Firefox freezes Jaunty while typing in address bar

[rpsu]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.0

After an update from Intrepid to Jaunty on Macbook (Macbook 5,1) Ubuntu seems to freeze occasionally while typing in Firefox address-bar. I've had 4-5 freezes in about 5 hours and at least 3 of them happened while typing url (and while Firefox pulled down menu with a couple of previous addresses).

There seems to be nothing else to do but power down the laptop and restart it again.

ropsu@r-playground:~$ apt-cache policy firefox
firefox:
  Asennettu: 3.0.9+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.04.1
  Ehdokas: 3.0.9+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.04.1
  Versiotaulukko:
 *** 3.0.9+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.04.1 0
        500 http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com jaunty-security/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.0.8+nobinonly-0ubuntu3 0
        500 http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main Packages

I don't know what else (besides the list above and bug/problem description) would be helpful, but you may let me know and I'll dig logs or so as needed.

[rpsu (ropsu)]

There are also a couple of other firefox-related freezing problems, but as far I can see they are not quite the same (address-bar related).

[rpsu (ropsu)]

Update: issue is possible not related to Firefox; laptop got frozen while firefox was opened but not on top of everything. I did uninstall a KcheckGMail while having a few other programs opened as well (firefox, Filezilla, a couple of terminal windowses, Oracle Database 10g Express running on background) and right after uninstall was finished OS freezed. Add+remove applications -sowtware was asking if I wanted to continue or exit the program and that was the end of the session. Power down + power up again.

To be clear enough; i was not typing anything to anywhere (on the browser nor anywhere else) at that time.

[rpsu (ropsu)]

On update #1: issue may be related to display manager (on Macbook 5,1), since if my laptop survives this error, all fonts may get fuzzied into odd pattern or so. And this may happen everywhere; if error happens while typing in address bar, it will affect all fonts for example in terminal and other programs.

[bt1980 (binh-t-tran)]

I have experienced freezing. First I upgraded to FireFox 3.0.9 in Ubuntu 8.10 x64. The computer mouse pointer would still move very lagged; but I was usually unable to do anything. Occasionally, I was able to close FireFox or the tab and the computer would unfreeze and give a Script error. Usually I had to turn the computer off - hard power off.

Then I upgraded to Jaunty (9.04 x64) and the problem continues. I am using non-free Flash and non-free Java.

Usually Facebook and/or Gmail is open when the freezing occurs. The hard drive activity light goes on like there is constant hard drive access.

It happened to me 4 or 5 times in one night.

Using HP DV2202CA - AMD Turion64 2.0, Nvidia Go 6150, 2 GB RAM. Ubuntu 8.10 was fine with earlier versions of FireFox... this all began with the forced update to 3.0.9.

[Dmitry Savin (envelsavinds)]

I have Jaunty, FireFox 3.0.10. It freezes for a long time after typing
site.
(ends with dot) and pressing "Enter".

AMD64, NVIDIA 7300 GT, 2 Gb RAM. Also using amd64 flash plugin (non-free).

[Claudio (claudio-eterno)]

I've the seme problem reported by Envel and also the same conf:
"MD64, NVIDIA 7300 GT, 2 Gb RAM. Also using amd64 flash plugin (non-free)."

[Albert Einstein (spideryzarc)]

also happen to me. nvidia 9400m, using ubuntu 64bits. flash non free and flashblock too.
it's enough to do ctrl+alt+F6 and ctrl+Alt+F7 to solve, but in some cases even the keyboard do not respond.

[loldongs (mundhenke-soeren)]

I have the same problem. ubuntu 64, nvidia gtx260, flash non free, and so on.

Display became garbled, mouse slowed down, things broke in general, only hard reset would help.

I would very much so like to test it with firefox 3.5b99 and such, but there is no 64-Version provided.

FF version 3.0.11 did not bring any improvement. I switched to Opera now, and my system works just fine.

[finifly (fini-fly)]

I can confirm this. Kubuntu Jaunty 64, nvidia 9400, non-free flash, ff 3.0.11. Jaunty was a fresh install.

I was once able to Alt+F2 to bring up Konsole and kill firefox via the command line. But the rest of the time the keyboard freezes and I have to hard restart.

[finifly (fini-fly)]

Update, this seems to be fixed (at least for me with FF 3.0.12).

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Can everyone confirm that 3.0.12 fixes thier bug?
The problem with this bug is that its like a catch all someone sees a slow down and every thinks its the same cause. So i need everyone to confirm

[Gee T (g-tomkins)]

Nope - it doesn't - I'm patched up to date running Jaunty with FF 3.0.13

Top shows Firefox eating resources when there is constant disk access. This seems to be triggered by downloading pictures or videos or when the update manager is active. It doesn't happen when surfing text pages. I suspect its some sort of contention when helper aplications are running and downloading files from the net.

 If I stop Firefox completely (often have to kill the Download pop-up) and then re-start problem goes away.

I'm running on a desktop with limited resource - 256 Mb memory but tons of disk space. NVIDIA graphics, single 1 ghz processor.

Problem is it used to run fine with FF 2 and Ubuntu 8, and OK with Ubuntu 9 and FF 2 ! FF 3 is therefore guilty ?

Anyone else out there with a similar story - please don't tell me to upgrade my PC - that's on the way !

[kdalton (kdalton)]

I am running the latest Jaunty on a unibody Macbook 5,1. I have the latest stable release of Firefox as well as the 3.5.3 alpha RC. Both programs cause Ubuntu to freeze irrecoverably when certain text is entered into the address bar and the autocomplete pull-down is queried. The system requires a hard restart when this occurs.

This bug occurs reproducibly when the characters "cm" are typed into the address bar. I'd like to request some help. If someone can point me to the proper log files to upload regarding the freezes, we can work on resolving the bug.

Any help would be appreciated; this is a crippling bug.

[ptorrsmith (peterts)]

I'm on Jaunty 9.04 with FF 3.0.14.
This has just started happening to me this weekend.
Appears to be related to the auto-lookup of past addresses when typing, as each time I type it freezes for about 10 seconds, and again when I type again. I eventually see the drop-down list of suggested matching urls, but it's frozen again for a while before I can select it.
Not happening on other browsers (Chrome, Opera).
Having to stop using Firefox now until I can find a fix for this as it's a complete show-stopper.

[ptorrsmith (peterts)]

I can also confirm that (for me) it doesn't seem to matter what I type in for it to freeze up the UI thread, and I can also confirm it seems to lockup the entire Gnome desktop (except mouse).

[ptorrsmith (peterts)]

I upgraded to FF 3.5 (Shiretoko) and the problem does not occur. Just in 3.0.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for firefox-3.0 (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]