Firefox exits

[Robert B]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.5

Firefox exits randomly. It seems to be a poor interaction between X and Firefox because, when I run firefox from the command line, I get this output:

 firefox: Fatal IO error 10 (No child processes) on X server :0.0.
 Fri Jul 9 01:15:39 PDT 2010

(Note that Firefox disappeared early in the morning.)

I am running Firefox on Mac Mini hardware using (I think) the NVidia proprietary device driver for the display. If attaching X logs would help, please tell me.

All other displayed programs seem to survive fine -- it's only Firefox that goes away.

% lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 9.10
Release: 9.10
% apt-cache policy firefox
firefox:
  Installed: 3.5.9+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.10.1
  Candidate: 3.5.9+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.10.1
  Version table:
 *** 3.5.9+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.10.1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com karmic-updates/main Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com karmic-security/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.5.3+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu6 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com karmic/main Packages
% apt-cache policy xorg
xorg:
  Installed: 1:7.4+3ubuntu10
  Candidate: 1:7.4+3ubuntu10
  Version table:
 *** 1:7.4+3ubuntu10 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com karmic-updates/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1:7.4+3ubuntu7 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com karmic/main Packages
% dpkg -l '*nvidia*'|grep ^i
ii nvidia-173-modaliases 173.14.20-0ubuntu5 Modaliases for the NVIDIA binary X.Org drive
ii nvidia-185-kernel-source 185.18.36-0ubuntu9 NVIDIA binary kernel module source
ii nvidia-185-libvdpau 185.18.36-0ubuntu9 Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix
ii nvidia-185-modaliases 185.18.36-0ubuntu9 Modaliases for the NVIDIA binary X.Org drive
ii nvidia-96-modaliases 96.43.13-0ubuntu6 Modaliases for the NVIDIA binary X.Org drive
ii nvidia-common 0.2.15.1 Find obsolete NVIDIA drivers
ii nvidia-glx-185 185.18.36-0ubuntu9 NVIDIA binary Xorg driver
ii nvidia-settings 180.25-0ubuntu1 Tool of configuring the NVIDIA graphics driv

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri Jul 9 07:45:39 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release i386 (20091028.5)
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: firefox 3.5.9+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.10.1
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/usr/bin/tcsh
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-22.60-generic
SourcePackage: firefox-3.5
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-22-generic i686

[Robert B (robertbub)]

Here's more hardware description:

    description: Lunch Box Computer
    product: Macmini3,1
    vendor: Apple Inc.
    version: 1.0
    capabilities: smbios-2.4 dmi-2.4
    configuration: boot=normal chassis=lunchbox
           *-display
                description: VGA compatible controller
                product: C79 [GeForce 9400]
                vendor: nVidia Corporation

[Scott Cowles Jacobs (scott092707)]

To: Robert B

I also later filed a second bug report ("Firefox suddenly disappears several times lately - 2")
see: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.5/+bug/592597

In that, I mentioned my theory that it perhaps had something to do with low memory,
and also listed a technique I had come up with that drastically reduced memory/processor usage.
I don't know if that was the answer, but since then Firefox has not disappeared, and has grey-screened
quite a bit less.

[I also placed this comment at your old bug, but commented here in case you don't look at the 'old' bug again.
Sorry to repeat myself.]

Hope that this helps.

[Robert B (robertbub)]

I don't think memory is the problem. Unless there is a cron job which runs at night eating up memory. I suppose that's possible.

In any case, below is part of my "top" output, sorted by virtual memory. There is plenty of memory.

I'll investigate whether a cron job is consuming and using up memory at night.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 top - 07:38:20 up 20 days, 34 min, 5 users, load average: 0.01, 0.06, 0.02
 Tasks: 174 total, 2 running, 172 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
 Cpu(s): 4.4%us, 1.5%sy, 0.0%ni, 94.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st
 Mem: 1777004k total, 1730468k used, 46536k free, 150196k buffers
 Swap: 1999992k total, 6388k used, 1993604k free, 1029072k cached

   PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
  2008 user 20 0 409m 176m 32m S 12 10.2 18:55.10 firefox
   810 root 20 0 319m 56m 19m S 4 3.2 173:47.05 Xorg
  1167 user 20 0 82888 43m 13m S 2 2.5 73:19.19 compiz.real
  1170 user 20 0 171m 33m 18m S 0 1.9 0:24.85 nautilus
  1169 user 20 0 117m 20m 14m S 0 1.2 2:07.03 gnome-panel
  1048 user 20 0 116m 20m 3484 S 0 1.2 107:42.15 pulseaudio
  1200 user 20 0 41820 19m 11m S 0 1.1 0:00.50 python
  1173 user 20 0 25108 17m 10m S 0 1.0 11:44.71 x11vnc

[Robert B (robertbub)]

This problem seems to have gone away.

I did remove the BetterThanAds firefox addon (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/14638/ ). That may have been it. There were various errors from the extension because it seems to be a 64-bit thing whereas I only run 32-bit operating systems when possible.