firefox 55.0.2 won't even start -- crashes immediately

[Mark Nicholson]

I installed the base image for ubuntu-mate on a Raspberry-Pi 3

/etc/lsb-release:
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=16.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=xenial
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS"

I downloaded

ubuntu-mate-16.04.2-desktop-armhf-raspberry-pi.img (md5=26339ad69154c993035035ccd09e6eb3)

from the downloads page on August 31st.

The base image worked fine with Firefox 51, but I found that a firefox bug was in may way and it was posted on Mozilla that it was known and fixed in a new release. I ran:

# sudo apt-get install firefox

which updated 'firefox' to 55.0.2.

Now, when I try to launch it, the browser immediately crashes. The "Mozilla Crash Reporter" dialog immediately pops up. I have submitted the crash report via that tool, but am filing this as well.

The crash reporter shows:

BuildID: 20170816210306
CrashTime: 1504314528
Email: <email address hidden>
FramePoisonBase: 0000004041121792
FramePoisonSize: 4096
InstallTime: 1504314527
ProductID: {ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}
ProductName: Firefox
ReleaseChannel: release
SafeMode: 0
StartupCrash: 1
StartupTime: 1504314527
ThreadIdNameMapping: 2962:"Gecko_IOThread",2964:"Timer",2965:"Link Monitor",2966:"Socket Thread",2967:"JS Watchdog",2976:"Hang Monitor",
Throttleable: 1
UptimeTS: .7948543
Vendor: Mozilla
Version: 55.0.2

This report also contains technical information about the state of the application when it crashed.

I have 'rm -rf' to all 'mozilla' and 'firefox' directories found in my homedir and the behaviour persists.

When run from the console, I get this:

bash-349# firefox
ExceptionHandler::GenerateDump cloned child 3151
ExceptionHandler::WaitForContinueSignal waiting for continue signal...
ExceptionHandler::SendContinueSignalToChild sent continue signal to child
bash-350#

There appears to be nothing in any log file, syslog or in /var/crash.

[in8sworld (n8berry)]

Same error in Crouton on an ASUS chromebook C201 directly after update to 55.0.2 in Xenial chroot (i3 window manager). FF has worked find through several upgrades of crouton and updates to the chroot for over a year until this update.

[Adam Smith (adamsmith)]

This was (I think correctly) marked as a duplicate of bug 1711337. So we don't keep going around in circles, if you unduplicated something can you say why you have done it please?

[in8sworld (n8berry)]

I'm sorry Adam but the other bug didn't list the error message about the ExceptionHandlers that this one did and didn't occur (for me) until 55.0.2 (the other bug specifically lists it triggering at 55.0.1). I am running in armv7l so it is similar to the error on Raspberry in that regard. If there is anything I can do to nose out if this is definitely the same bug I can provide more info.

Looks like someone opened an issue for crouton on Aug 2
https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton/issues/3347

[in8sworld (n8berry)]

Actually looking at that issue on crouton closer it might not be related.

[in8sworld (n8berry)]

Here's the Firefox upstream bug
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1391802

[Adam Smith (adamsmith)]

Does Firefox 55.0.1 install on your system? https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mozilla-security/+archive/ubuntu/ppa/+build/13246656. The version number implies it is for 16.04.2 whilst 55.0.2 is for 16.04.1

[Adam Smith (adamsmith)]

Sorry the above link should have been https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mozilla-security/+archive/ubuntu/ppa/+build/13246657 which is the armhf version

[in8sworld (n8berry)]

Thanks Adam, I uninstalled 55.0.2 and attempted to install 55.0.1

Selecting previously unselected package firefox-dbg.
(Reading database ... 55986 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack firefox-dbg_55.0.1+build2-0ubuntu0.16.04.2_armhf.deb .
Unpacking firefox-dbg (55.0.1+build2-0ubuntu0.16.04.2) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of firefox-dbg:
 firefox-dbg depends on firefox (= 55.0.1+build2-0ubuntu0.16.04.2); howeve
  Package firefox is not installed.

dpkg: error processing package firefox-dbg (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 firefox-dbg

Checking with lsb_release -a I see I am running a different version of ubuntu

Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS
Release: 16.04
Codename: xenial

[in8sworld (n8berry)]

I see I was trying to install the wrong deb file.
I grabbed firefox_55.0.1+build2-0ubuntu0.16.04.2_armhf.deb
and installed that fine. Running it gives the same error as 55.0.2 so perhaps I somehow missed 55.0.1 when it came out? Starting to look like it might be a duplicate I guess.

[herrtimson (herrtimson)]

This is a duplicate of #1711337, which is not fixed yet for 14.04 (I can confirm this from runtime testing) and likely 16.04 as you run into the same error.