After upgrading to Edgy, firefox doesn't work anymore

[Jerome Rousselot]

mozilla-firefox version: 2.0+0dfsg-0ubuntu3
epiphany-browser version: 2.16.1-0ubuntu2

Since upgrading to Edgy, running /usr/bin/firefox tells me that the latest session crashed and offers me either to restore it or to start a new one.

In both case no firefox window ever opens on my display. I can see the process starting through top, and after some initialization time it stops using the CPU but stays in memory.

I have some extensions enabled, such as google sync. When I start firefox from a terminal I can see the usual output from the extension.

I have tried:

* to move my .mozilla/firefox profile to another directory so that it creates a new profile ;

* to run firefox from another user account which had never run firefox before ;

* removed firefox and reinstalled the package. This warned me that I had been affected by bug 30791. This bug is similar to mine in its effects but the solution (deleting /usr/lib/firefox/components/compreg.dat) is not the same since it has been applied by the epiphany installation but did not solve the problem.

* to run firefox from another user account with the following flags:
firefox -browser http://www.google.com
this opens a new window, maximized, with the title "Mozilla Firefox", the correct icon, and that's all. The rest of the window is simply blank.
If I close it the process keeps running. So I have to kill the process and when I restart it I am back to the first situation "Firefox has crashed. Do you want to restore your previous session".

During all the time, Epiphany has been working correctly and I am currently using it.

[Alex Latchford (alex.latchford)]

Hello Jerome,

Thank you for the bug report, is this problem still an issue?

Thanks again, Alex.

[Jerome Rousselot (jeromerousselot)]

Hi,

thank you for asking !

Well, the problem evolved a bit and might be related to my x-window
setup. I don't know / remember what caused this evolution.

Now when I am at my office, firefox starts and opens the usual
graphical interface. In my office I have a second display (dell flat
screen 17") that I connect to my laptop (dell latitude D610). Graphic
card is an ATI, with fglrx driver.

When I am at home or somewhere else, I have only the laptop display
and firefox starts but doesn't show up. Of course I verified that it
is not showing on the unconnected external display, by <alt>-<tab>
switching and looking at the virtual desktop minimap (on the bottom
left).

Another possibility is that the problem might be linked to the network
configuration. But this would be even more weird.

Maybe there is something with the extensions. If you tell me how to
get the installed list I will provide it to you.

What do you think ?

I will try to connect another external display at home to see if this
is really the source of the problem. Tell me if you want me to try
something. But I am not too inclined to modify my x-window setup since
this is a production machine and these binary drivers + multiple head
display can be tricky to configure.

A more general point of view on this bug : how many users know that
there are other web browsers ? I guess that the usage increase of
Ubuntu has brought less knowledgeable people. So my point is that for
one person like me who can get around this bug, there may be 10 or 50
persons who encountered the bug and just though "Ubuntu does not
work". This may cause such a bug to be ignored because not reported
enough. Of course, maybe I am the only one who suffers from it :-)

Thanks for your time,

Jérôme

On 1/18/07, Alex Latchford <email address hidden> wrote:
> Hello Jerome,
>
> Thank you for the bug report, is this problem still an issue?
>
> Thanks again, Alex.
>
> ** Changed in: firefox (Ubuntu)
> Assignee: (unassigned) => Mozilla Team
> Status: Unconfirmed => Needs Info
>
> --
> After upgrading to Edgy, firefox doesn't work anymore
> https://launchpad.net/bugs/69550
>

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Thank you for the bug report. Could you please install firefox-dbg (these are the firefox debugging symbols) and try to obtain a backtrace (or crash report) by following the instructions on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Bugs
This will greatly aid us in tracking down your problem

Do you have an ati video card?

Ahhh. You must have a ATI card. Some people have reported that their IBM T43 had the same problem. Add this to your /etc/bin/firefox:
Code:
export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1
and/or by adding to your /etc/env.d/10MozillaFirefox:
Code:
LIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1
on the first line. Its a problem with xorg when you turned on the composite module.

[Jerome Rousselot (jeromerousselot)]

Yes I have an ATI card (mobility radeon x300, ati driver version 8.28,
on a dell latitude d610) and I played with composite/xgl etc some
months ago (before my firefox problems), without much success. I tried
your patch by editing /usr/bin/firefox and adding

export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1

at the beginning of the file (after the sudo test) but this did not
fix the problem.

I had a look at my xorg config file and found this:
Section "Extensions"
        Option "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection
There might be some weird stuff left in my x11 installation but I did
my best to remove these things when I realized they did not work as
expected.

I installed firefox with debug symbols and this is the gdb output:

[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
[New Thread -1220502640 (LWP 20768)]
[New Thread -1223922784 (LWP 20792)]
[New Thread -1234289760 (LWP 20796)]
[New Thread -1255769184 (LWP 20810)]
[New Thread -1268339808 (LWP 20847)]
[New Thread -1276732512 (LWP 20848)]
[New Thread -1285125216 (LWP 20849)]
[Thread -1276732512 (LWP 20848) exited]
[Thread -1285125216 (LWP 20849) exited]
[New Thread -1285125216 (LWP 20850)]
[New Thread -1276732512 (LWP 20851)]
[Thread -1285125216 (LWP 20850) exited]
[New Thread -1285125216 (LWP 20862)]
[New Thread -1296917600 (LWP 20863)]

And that's all... Nothing happens, the process does not crashes,
nothing appears on screen.

On 2/4/07, John Vivirito <email address hidden> wrote:
> Thank you for the bug report. Could you please install firefox-dbg (these are the firefox debugging symbols) and try to obtain a backtrace (or crash report) by following the instructions on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Bugs
> This will greatly aid us in tracking down your problem
>
> Do you have an ati video card?
>
> Ahhh. You must have a ATI card. Some people have reported that their IBM T43 had the same problem. Add this to your /etc/bin/firefox:
> Code:
> export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1
> and/or by adding to your /etc/env.d/10MozillaFirefox:
> Code:
> LIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1
> on the first line. Its a problem with xorg when you turned on the composite module.
>
> --
> After upgrading to Edgy, firefox doesn't work anymore
> https://launchpad.net/bugs/69550
>

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

i assume that this issue is resolved by now, right?

[Jerome Rousselot (jeromerousselot)]

Yes it is

2007/8/2, Alexander Sack <email address hidden>:
>
> i assume that this issue is resolved by now, right?
>
> --
> After upgrading to Edgy, firefox doesn't work anymore
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/69550
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>