Firefox crashes on Fronter Platform

[Stefan Nagy]

Binary package hint: firefox

Since I installed Maverick (2 days ago) everytime I want to use the Fronter Platform (some e-learning platform the University of Vienna uses) Firefox crashes. I allready tried to deinstall all Add-ons and I also deleted my ~/.mozilla folder to get rid of all settings. Nothing changes - Firefox crashes almost everytime I try to work on the platform. I'm not yet sure if other sites are affected aswell...

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: firefox 3.6.10+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-22.34-generic 2.6.35.4
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-22-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue Oct 12 17:53:38 2010
FirefoxPackages:
 firefox 3.6.10+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu3
 firefox-gnome-support 3.6.10+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu3
 firefox-branding 3.6.10+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu3
 abroswer N/A
 abrowser-branding N/A
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release i386 (20101007)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=de_AT.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: firefox

[Kvikende (kvikende-redhat-bugs)]

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; nn-NO; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091105 Fedora/3.5.5-1.fc11 Firefox/3.5.5

Each time I visit a site we use at my university to give out handouts etc. and I log out or close the tab that page is being shown in, Firefox crashes.

I don't know how to get a crashdump or any other information about how and why it crashes. The page is http://fronter.com/uit however you need login credentials to get in there.

The reason I know it is that plugin is that I uninstalled it to see if that helped. Firefox didn't crash but each time i went there it complained about me not being able to chat because I lacked java.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Go to fronter.com/uit and log in
2. Log out or close that tab
Actual Results:
Firefox crashes

Expected Results:
That tab being closed, or me being logged out

It is also the case on my laptop so it isn't isolated to one machine. Both are running Fedora 11 x86_64.

[Juha (juha-redhat-bugs)]

What you could try, is to get the output from plugin and attach it to the bug report like instructed here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Java#Troubleshooting_JRE

[Kvikende (kvikende-redhat-bugs)]

Created attachment 369244
console output from crashed firefox

I did what you said, and here is the output. I hope there is no privacy sensitive information in it.

[Juha (juha-redhat-bugs)]

It looks good debug output. At least you're not suffering the same Applet not initialized as I am, since you get:

ICEDTEA PLUGIN: plugin_in_pipe_callback
Received message: instance 1 status Applet initialized.
  PIPE: plugin read: instance 1 status Applet initialized.

[Kvikende (kvikende-redhat-bugs)]

*** Bug 584943 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Bug (bug-redhat-bugs)]

This message is a reminder that Fedora 11 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 30 (thirty) days from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 11. It is Fedora's policy to close all
bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained. At that time
this bug will be closed as WONTFIX if it remains open with a Fedora
'version' of '11'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version'
to a later Fedora version prior to Fedora 11's end of life.

Bug Reporter: Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that
we may not be able to fix it before Fedora 11 is end of life. If you
would still like to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it
against a later version of Fedora please change the 'version' of this
bug to the applicable version. If you are unable to change the version,
please add a comment here and someone will do it for you.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes
bugs or makes them obsolete.

The process we are following is described here:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping

[Torstein A. W. (kvikende)]

From original bug report. I have a dump. Can provide with newer one if necessary.

Each time I visit a site we use at my university to give out handouts etc. and
I log out or close the tab that page is being shown in, Firefox crashes.

I don't know how to get a crashdump or any other information about how and why
it crashes. The page is http://fronter.com/uit however you need login
credentials to get in there.

The reason I know it is that plugin is that I uninstalled it to see if that
helped. Firefox didn't crash but each time i went there it complained about me
not being able to chat because I lacked java.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Go to fronter.com/uit and log in
2. Log out or close that tab
Actual Results:
Firefox crashes

Expected Results:
That tab being closed, or me being logged out

It is also the case on my laptop so it isn't isolated to one machine.

[Torstein A. W. (kvikende)]

Created attachment 332
console output

This is the console output. Can provide with newer one if necessary. Can also check with Fedora 13 when released.

