Awesomebar drop-down sporadically stops working

[Aaron Kavlie]

Binary package hint: firefox

The location bar history drop-down (colloquially the "Awesomebar") stops working from time to time, such that it doesn't drop down to make any suggestions for whatever is typed in the location bar. This is very sporadic, and there is no obvious cause.

At the same time, a second problem often corresponds with this: there's a bit of latency on characters typed in, and if typing fast, it actually misses some characters entirely, as if it cannot keep up. I'm not sure if that's related, or just a coincidence.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: firefox 3.6.3+nobinonly-0ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-21.32-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-21-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Apr 29 23:49:17 2010
FirefoxPackages:
 firefox 3.6.3+nobinonly-0ubuntu4
 firefox-gnome-support 3.6.3+nobinonly-0ubuntu4
 firefox-branding 3.6.3+nobinonly-0ubuntu4
 abroswer N/A
 abrowser-branding N/A
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release i386 (20091028.5)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: firefox

[Draycen DeCator (ddecator)]

Thank you for reporting this to Ubuntu. It sounds like this could be related to your graphics card/driver. Could you please give us the output when you run 'lspci | grep VGA' in a terminal? Also, have you noticed the typing issue in any other applications?

[Aaron Kavlie (akavlie)]

Here it is:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Quadro NVS 140M (rev a1)

You think the history drop-down breaking is due to the video driver?? Or just the slow typing?

I don't think I've seen the slow typing on this machine anywhere but the Firefox location bar.

[Draycen DeCator (ddecator)]

The slow typing could be graphics related.

You said the behavior appears sporadic. Are there any steps you can take to at least fairly consistently reproduce this bug? If you can find any specific steps, it will help us determine the cause of the issue.

[Florian Hackenberger (f-hackenberger)]

It does not seem to be graphics related, I'm using the intel driver on a G45/G43 card and the bug can be worked around by putting focus into the location bar, pressing Shift-Tab, Enter and then Esc. This bug seems to affect quite a few people. Here are related threads on the Ubuntu forums:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=902784
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1152059

[Draycen DeCator (ddecator)]

Thanks for finding that information on the forums. 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.

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

[Florian Hackenberger (f-hackenberger)]

Happens with a new profile as well.

[Draycen DeCator (ddecator)]

Does this happen after you return from a screensaver or having your computer suspended? This could possibly be a duplicate of bug 438868 but I'm not sure if the behavior you are experiencing is the same.

[Florian Hackenberger (f-hackenberger)]

Yes, I can confirm that the symptoms I'm seeing are very similar to bug #438868. I think you can mark it as a duplicate and wait until someone objects.

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Thanks, I marked it as a duplicate of the above bug mentioned