Opening link in new tab freezes Firefox and makes computer unusable

[Edvin Lindström]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.5

Sometimes, when middle-clicking a link to open a page in a new tab, Firefox freezes up completely. The tab opens and the page begins to load, but after a couple of seconds, it freezes. The Gnome panels seem to freeze as well; moving the mouse pointer over an icon doesn't highlight it. I can't close Firefox or open or switch to another program. Keyboard shortcuts to open programs don't work. The only thing to do is to force reboot.

However, other programs still run in the background. Rhythmbox keeps on playing music, and hovering the mouse pointer over its panel icon actually shows the info box. The panel clock keeps on ticking.

This has only happened with external links to other sites, but I don't know if that's just a coincidence or not. It happens maybe once every five hours or so. I have Flashblock 1.5.11.2 and Adblock 0.5.3.043 installed, as well as Rotate Image 0.1.3.2, DownThemAll 1.1.7 and LeetKey 1.4.3, with compatibility checking turned off. The problem doesn't seem to depend on the content of the page opened. The newly opened tab has always been out of focus when this happens, which may or may not be important.

The last two sites it happened with were http://www.anamanaguchi.com and http://www.slangbella.se .

Using Ubuntu 9.10 and Firefox 3.5.5.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Dec 3 13:17:01 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: firefox-3.5 3.5.5+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.10.1
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=sv_SE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-15.50-generic
SourcePackage: firefox-3.5
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-15-generic x86_64

[Greg (ggbaker)]

Stangely, the exact same symptoms have been happening for me after the upgrade from 12.04 to 13.04. Once in a while the same thing: new Firefox tab, loads for a second, and Gnome/X freezes. Mouse cursor moves, and processes seem to keep running.

I can still SSH into the box. Killing processes doesn't seem to bring down X and I have to reboot.

Almost nothing in our setup is the same: amd64, AMD video, 13.04, Firefox 22, kernel 3.8.0.