[Torstein A. W. (kvikende)]

Created attachment 340
newer console output

Sorry if I'm spamming but the bug is still present and annoying. It makes an important site I use frequently almost impossible to use.

[Kvikende (kvikende-redhat-bugs)]

I tried the daily Firefox 3.7a x86_64 created 26 of June with Java (by copying the symlink in /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins to ~/.mozilla/plugins) and was unable to reproduce the crash.

It is present in 3.6.4 and is just as annoying as always.

[Andrew John Hughes (ahughes)]

This is with the new plugin and should be filed under it.

[Deepak (deepak-redhat-bugs)]

What is the version of OpenJDK on your machine? Also, can you please attach a log with the version you are currently using?

The logs above are with an older version of the plugin. I need to see the logs of the new one to see what is happening. Thanks.

[Kvikende (kvikende-redhat-bugs)]

[torstein@Laptor ~]$ rpm -q java-1.6.0-openjdk-plugin
java-1.6.0-openjdk-plugin-1.6.0.0-41.b18.fc13.x86_64

[Kvikende (kvikende-redhat-bugs)]

Created attachment 435979
newest console output

[Kvikende (kvikende-redhat-bugs)]

Created attachment 435980
stderr for the plugin

[Deepak (deepak-redhat-bugs)]

Thanks for the logs! It certainly appears to be a problem with the plugin. Is this crash consistently reproducible?

[Kvikende (kvikende-redhat-bugs)]

Yep. After a few clicks around that page and then logging out crashes the browser every time.

[Deepak (deepak-redhat-bugs)]

Would you mind running this with gdb to posting the results? it would help track the issue immensly..

To do so, first as root run 'debuginfo-install -y java-1.6.0-openjdk firefox'

Once everything is installed, close all firefox instances, and open up a terminal. Run 'firefox -g 2>&1 | tee console.log' to start firefox within gdb and log everything to the file named console.log.

Do the usual stuff to make the browser crash, and then back in the gdb terminal, you'll see that it has caught the SIGSEGV.

There, type 'thread apply all bt'. This will dump all the thread data. Then type exit and hit enter to exit out of gdb.

Please scan console.log to make sure it has no information you wouldn't want public, and then attach it to this bug.

Once this is all done, you can remove the *-debuginfo rpms installed by the debuginfo-install command.

[Kvikende (kvikende-redhat-bugs)]

Created attachment 437038
console log with thread info

I had to write "run" for Firefox to start, and I installed all the debugging packages gdb said I needed just in case.

[Juha (juha-redhat-bugs)]

(In reply to comment #14)
> To do so, first

Deepak, is something missing here:

  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Java/Troubleshooting

let's fix if so, you don't always need to manually write the whole story :)

[Deepak (deepak-redhat-bugs)]

(In reply to comment #16)
> (In reply to comment #14)
> > To do so, first
>
> Deepak, is something missing here:
>
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Java/Troubleshooting
>
> let's fix if so, you don't always need to manually write the whole story :)

It isn't something most people would have to do actually. Usually abrt would grab a trace and allow you to automatically post it. I am surprised it didn't pop up for you.

[Kvikende (kvikende-redhat-bugs)]

abrt pops up every time Firefox crashes due to this but abrt doesn't detect duplicates. If you go to the bug I closed in comment no. 4 you'll see the abrt trace.

I've probably by accident reported 4 bugs about this from abrt.

[Deepak (deepak-redhat-bugs)]

Is there any chance I can get a temp account on that page to try it? I suspect this is some sort of race condition (the error is happening in Mozilla code and could be due to the plugin passing it an invalid pointer caused by a race condition). If I could reproduce the problem locally, it'd be a lot easier to fix and to test that it is in fact fixed.

[Kvikende (kvikende-redhat-bugs)]

By looking through the employees, I found the person responsible for Fronter and IT at the university. Jelena N Larsen is her name, with the e-mail adress <email address hidden> .

