Firefox freezes after leaving page with flash on it

[Arne Nordmann]

After visiting a page with flash on it (for example flash video on youtube) and then leaving it, firefox freezes and has to be restarted.

I am using an up-to-date Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty, Firefox 3.0.10+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.04.1 and flash plugin flashplugin-nonfree 10.0.22.87ubuntu2.

Reinstalling flash plugin, installing it manually or deleting pluginreg.dat doesn't help.

[SLerman (smlerman)]

The problem seems to be when you leave the last page or close the last tab that has Flash in it. If you have multiple tabs with Flash in them open, there doesn't seem to be any problem until you close the last one.

[Arne Nordmann (launchpad-norro)]

Can´t reproduce any longer. Don´t know what changed since initial report, though.

[SLerman (smlerman)]

Looks like it still happens for me.

[Arne Nordmann (launchpad-norro)]

Can reproduce again. Listening to music with amarok, then leaving a website with flash video on it.
What can I do to give you proper debugging info?

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

Thank you for reporting this problem to Ubuntu. Could you try with a new profile please? Sometimes profiles can become corrupt.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Bugs?action=show&redirect=DebuggingFirefox#Try with a new profile

[SLerman (smlerman)]

The problem doesn't happen for me anymore. I've upgraded KDE from 4.2.2 to 4.2.3 (and restarted X) since the bug was reported, and it seems to have gone away. I don't remember an upgrade to Flash or Firefox, though, so I'm not sure exactly what fixed the problem.

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

This bug report is being closed due to your last comment regarding this being fixed with an update. For future reference you can manage the status of your own bugs by clicking on the current status in the yellow line and then choosing a new status in the revealed drop down box. You can learn more about bug statuses at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Status . Thank you again for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please submit any future bugs you may find.

[SLerman (smlerman)]

This suddenly started happening to me again, so I tried to think of what I had done between the last time I knew Flash worked properly and when it broke again, and I've narrowed down the problem. The problem starts happening after playing some tracks in Amarok (I have 2.0.2, and I don't know about any other version), and Flash starts working again if you shut down Amarok. Flash continues to work if you restart Amarok but don't play any tracks. The other symptom is that there's no sound in Flash, so my wild guess is that the problem is somewhere in the sound system.

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

Thank you for updating us. Can you use other music players while playing flash videos? I'd like to know if it's just Amarok hijacking the sound system or not.

[SLerman (smlerman)]

Doesn't seem to be a problem with a Kaffeine or Dragon.

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

Both users seems to have trouble with Flash and Amarok. It seems like Amarok hijacks the Audio system. I've added Amarok in Ubuntu so someone from that project can help.

[Myriam Schweingruber (myriam)]

Micah, I changed from Amarok to Phonon, as Amarok itself doesn't handle sound at all, but lets Phonon do it.

[dbrossard (dbrossard)]

I have found a work around that works for me:

Description: When amarok is runing and Firefox 3 tries to play a video with sound, no sound plays, and after closing firefox, it is hung in the background and must be killed.

Assumptions: Both Firefox and Amarok were trying to directly access my sound hardware causing an error. In my case it is listed in KDE system settings as: HDA Intel (AD198x Analog)

Workaround: Go to KDE System settings, Multimedia, Device Preference tab and set PulseAudio as the preferred (top) Output Device for all types of audio.

Tested working: Play a song in Amarok and also a youtube video in Firefox 3. Both applications can now play audio simultaneously and firefox does not hang after viewing the video. It can be closed cleanly.