FIREFOX: Instability / Crash with 09/06/08 updates

[Troy James Sobotka]

Binary package hint: firefox

Summary: General instability that results in Firefox crashing several seconds after displaying the contents of the page / file. Seems to be localized to an update on or around the 9th of June, 2008.

Platform: Ubuntu 8.04 amd64

Frequency: Frequently (4 / 5 trials for manifestations)

Steps to Repeat: Unfortunately this is a nasty bug that doesn't appear to have any common underlying process to repeat it. Thus far, the general steps are to load a page and scroll or use it.

Additional Information: I would think that this is probably related to a newer Firefox update in relation to the nsplugin. That said, this happens with entirely non Flash driven sites including Launchpad. The general symptoms are Firefox crashing approximately two or three seconds after displaying the contents of a web page or file. It seems to arrive in small 'spurts' (nsplugin possibly lingering around and causing issues from start to start of Firefox?).

14/06/08: Updated freqency. In fact, Firefox crashes almost every time it boots now.

[Richard Seguin (sectech)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. 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.

Thanks,

Richard Seguin

[Richard Seguin (sectech)]

* Marking incomplete pending enough information to complete triage

[Troy James Sobotka (troy-sobotka)]

> Is this crash reproducible? If so, which are the steps that lead to it?
No. Apparently more or less random. May have higher threshold with loading activity.

> Which flash package do you have installed?
Standard Ubuntu 8.04 flashplugin-nonfree.

> Which Java package do you have installed?
Had both. Removed. Method to test / identify?

> Which Firefox extensions do you have installed?
Had two, removed both. Also started with the -ProfileManager to start with a clean instance.

[Troy James Sobotka (troy-sobotka)]

> Which Java package do you have installed?
Was IcedTea7. Now removed. Issue still happens.

[Troy James Sobotka (troy-sobotka)]

Followed the https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Bugs link.

No debugging symbols error when starting Firefox despite adding the various packages etc. for FF3.

Ran Firefox. The debug procedure lynched the system and I had to CTRL-ALT-F1 to flip to a virtual terminal and kill all of the various lynching Firefox offenders.

Attached output.

[Troy James Sobotka (troy-sobotka)]

Crashed it again, but this time I had more responsiveness. Output attached.

[Troy James Sobotka (troy-sobotka)]

Additional crash information.

[Troy James Sobotka (troy-sobotka)]

Yet again.

Seems to be the same point.

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
[Switching to Thread 0x7f53f8cc16f0 (LWP 13809)]
nsNavHistoryQueryResultNode::CanExpand (this=0x21d3530)
    at nsNavHistoryQuery.h:131
131 nsNavHistoryQuery.h: No such file or directory.
 in nsNavHistoryQuery.h

[Troy James Sobotka (troy-sobotka)]

Might be related to the history view when shown in the sidebar.

When I open the sidebar on the left (set to view by date and site) Firefox seems to crash. Stable-ish thus far with the history sidebar closed.

[Richard Seguin (sectech)]

I know this issue hasn't had a comment for a while, I was just wondering if your still having this issue

Thanks,

Richard Seguin