Firefox 3.5.4pre dies with "bus error"

[jdb2]

Binary package hint: firefox

I recently received an update, via Ubuntu, to my Firefox 3.5 "Shiretoko" installation. After the update I tried to launch Firefox from the panel but was met with only a bobbing Firefox icon which eventually disappeared along with its associated entry in the KDE4 Plasma Task Manager.

After trying the above several times I decided to launch Firefox from a terminal ( Konsole ) after which I received this output :

'Bus error'

Seeing this, as per the instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Bugs#Firefox-3.5 , I ran the following to get debugging output from Firefox :

'gdb /usr/lib/firefox-3.5.4pre/firefox 2>&1 | tee /tmp/gdb-firefox.txt'

which is contained in the attached gdb-firefox.txt .

My system configuration is as follows :

'apt-cache policy firefox' :

'
firefox:
  Installed: 3.5.4~hg20090826r26281+nobinonly-0ubuntu2~umd1~jaunty
  Candidate: 3.5.4~hg20090826r26281+nobinonly-0ubuntu2~umd1~jaunty
  Version table:
 *** 3.5.4~hg20090826r26281+nobinonly-0ubuntu2~umd1~jaunty 0
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net jaunty/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.0.13+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.04.1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com jaunty-security/main Packages
     3.0.8+nobinonly-0ubuntu3 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main Packages
'

'apt-cache policy firefox-3.5' :

'
firefox-3.5:
  Installed: 3.5.4~hg20090826r26281+nobinonly-0ubuntu2~umd1~jaunty
  Candidate: 3.5.4~hg20090826r26281+nobinonly-0ubuntu2~umd1~jaunty
  Version table:
 *** 3.5.4~hg20090826r26281+nobinonly-0ubuntu2~umd1~jaunty 0
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net jaunty/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.5.2+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.04.1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/universe Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com jaunty-security/universe Packages
     3.5~b4~hg20090330r24021+nobinonly-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/universe Packages
'

'uname -a' :

'
Linux jdb2-Kubuntu-temp 2.6.28-15-generic #49-Ubuntu SMP Tue Aug 18 18:40:08 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux
'

'lsb_release -a' :

'
LSB Version: core-2.0-ia32:core-2.0-noarch:core-3.0-ia32:core-3.0-noarch:core-3.1-ia32:core-3.1-noarch:core-3.2-ia32:core-3.2-noarch:core-4.0-ia32:core-4.0-noarch:cxx-3.0-ia32:cxx-3.0-noarch:cxx-3.1-ia32:cxx-3.1-noarch:cxx-3.2-ia32:cxx-3.2-noarch:cxx-4.0-ia32:cxx-4.0-noarch:desktop-3.1-ia32:desktop-3.1-noarch:desktop-3.2-ia32:desktop-3.2-noarch:desktop-4.0-ia32:desktop-4.0-noarch:graphics-2.0-ia32:graphics-2.0-noarch:graphics-3.0-ia32:graphics-3.0-noarch:graphics-3.1-ia32:graphics-3.1-noarch:graphics-3.2-ia32:graphics-3.2-noarch:graphics-4.0-ia32:graphics-4.0-noarch:qt4-3.1-ia32:qt4-3.1-noarch
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 9.04
Release: 9.04
Codename: jaunty
'

'kde4-config --version' :

'
Qt: 4.5.2
KDE: 4.3.00 (KDE 4.3.0)
kde4-config: 1.0
'

[jdb2 (jonathanbusby)]

I've also generated debugging information from an Apport crash/core dump after having issuing the following commands :

'
sudo force_start=1 /etc/init.d/apport restart

firefox

TMPDIR=$(mktemp -d)

apport-unpack /var/crash/_usr_lib_firefox-3.5.4pre_firefox.1000.crash $TMPDIR

gdb -nx /usr/lib/firefox-3.5.4pre/firefox -core $TMPDIR/CoreDump -ex 'backtrace full' -ex 'thread apply all backtrace full' -ex 'quit' 2>&1 | tee gdb.log

rm -fr $TMPDIR
'

The debugging information is contained in the attached gdb.log .

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

Moving to Firefox 3.5 for Triage.

[Daniel Letzeisen (dtl131)]

It looks like you're using a pre-release version of FF from a PPA. If so, you should probably contact the PPA maintainer.

[jdb2 (jonathanbusby)]

Yes, it's from a PPA, but the PPA in question is maintained by the "Ubuntu Mozilla Daily Build Team" which consists of two of the top maintainers from the Ubuntu Mozilla Team and which, if I'm not mistaken, are the people who package the daily builds from the Ubuntu Mozilla Team : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mozilla-daily/+archive/ppa ( The web page indicates that the Ubuntu Mozilla Team should be contacted in the case that one has a question or problem regarding one of the packages )

[jdb2 (jonathanbusby)]

As a test, I disabled the Ubuntu-Mozilla-Daily PPA, uninstalled all versions of Firefox, and then installed the "official" Firefox-3.5 package for Ubuntu. Attempting to launch Firefox-3.5 results in the same behavior as described above and running it from a terminal results in the same 'bus error' output.

Specifically, the version of Firefox-3.5 I'm using is :

'
firefox-3.5:
  Installed: 3.5.2+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.04.1
  Candidate: 3.5.2+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.04.1
  Version table:
 *** 3.5.2+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.04.1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/universe Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com jaunty-security/universe Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.5~b4~hg20090330r24021+nobinonly-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/universe Packages
'

Please refer to bug #419980 -- https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.5/+bug/419980 -- for a full report.

[jdb2 (jonathanbusby)]

The above behavior was apparently caused by my failure to remove the Ubuntu-Mozilla-Daily pre-release version of xulrunner-1.9.1 before I installed the official Firefox-3.5 package.

See bug #419980 for details : https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.5/+bug/419980 .

[Gabe Gorelick (gabegorelick)]

Is this still an issue in the latest version of firefox?

[jdb2 (jonathanbusby)]

I don't think so, but I'm running Firefox 3.6.2 from the Ubuntu Mozilla Daily repo. The above bug was apparently a regression introduced by the UMD developers ( I was then running 3.5 ) and was subsequently fixed. The reason it still showed up when I had uninstalled the UMD Firefox 3.5 packages and replaced it by the official stable version is that, as pointed out above, I neglected to remove the UMD Xulrunner package.

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

This bug report is being closed due to your last comment regarding this being fixed by removing the daily package. 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.