Firefox hangs gnome desktop

[Ian Gough]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.5

FF 3.5.7+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.10.1 on Ubuntu 9.10

Every 3 or 4 days, the gnome desktop freezes. The mouse still tracks but none of the UI elements on any application or the desktop react to clicks. The keyboard no longer controls anything (no task switching, no workspace switching, no Ctl-Alt-Del), and a touch on the power button no longer shuts down the computer. Holding the power button for 4 seconds will power it off.

If you ssh into the affected computer, top/htop shows that no process (including Firefox) is not hogging the CPU during this time. Sending a sigterm to Firefox to will kill it and regain sanity to the Gnome desktop.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Feb 17 18:04:42 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: firefox-3.5 3.5.7+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.10.1
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-19.56-generic
SourcePackage: firefox-3.5
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-19-generic x86_64

[Alex Wardle (awardle)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This sounds like it may be a problem with X server therefore please attach your X server configuration file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) and X server log file (/var/log/Xorg.0.log) to the bug report as individual uncompressed file attachments using the "Attachment:" box below. Could you please also try to run without any /etc/X11/xorg.conf and let Xorg autodetect your display and video card? When you do please also attach the /var/log/Xorg.0.log from this attempt. Thanks in advance.

[Ian Gough (igough57)]

Removed /etc/X11/xorg.conf, then rebooted. Resulting log attached.

[mark doeglas (almark)]

This could be a flash firefox bug, i had the same problems upgrading adobe-flashplugin (10.0.15.3-1hardy1) to 10.0.45.2-1karmic1 seems to fix it...

[Ian Gough (igough57)]

Hmm. Although I do have a flash plugin installed, it is disabled so I would expect this to not affect the situation. Regardless, I will uninstall the plugin.

[mark doeglas (almark)]

The problem didn't go away , gnome / ff crashed sortoff again after i tried an video stream....

[Mark Mueller (mark6mueller)]

I am having a similar problem. While having multiple applications open, usually Firefox, Evolution, and a folder, the Gnome desktop freezes:
Mouse clicks on the navigation bar are unresponsive.
I can use Alt-Tab to switch between windows.
Applications and folders are responsive.
Desktop icons are not responsive.
The desktop chooser and Desktop Icon are not responsive to mouse clicks.

I have a hunch that Boinc may be involved in the problem. I uninstalled Boinc using the software chooser but have seen it still in the list of processes.

[Mark Mueller (mark6mueller)]

I forgot to mention that I get a message when I shut down the system. "Gnome Panel not responding" with a choice to force quit or cancel.

[lpd (danbod)]

Using Ubuntu 10.04 (upgraded) and ff4.0b1, still experiencing Gnome freeze (mouse still works). Ctrl+Alt+F2 and executing 'killall firefox-bin' solved the issue as usual. (For those who are new to Ubuntu: Return to desktop typing 'logout' and then hit Alt+F7).

So, I've never had to reboot the system to make the problem go away.

[gerber (e.gerber)]

I experienced the same with Minefield "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:2.0b8pre) Gecko/20101120 Firefox-4.0/4.0b8pre ID:20101120044137" on Ubuntu 10.10 amd64 (first run of Firefox Sync freezed the browser - and Gnome - for a while).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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