firefox freezes when dragging tab; system inoperable

Bug #512787 reported by charlestu
18
This bug affects 3 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
firefox-3.5 (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: firefox-3.5

With multiple tabs open, when dragging a tab, the cursor sometimes gets stuck in 'tab moving mode'. The 'violet arrow' indicating a position between tabs, and the dragged page image stick in a position, but the cursor continues to move about with mouse movement. The mouse buttons and keyboard are unresponsive inside or outside of the program window, thus it is impossible to close, to switch programs, to shutdown or to reboot x with cntr-alt-bksp.

Unplugging and replugging usb mouse does not help, nor does plugging in a usb keyboard. Waiting for extended time (overnight) does not help. Forced to press power button which precipitates rapid shutdown, loosing unsaved work in other programs. On restarting firefox (after reboot) the "were embarrassed: firefox had problem restoring session" window appears, yet it seems to be able to restore session without removing any tabs.

This problem is repeatable, but does not occur every time a tab is moved. It has repeated over time, through a number of ff updates. May be related to a number of bugs involving firefox freezing system under various circumstances. I had previously had problems with ff freezing when scrolling, occasionally.

Using xubuntu 9.10 with current updates.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Jan 25 21:38:50 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
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
XsessionErrors:
 (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:1992): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
 (thunderbird-bin:2066): GLib-WARNING **: g_set_prgname() called multiple times
 (firefox:2106): GLib-WARNING **: g_set_prgname() called multiple times

Revision history for this message
charlestu (charlestu) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek) wrote :

Thanks for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Since this bug has enough information provided for a developer to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here. Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!

Changed in firefox-3.5 (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
importance: Undecided → Medium
Revision history for this message
Scott Cowles Jacobs (scott092707) wrote :

This has also happened to me several times .

The small snapshot of the tab window being moved hangs and remains.
The cursor remains stuck as grabbing-hand-and-arrow. It moves around,
but there is no effect if I try to click on something whether it is Firefox-related or not (the hints seem to work, though).

Ubuntu has not crashed, as I can cntrl-alt-F2 and use the login terminal (although sometimes there is a long delay after I enter my password, before giving me the prompt).
I filed ubuntu-bug from this Terminal. I copied down the website address of the bug that was reported by hand, as I was unaware of how to select-cut-copy from the Terminal (or perhaps write it to a file somehow...). I apparently wrote it down correctly...

I have recovered each time by using htop to identify the principal Firefox process, and using F9->SIGKILL to remove it.
cntrl-alt-F7 then returns me to a Firefox-less completely operable Ubuntu desktop.
I then restart Firefox, of course.

I'm not sure why this comes up as "Firefox 3.5", as I recently upgraded to 3.6.8. I did see 3.6.8 in the report as well, but...

Revision history for this message
Scott Cowles Jacobs (scott092707) wrote :

I do not see the bug-report with my comment. Perhaps when one says "my bug is like this bug"
it is assumed that the new report is not needed.

If someone can confirm this, then when it next happens, I will file a new bug, and NOT say it is like another bug,
so that you can have all the details...

Revision history for this message
Scott Cowles Jacobs (scott092707) wrote :

This happened again today, except that this time it was NOT a tab, it was a Bookmarks menu item.
I had wanted to move a Bookmark directory which was listed last, after unsorted bookmarks, up
with the other directories, and did not bother to Organize Bookmarks - I was just trying to move it up
by dragging. It started to work, and then froze. Exactly as before:

"The small snapshot of the [menu item] being moved hangs and remains.
The cursor remains stuck as grabbing-hand-and-arrow. It moves around,
but there is no effect if I try to click on something whether it is Firefox-related or not (the hints seem to work, though).

Ubuntu has not crashed, as I can cntrl-alt-F2 and use the login terminal (although sometimes there is a long delay after I enter my password, before giving me the prompt)."
"long delay" is actually infinite, until I cntrl-C.

I have now 2.6.31-22.61, not .60. This seems not to have made any difference in the bug.

Revision history for this message
StilenX (stilenx) wrote :

I recently had this same issue - it only seems to appear when I have multiple windows open and YouTube streaming in one of them. I do not know why. I am running Firefox 13 in the latest version of Ubuntu.

Revision history for this message
Josef Andersson (northar) wrote :

Happens to me in firefox 13 with ubuntu 12.04 x64 now and then. Can be reproduced. Multiple tabs open, drag and release a tab anywhere. Irritating issue.

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