VLC seems to cause Firefox-3.0 to crash repeatedly

[davidpbrown]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.0

I've seen a lot of comments of FF3 crashing randomly. I think I have a consistent example.

Goto
http://dual-n-back.com/nback.html
let the page load then press refresh.

I found this because the auditory sound wasn't working, I don't expect that's related.

FF3 falls over, I've not got FF2 to try.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon May 5 20:54:23 2008
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: firefox-3.0 3.0~b5+nobinonly-0ubuntu3
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: firefox-3.0
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-16-generic i686

[Richard Seguin (sectech)]

Thank you for the bug report. Could you please try to obtain a backtrace by following the instructions on [WWW] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Bugs, or upload (as an attachment) the crash report from /var/crash/.

Also, please answer these questions:
Is this crash reproducible? If so, which are the steps that lead to it?
Which flash package do you have installed?
Which Java package do you have installed?
Which firefox extensions do you have installed?

This will greatly aid us in tracking down your problem.

[Richard Seguin (sectech)]

* Although I cannot reproduce this bug I am marking this bug as incomplete pending more information.

[Martin Olsson (mnemo)]

QUESTION 1: When you boot the final hardy live CD on this machine, do you see the same problem? I just booted the live CD and I can't get it to crash on this page despite reloading it like 20-30 times sometimes waiting 20 seconds in between and sometimes just hitting CTRL-R repeatedly. I also hear a voice reading letters when I press the buttons in the "Auditory" column of this page.

Also, the HTML has several embed tags pointing to wav files, which leads us to;
QUESTION 2: If you go into Edit::Preferences::Applications and type "wav", which application is listed there as the handler application for wav files? On my machine I got the totem plugin version 2.22.1 listed there.

[davidpbrown (davidpbrown)]

Bug report attached.
However it didn't run into a (gdb) prompt for me to type any of run ; bt full ; thread apply all backtrace full ; quit
I guess that was automated.. if the bug report isn't complete in some way I'll try again.

@mnemo
Question 1 not sure but will try in a bit.
Question 2 [Edit::Preferences::Applications]wav suggests "Use Windows Media Plugin.."

[davidpbrown (davidpbrown)]

@Richard

Yes it's reproducable. Visiting that website and refreshing.. every time it seems.

Which flash package do you have installed?
Looking at Tools::Add-ons::Plugins suggests Shockwave Flash 9.0 r124 among other Plugins

Which Java package do you have installed?
Java's not enabled in Firefox - not sure if the Firefox element you're talking of is the same but I have sun-java6-bin, sun-java6-jre and icedtea-java7-plugin + misc libs

Which firefox extensions do you have installed?
DownThemAll! 1.0.1
NoScript 1.3.2
SQLite Manager 0.2.37
StumbleUpon 3.18
Ubuntu Firefox Modifications 0.5
 and an inactive
Mouse Gestures 1.5.2, legacy from my upgrade from Gutsy.

[davidpbrown (davidpbrown)]

Trying firefox -safe gives exactly the same
Missing from the bug report is the last line that that firefox -safe also seems to dump which is "Segmentation fault"

[davidpbrown (davidpbrown)]

@mnemo
Booting with the Live CD, it works without a problem! I can refresh the page without issue and can even hear the voice.

Let me know if you need more detail.

[Richard Seguin (sectech)]

Thank you for the information....

Usually when I see a lot of extensions installed and firefox breaks I usually suspect them first...

I don't want you to delete your firefox information without need so what I want you to try is creating a new user and trying to go to that website under that newly created users account... That way there will be no extensions or anything that could interfere...

I played around with this a bit and I still cannot recreate the problem...

[Richard Seguin (sectech)]

* This issue doesn't seem to be a bug but rather a problem with the configuration of that user... I am converting the bug to a question so the support community can assist you.

[davidpbrown (davidpbrown)]

Creating a new user didn't change it.
The new user had still StumbleUpon, NoScript and Ubuntu Mod enabled by default.
I disabled each in turn and the problem remained.. even without all of them.

lol not a bug but a feature eh.. I'm not convinced :)

[Richard Seguin (sectech)]

I asked someone from the bugteam to look at this issue and they decided it would be best left as a bug... The reason why I originally converted to a question was because I thought that it seemed like a configuration issue (in which the support community could have helped in more detail)...

Since it has been reviewed and deemed in the right area I'll leave it to someone who knows a little more about firefox.

[davidpbrown (davidpbrown)]

No problem.

The config is from an upgraded Gutsy - if that is an issue, it'll likely be one for a lot of others.

I'll watch for comments and try to provide more if I can.

[davidpbrown (davidpbrown)]

I've narrowed the problem down..

Fearing the online page might change, I saved it offline. I then wondered if I could reduce it with the same error.

