-mozilla)
 DjView-4.9 - /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/nsdejavu.so (djview-plugin)
PrefSources:
 prefs.js
 [Profile]/extensions/{06997db0-c027-4d5f-bd37-b0d9230226ea}/defaults/preferences/prefs.js
 [Profile]/<email address hidden>/defaults/preferences/prefs.js
 [Profile]/extensions/{b9db16a4-6edc-47ec-a1f4-b86292ed211d}/defaults/preferences/prefs-dwhelper.js
Profiles: Profile0 (Default) - LastVersion=17.0/20121120063459 (In use)
RelatedPackageVersions:
 gnome-shell 3.6.1-0ubuntu1.1
 rhythmbox-mozilla 2.97-1ubuntu5
 djview-plugin 4.9-2ubuntu1
RfKill:

RunningIncompatibleAddons: False
SourcePackage: firefox
SubmittedCrashIDs: bp-453331f2-2d2f-4a03-b744-e3bbe2110201
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
WifiSyslog:

dmi.bios.date: 06/01/2012
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: P1.20
dmi.board.asset.tag: BC5FF4769CB2
dmi.board.name: G41C-GS
dmi.board.vendor: ASRock
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.chassis.version: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvrP1.20:bd06/01/2012:svnToBeFilledByO.E.M.:pnToBeFilledByO.E.M.:pvrToBeFilledByO.E.M.:rvnASRock:rnG41C-GS:rvr:cvnToBeFilledByO.E.M.:ct3:cvrToBeFilledByO.E.M.:
dmi.product.name: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.product.version: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.sys.vendor: To Be Filled By O.E.M.

[Darko Veberic (darko-veberic-kit)]

modifying the firefox launcher button so that it "runs in terminal" also makes it work.

[Darko Veberic (darko-veberic-kit)]

another test: moving .mozilla away gets a fresh firefox normally... maybe something to do with the extensions...

[Darko Veberic (darko-veberic-kit)]

modifying the xfce launcher so that it runs "strace -ttt firefox" and then reading the produced output in .xsession-errors gives this interesting ending just after some noise from the plugins/extensions:

1354544158.455669 recvfrom(4, 0x7f86661bb074, 4096, 0, 0, 0) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
1354544158.455715 poll([{fd=4, events=POLLIN|POLLOUT}], 1, -1) = 1 ([{fd=4, revents=POLLOUT}])
1354544158.455737 writev(4, [{"\20\0\5\0\v\0\0\0UTF8_STRING\0\20\0\10\0\27\0\0\0_NET"..., 104}], 1) = 104
1354544158.455793 poll([{fd=4, events=POLLIN}], 1, -1) = 1 ([{fd=4, revents=POLLIN}])
1354544158.455815 recvfrom(4, "\1\0\232\4\0\0\0\0\"\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0"..., 4096, 0, NULL, NULL) = 128
1354544158.455987 write(2, "\n(firefox:8526): GLib-GObject-WA"..., 84
(firefox:8526): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: cannot register existing type `GdkWindow'
) = 84
1354544158.457398 write(2, "\n(firefox:8526): GLib-CRITICAL *"..., 85
(firefox:8526): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `result != 0' failed
) = 85
1354544158.458254 write(2, "\n(firefox:8526): Gdk-CRITICAL **"..., 100
(firefox:8526): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_window_get_display: assertion `GDK_IS_WINDOW (window)' failed
) = 100
1354544158.459023 futex(0x7f8666148a94, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 1, NULLError creating proxy: Error calling StartServiceByName for org.gtk.vfs.Daemon: Timeout was reached (g-io-error-quark, 24)

(xfsettingsd:8314): GVFS-CRITICAL **: fill_mountable_info: assertion `proxy != NULL' failed
) = ? ERESTARTSYS (To be restarted)
1354544178.914337 --- SIGTERM (Terminated) @ 0 (0) ---

the last SIGTERM is me killing the non-defunct part of firefox (as described in original post above)...

[Darko Veberic (darko-veberic-kit)]

the strace output gave me hints it has to be extensions/plugins. i removed foxyproxy since this was the last extension being touched in the strace log and is an extension i probably carried over through several ubuntu upgrades but unfortunately this does not solve the situation where firefox started without a terminal defuncts...

[Darko Veberic (darko-veberic-kit)]

the problem was in one or several of these extensions:
- global menu bar integration 3.6.4
- ubuntu firefox modifications 2.6
- unity desktop integration 2.4.1
- unity websites integration 2012.10.12
and/or the following plugins:
- gnome shell integration
- itunes application detector

unfortunately i disabled (can't be removed?) all of those in one go and enabling them back again does not reproduce the original defunct anymore...

i had problems with these extensions in the past already, like force disabling middle-click open url from x11 clipboard (making about:config entry meaningless!) etc. i am not sure if this problems come from assuming everyone installing ubuntu will eventually use unity? i have all possible desktops coexist in our installations and users regularly switch between unity, gnome, xfce, kde... are these firefox extensions harmful in other environments?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Bartosz Tomasik (bartosz-tomasik)]

I can confirm I got the same problem, however disabling 'unity desktop integration' solves it

[Holger Seelig (holger-seelig)]

I got this error as I wrote a plugin for firefox. I used the basic plugin outline from: <http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8507670/basic-plugin-npapi-npruntime-hello-world>.

When I want to initialize Gtk3 (gtkmm) in the NP_Initialize function with:

Gtk::Main::init_gtkmm_internals ();

then it hangs and I got the following (same) errors:

(plugin-container:21564): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: cannot register existing type `GdkWindow'
(plugin-container:21564): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `result != 0' failed

I guess the error commes from because firefox uses Gtk2 and when a plugin used Gtk3 then there are so strange errors.