Illegal instruction at start − sse3 required on i386

[Risto Suominen]

From dpkg.log:
2021-03-13 17:56:19 upgrade chromium-browser:i386 87.0.4280.66-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 89.0.4389.82-0ubuntu0.18.04.1
Won't start at all after this upgrade. Downgrading to 65.0.3325.181-0ubuntu1 works. Downgrading to 87.0.4280.66-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 is not possible anymore.
OS: Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS (Lubuntu)
cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 13
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.60GHz
stepping : 6
microcode : 0x18
cpu MHz : 600.000
cache size : 2048 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 1
core id : 0
cpu cores : 1
apicid : 0
initial apicid : 0
fdiv_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe bts cpuid est tm2 pti
bugs : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass l1tf mds swapgs itlb_multihit
bogomips : 1199.98
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
power management:
---
ProblemType: Bug
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.23
Architecture: i386
CurrentDesktop: LXDE
DRM.card0-LVDS-1:
 enabled: enabled
 dpms: On
 status: connected
 edid-base64:
 modes: 1024x768
DRM.card0-VGA-1:
 enabled: disabled
 dpms: Off
 status: disconnected
 edid-base64:
 modes:
Desktop-Session:
 'Lubuntu'
 '/etc/xdg/lubuntu:/etc/xdg/xdg-Lubuntu:/etc/xdg'
 '/etc/xdg/lubuntu:/usr/share/gdm:/var/lib/menu-xdg:/usr/share/Lubuntu:/usr/local/share:/usr/share:/var/lib/snapd/desktop'
DetectedPlugins:

DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Env:
 'None'
 'None'
InstalledPlugins:

Load-Avg-1min: 3.84
Load-Processes-Running-Percent: 0.7%
Lsusb:
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
 Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
MachineType: FUJITSU SIEMENS LIFEBOOK C1110
Package: chromium-browser 65.0.3325.181-0ubuntu1
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.15.0-140-generic root=UUID=29d733a6-7024-41fc-bbe4-2d58c0c1d500 ro splash quiet vt.handoff=1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-140.144-generic 4.15.18
Tags: bionic
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-140-generic i686
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups: adm cdrom dip lpadmin plugdev sambashare sudo
_MarkForUpload: True
dmi.bios.date: 03/25/2005
dmi.bios.vendor: Phoenix/FUJITSU
dmi.bios.version: Version 1.30
dmi.board.name: FJNB16F
dmi.board.vendor: FUJITSU
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: FUJITSU SIEMENS
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnPhoenix/FUJITSU:bvrVersion1.30:bd03/25/2005:svnFUJITSUSIEMENS:pnLIFEBOOKC1110:pvr:rvnFUJITSU:rnFJNB16F:rvr:cvnFUJITSUSIEMENS:ct10:cvr:
dmi.product.name: LIFEBOOK C1110
dmi.sys.vendor: FUJITSU SIEMENS
modified.conffile..etc.default.chromium-browser: [deleted]

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Please run the following command in a terminal to attach additional debugging info to this bug:

    apport-collect 1921187

[Risto Suominen (risto-suominen)]

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[Risto Suominen (risto-suominen)]

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[Zulus Surri (zulus-surri)]

Hello, this bug also affects me. I get "Illegal instruction (core dumped)" in console if I try to start Chromium 89. I think it happens because chromium has added requirement for SSE3 in their compile flags (they added "-msse3" in build/config/compiler/BUILD.gn file), so it doesn't start on CPUs without SSE3. On Windows Chrome's updater checks for SSE3 support and doesn't update you past version 88 in this case, but on Ubuntu it got updated anyway.
Here's relevant Chromium changes:
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1123353
https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/2311044

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Thanks for the pointers Zulus Surri. I think your analysis is correct, although I don't have an old enough CPU handy to confirm it.

I'm afraid reverting that one change won't cut it, as it's likely that there are now multiple changesets in chromium that take advantage of this recent SSE3 requirement.

On a related note, we still carry a disable-sse2 patch that is probably non-functional any longer and that was inherited from Debian long ago. I just checked and the Debian packages don't have that patch anymore, so it's probably safe to remove it.

[Joao Dias (jdias5)]

This situation also affects me.
When I updated the chromium-browser, it stopped to function.
I tried to install an older version (65.0.3325.181-0ubuntu1), but there are conflicts with needed packages (chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra chromium-codecs-ffmpeg) once it doesn't try to install the older version of them but the most recent version.

Any help?

[Risto Suominen (risto-suominen)]

You can install all those three packages at once by specifying the
required version:

sudo apt-get install chromium-browser=65.0.3325.181-0ubuntu1
chromium-codecs-ffmpeg=65.0.3325.181-0ubuntu1
chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra=65.0.3325.181-0ubuntu1

Then you can freeze these versions:

sudo apt-mark hold chromium-browser chromium-codecs-ffmpeg
chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

While it is possible to downgrade chromium to a version that will run on a Pentium M processor, it's highly discouraged to run such an old version that has known security problems.

It's unfortunate that upstream has decided to drop support for these processors, and unfortunately it's not something that we can easily undo, because they will make increasing use of SSE3 features.

I'm changing the status to "Won't Fix" accordingly. I suggest switching to a different browser instead of using an old version of chromium.