Firefox crashes the OS when I type into the search window

[apinunt]

Binary package hint: firefox

Just typing several letters, such as abc into the Y! search window kills Firefox, and then takes me to the login screen. The same happens if I switch to Google or IMDB for the search.

lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu lucid (development branch)
Release: 10.04

apt-cache policy firefox
firefox:
  Installed: 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu6
  Candidate: 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu6
  Version table:
 *** 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu6 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
CheckboxSubmission: fa2cf2d00da9f068440613e2a438ca46
CheckboxSystem: b1cca5f799a911bbb44e7180c2fd235d
Date: Sun Mar 21 20:00:36 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
FirefoxPackages:
 firefox 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu6
 firefox-gnome-support 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu6
 firefox-branding 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu6
 abroswer N/A
 abrowser-branding N/A
Package: firefox 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu6
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-16.25-generic
SourcePackage: firefox
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-16-generic i686

[Draycen DeCator (ddecator)]

Thank you for reporting this to Ubuntu. This sounds like it may be related to some issues that are known in Plymouth. Can you please answer a few questions for me?

1. Is your system fully up-to-date?
2. Does this crash ever happen when typing in other programs?
3. Does this bug only occur once per session or can it happen multiple times?

Once you answer those questions, we'll have a better idea of how to approach this bug. Thanks in advance!

[apinunt (apinunt)]

Yes, my system is fully up to date, and I frequently check and apply all updates available several times a day.
I've not yet encountered any crashes using any other programs, and I've tried most everything, including some of the games.
The bug occurs nearly every time I use the search function, although not 100% of the time. I just typed "abc" in the field using the google search engine with success. I then typed "cha" and Firefox crashed taking me to the login screen. After logging in again, starting Firefox fresh, I typed "chasers", the name of a movie, and was able to get a search. I tried doing it a second time and was only able to type "chase" and encountered a crash.
It appear to occur randomly, but frequently, no matter which search engine I select, google, yahoo, imdb, and wikipedia. I've tried typing random letters and encounter a crash with as few as 3 letters sometimes, and other times I can type 10 or more letters at random with no problem.
I hope this helps, but feel free to ask if there is more information I can provide.

[Draycen DeCator (ddecator)]

Sometimes Firefox profiles can become corrupt and/or extensions can conflict. Could you please try this with a new profile and see if the problem still exists? You do not need to delete your old profile to test. If this helps, you might want to try to disable all your extensions and re-enable them one by one until you find the problematic one.

You can start the profile manager with the following command:
firefox -ProfileManager

[apinunt (apinunt)]

I first renamed the old profile, and started firefox, typed a few letters at random and crashed at the 5th letter.
Next I disabled all extensions, restarted firefox, and was able to type only 4 letters before a crash occurred.
Open to any suggestions, or provide additional information as requested. Thanks

[apinunt (apinunt)]

Per a suggestion on "freenode" "ubuntu+1" chat, I removed the plymouth package and rebooted my system. The problem with firefox crashing taking me to the login screen reoccurred twice, once after typing 3 letters using IMDB search engine, and the second time after logging in again and typing 7 characters using the google search engine.

[Draycen DeCator (ddecator)]

Sorry for the delayed response. Could you please let us know what graphics driver you are using? Thanks in advance!

[apinunt (apinunt)]

I'm not sure how to determine the graphics driver, but lspci displays:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M6 LY

Is there some other command I should execute that would provide more relevant information?

[apinunt (apinunt)]

Just an update. I just applied all pending updates, and found that one bug (keyring) now appears to be resolved, but the Firefox problem persists. Typing just a few characters in the search engine field crashes and takes me to the login screen.
Is there any further information that I could provide that would be helpful, and I'm very curious to know if any others have experienced this problem?

[Draycen DeCator (ddecator)]

I have not seen any other reports of this issue, at least none that were not found to be related to Plymouth. Could you possibly use a Live CD of the Lucid Lynx Release Candidate to see if this issue occurs for you in a live session? That will help us determine if the problem is possibly unique to the install you have on your system.

You can get the .iso here: http://releases.ubuntu.com/releases/10.04/

[apinunt (apinunt)]

I just applied all pending updates, little over 300MB, and the problem remains. I will try and download the Live CD and post the results here as quickly as possible. Experiencing some heavy rain, winds, and electrical storms here in Asia, causing power and Internet losses so this may take a little time, but I'll try to make it as quick as possible.

[Draycen DeCator (ddecator)]

Also, please check in /var/crash to see if there are any Firefox crash files in there. Since you get logged out when this happens, apport may not have been given a chance to tell you about the report being generated. If you see a file in there, you can double-click it to begin the submission process of a new bug.

If you do not see any crash reports, then you may need to enable apport by changing /etc/default/apport and then restarting.

If there was a crash report for you to file, please leave a comment here so we can close this report and move over to the apport-generated crash report.

[apinunt (apinunt)]

Having difficulty downloading the LiveCD, but /var/crash is empty and apport was set to 0. I enabled apport and started it, then opened Firefox and on the 3rd attempt to use the search engine field, I experienced the same crash as before taking me to the login screen. After logging in I found /var/crash empty. I'm still not having any luck downloading the LiveCD RC, but will keep trying.

[jobdone (j0bdone)]

I have this bug on my sons laptop and can confirm it uses an old ati graphics chipset. Using the chrome browser has no problems. I also noticed that setting a xorg.conf to use the Radeon driver (doubt this made any difference) and turning visual effects to 'Normal' from none seemed to fix this too....

[jobdone (j0bdone)]

Ok just to add to that I also have an old ati graphics chipset on my wifes laptop too (different to my sons) and the same fix worked for that too , this bug usually occurs for me when checking mail on hotmail.com and clicking on any mail in my inbox to view it....