Periodic hanging of firefox with status "jbd2_log_wait_commit"

[Bruzzi]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.5

I have reinstalled Ubuntu 9.10 on a cleanly formatted ext4 partition 3 times in hopes that a clean install would resolve this, but it does not. I do not have this issue on my other laptop and desktop which have upgraded from 9.04 to 9.10.

Every so often (at least once per day), firefox will dim and become unresponsive. Checking the System Monitor shows it has a Waiting Status of "jbd2_log_wait_commit" and a status of "Uninterruptible". From this point, I cannot kill it and other applications start to become unstable. While I can move the mouse freely and click on items in the System menu, programs launch and requests to reboot are much delayed (>5 or 10 minutes) or sometimes do not return before I get impatient and hold down the power button for a hard shut down.

I am running Ubuntu 9.10 on a Dell Inspiron 1501 with AMD Sempron processor. Below are details on my firefox package version:
  Installed: 3.5.7+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.10.1
  Candidate: 3.5.7+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.10.1
  Version table:
 *** 3.5.7+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.10.1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com karmic-updates/main Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com karmic-security/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.5.3+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu6 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com karmic/main Packages

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
CheckboxSubmission: b6b0c3fdd4578c5c103ee27486655952
CheckboxSystem: d00f84de8a555815fa1c4660280da308
Date: Thu Jan 21 08:34:58 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release i386 (20091028.5)
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
Package: firefox-3.5 3.5.7+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.10.1
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-17.54-generic
SourcePackage: firefox-3.5
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-17-generic i686

[tagMacher (tagmacher)]

I see this issue with Mozilla Thunderbird 14.0 on a recently re-installed Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on a Compaq V2414 laptop with AMD Turion64 processor and 2GB of RAM. The uninterruptible state of TB is fairly frequent, though this does not prevent me from working in parallel with other applications.
Though I cannot confirm this now, I have had this issue earlier with Firefox which led me to abandon it in favour of Google Chrome.
Googling seems to indicate that this has something to do with the underlying journalling file system though I do not know enough to be sure. I request someone knowledgeable to may be shift this report to appropriate place / classify this as Linux issue rather that Mozilla software.

[Cedric M (cedric780)]

I also had this issue not only with firefox but also with many other applications.
It was due to a deficient hard disk.