If you send her an e-mail asking for an account I am sure she will do what she can to help you.

As a last resort I could offer you my log in details however it will be a breach of regulations and common internet security and privacy sense.

[Deepak (deepak-redhat-bugs)]

Thanks! I will email Jelena and see if I can get a temporary account.

[Stefan Nagy (stefan-nagy)]

After I found the upstream bugreport I deinstalled the IcedTea-Plugin and installed the SUN Java Plugin which solved the problem. However, I want to use the IcedTea-Plugin...

[Stefan Nagy (stefan-nagy)]

I've got the same problem on Ubuntu Maverick, the University of Vienna uses the same platform ('Fronter')...

https://bugs.launchpad.net/icedtea/+bug/659309

[Stefan Nagy (stefan-nagy)]

Since this is obviously a openjdk/icedtea-bug, I'm setting the firefox-status to 'invalid'.

[Barbara-xxx1975 (barbara-xxx1975)]

Could this depend on bug 593?

[Barbara-xxx1975 (barbara-xxx1975)]

(In reply to comment #5)
> Could this depend on bug 593?
>

It seems not, after looking at bt on redhat's bugzilla

[Torstein A. W. (kvikende)]

Now that my new Uni also has begun using the Java applet on their Fronter page, each time I visit the browser crashed.

Is there anything I can do to get this fixed? That page is very important for me.

[Kvikende (kvikende-redhat-bugs)]

I have moved to a different University that also uses Fronter and I'm experiencing the crash on their sites as well. I sent an email to their tech support email asking them to get in contact with you. Perhaps they can provide a temporary account for you to reproduce the crash.

If they do, I hope that will speed up the fixing process. It affects me a lot.

[Dbhole (dbhole)]

Target -> 1.2

[Bug (bug-redhat-bugs)]

This message is a reminder that Fedora 13 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 30 (thirty) days from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 13. It is Fedora's policy to close all
bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained. At that time
this bug will be closed as WONTFIX if it remains open with a Fedora
'version' of '13'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version'
to a later Fedora version prior to Fedora 13's end of life.

Bug Reporter: Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that
we may not be able to fix it before Fedora 13 is end of life. If you
would still like to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it
against a later version of Fedora please change the 'version' of this
bug to the applicable version. If you are unable to change the version,
please add a comment here and someone will do it for you.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes
bugs or makes them obsolete.

The process we are following is described here:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping

[Deepak (deepak-redhat-bugs)]

I am working on a fix for this, but it is quite complex and will only go in icedtea-web 1.1 and higher. Since F14 uses the plugin from the IcedTea6 branch, the fix for this will therefore be limited to F15 and higher.

[Fedora (fedora-redhat-bugs)]

This message is a notice that Fedora 15 is now at end of life. Fedora
has stopped maintaining and issuing updates for Fedora 15. It is
Fedora's policy to close all bug reports from releases that are no
longer maintained. At this time, all open bugs with a Fedora 'version'
of '15' have been closed as WONTFIX.

(Please note: Our normal process is to give advanced warning of this
occurring, but we forgot to do that. A thousand apologies.)

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, feel free to reopen
this bug and simply change the 'version' to a later Fedora version.

Bug Reporter: Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that
we were unable to fix it before Fedora 15 reached end of life. If you
would still like to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it
against a later version of Fedora, you are encouraged to click on
"Clone This Bug" (top right of this page) and open it against that
version of Fedora.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes
bugs or makes them obsolete.

The process we are following is described here:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping

[Stefan Nagy (stefan-nagy)]

Since my University moved to another e-learning platform and I finished my studies I don't have any access to the Fronter Platform anymore – so I won't be able to test this any further…

[Jvanek (jvanek)]

No crashes reported recently.

[Tiago Stürmer Daitx (tdaitx)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The bug is set as fixed upstream but no changelog entry recorded that fix. Closing it as invalid.