I can load this file multiple times..

<html><body>
 <embed src="some_nonexistent.wav" id="soundb">
</body></html>

But this one crashes my Firefox every time..

<html><body>
 <embed src="some_nonexistent.wav" id="soundb">
 <embed src="a_second_nonexistent.wav" id="soundc">
</body></html>

[Richard Seguin (sectech)]

* Changed from invalid back to incomplete as it does appear as this is a bug...

[Richard Seguin (sectech)]

It appears as VLC is responsible for crashing firefox... I have confirmed this on my own system...
* Marking bug as confirmed as this issue has now been triaged.
* Changed package assignment to vlc

[Richard Seguin (sectech)]

Note: As a temporary work-around you can uninstall vlc

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

We are unable to confirm this bug without a reason for the crash, "vlc is causing the crash" doesnt mean anything we need the underlining cause of the crash to beable to fix it or triage it upstream, cant really do that without the backtrace or strace. To get a backtrace of the crash please see: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Bugs
If you have any questions please join #ubuntu-mozillateam on irc.freenode.net. Please try to get a backtrace of the problem because i would like to find out what is causing this to happen. Thank you for filing and helping triage the bug.

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Ok the one backtrace that we obtained for this bug report it seems it didnt crash during the backtrace attempt from davidpbrown
Can i have 2 people that are seeing this run the backtrace and dont quit it until it crashes if you are unable to reproduce this please let me know. I attempted it with 6 tabs opena nd refreshing that site more than 15 times and no crash was seen on firefox-3.0b5 nor firefox-2.0.0.14.

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Im sorry thought this weas more of a firefox issue. the vlc guys might have enough info to triage further but backtraces never hurt. Im updating the status and summery

[davidpbrown (davidpbrown)]

I reread the https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Bugs #Crashes
"there is no dbg package created yet for Firefox3 beta users" and use "firefox-3.0-dbgsym and xulrunner-1.9-dbgsym" was as I did last night.

The second point there could be clearer about having to actually start gdb by typing gdb to terminal rather than expecting it as the outcome of the firefox line.

Anyhow using gdb [run ; bt full ; thread apply all backtrace full ; quit] gave no result suggesting No stack. No registers.

The second part [Obtain a backtrace from an apport crash report (using gdb)] which I hadn't tried previously then contains elementary errors like "/usr/lib/firefox/firefox-bin: No such file or directory."

So I'm thinking having no dbg package atm is going to prevent us getting a good backtrace??

$ TMPDIR=$(mktemp -d)
$ apport-unpack /var/crash/_usr_lib_firefox_firefox-bin.1000.crash $TMPDIR
[Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/var/crash/_usr_lib_firefox_firefox-bin.1000.crash'
$ gdb -nx /usr/lib/firefox/firefox-bin -core $TMPDIR/CoreDump -ex 'backtrace full' -ex 'thread apply all backtrace full' -ex 'quit' 2>&1 | tee gdb.log
GNU gdb 6.8-debian
Copyright (C) 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. Type "show copying"
and "show warranty" for details.
This GDB was configured as "i486-linux-gnu"...
/usr/lib/firefox/firefox-bin: No such file or directory.
/tmp/tmp.VkoVzk9122/CoreDump: No such file or directory.
No stack.
No registers.
$ rm -fr $TMPDIR
$

I don't know if Richard can get a backtrace from this and suggest if that one's not enough suggest to me how.

[Richard Seguin (sectech)]

I ran into the debug issue last night (although I didn't spend a lot of time with it)... Someone from either the firefox group or the vlc group might make some requests for more information so we can get this bug 100% triaged...

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Richard i will update the wiki since things changed for ff3.0 im attaching my backtrace and that should be enough to continue
This may be a dup of bug #116689 but i will mark it once i get ok from Alexander.

[Martin Olsson (mnemo)]

At first I could not repro this bug. Then I ran "sudo apt-get install mozilla-plugin-vlc" and I created a file on my desktop with the following contents:

<html>
<body>
<embed src="this_file_doesnt_exist1.wav" id="sound_id_number_1" />
<embed src="this_file_doesnt_exist2.wav" id="sound_id_number_2" />
</body>
</html>

When I open this file in ff3b5 it crashes. If I run "sudo apt-get remove mozilla-plugin-vlc" and re-open that same time, it does not crash.

[Martin Olsson (mnemo)]

If you have "mozilla-plugin-vlc" installed, this bug can be avoided by opening "Tools::Add-ons::Plugins" and then disabling the plugin called "VLC Multimedia Plugin 0.8.6e Janus". This is definately a VLC bug, this specific version of the plugin should be blacklisted imho.

0.8.6f is already released, has anyone tried it to see if this bug was fixed or not?