firefox 3.5 crashes

[Mike Cap]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.5

This is IBM ThinkPad w/512MB RAM, Ubuntu ver 9.10 and firefox 3.5.
Firefox keeps crashing, and is VERY difficult to recover. Reboots don't help, each reboot bring it to the same place, Firefox recovery page, which at this point works unbelievably slowly, it takes minutes just to scroll down to be able to click on the radio buttons in the bottom.
My question is -- HOW do i revert to firfox 3.0, which has been running fine???.
Synaptic won't allow it, when i uninstall 3.5, and then try to install 3.0, synaptic automatically adds 3.5 files to it and says those must be installed with it.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue May 18 22:31:06 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: firefox-3.5 3.5.9+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.10.1
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_CA.UTF-8
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-21.59-generic
SourcePackage: firefox-3.5
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-21-generic i686

[madbiologist (me-again)]

Firefox 3.5.10 seems to be scheduled for release on the 1st June 2010.

[madbiologist (me-again)]

Also try updating your WebMail Notifier extension to the latest version 2.4.1. And also try disabling extensions (apart from the Ubuntu Firefox Modifications (ubufox)) one by one.

[Mike Cap (nancy-mike)]

Madbiologist:
thanks for your help. I disabled add-ons, and updated the notifier, and it
improved, but it only takes longer before it crahes agin and recovery is
shorter than it was. I.e. 10 -15 min. as opposed to hours it took before.
The problem is, when it crashes and Restore Session screen comes on, and you
restore it, it doesn't drop the flag or erase the log, i donno what it is,
that starts this Restor subrutine. So you start doing your e-amil or what
ever, and it starts loading the Restore page again!!! and you see HHD
running full blast, the indiactor light stays lit up steady, so it highjacks
the whole thing, nothing works or it works VERY slowly. Like a min. or so
just to move cursor across the screen.
That's why i think the Restore screen should be re-written to put the
buttons higher up so it's not required to scroll to get to them. Or what
gmail has, put another set of buttons on top as well.
Back to our problem. This will go on forever, no matter how many times you
reboot and Restore the session. I even removed the battery ( i never use it
anyway) to be able to shut it off suddenly by puling the plug (to try to
prevent it from setting off this vicious cycle), but it's all the same.
I ended up un-installing Firefox and i am using Epiphany for now.
I hope this narrows it down to where the problem is.
It's a shame, i had Firefox 3.5 last year, it was on mozzila website to
download, not officially out yet, and i was very pleased with it, it was
noticebly faster than 3.0 and it ran well. Except on every reboot it would
revert back to 3.0, so i gave up on it.
But this official version is opposite, it is not much faster and it's not
running well either. My wife has a problem with MS Win version too, but not
as bad.
thanks again
vikingstork

On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 5:13 AM, madbiologist <email address hidden> wrote:

> Also try updating your WebMail Notifier extension to the latest version
> 2.4.1. And also try disabling extensions (apart from the Ubuntu Firefox
> Modifications (ubufox)) one by one.
>
> --
> firefox 3.5 crashes
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/582640
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[madbiologist (me-again)]

If I'm understanding you correctly, you need to scroll down to the buttons on the Restore screen because you had a _lot_ of tabs open? Maybe too many for 512 Mb RAM? When RAM is full your swap partition should be used but if that gets full too then you might have a (crashing) problem. What does the Resources tab of System Monitor (under System -> Administration) show? Or it could be that one of the tabs has a page with a bad piece of Javascript, causing Firefox to crash.

To get out of the Restore cycle you describe, as soon as you have successfully restored a browsing session, close Firefox before it crashes again. You will be asked if you want to save all your open tabs, I recommend saying "no", but even saying "yes" should result in your next Firefox launch working better than an automatic restore, although it might crash again after that depending on number of tabs open and/or a bad piece of Javascript on a page in one particular tab.

[Mike Cap (nancy-mike)]

No, i didn't have too many tabs open, only two lines of text, one said
Window, and under the window was the content, forget what, but most likely
Google. So the box wasn't expanded downwards at all. The box was practically
empty. So there wouldn't be a bad tab, i also used it until i realized it
just keeps crashing, and did and used different things and loaded different
websites.
I forgot to mention too, after the reboot, the firefox would be starting on
it's own, even tho it's not in the startup menu.
Last night, i walked away from it for an hour or so, and the screen was
black, it was in terminal mode, but not the virtual terminal in GNOME, but
the kind that comes up when booted in maintenance mode. And it was scrolling
through different processes, and it went on and on, and killing the
processes, i wish i could have captured it, but it was scrolling so i didn't
even know how many screens have already scrolled past, and if it was
looping. Then it stopped and asked for log-in, but it didn't accept the
log-in and started working away feverishly again. This happend only once, so
far.
It was caused by too many tabs and too much content, i read BBC News website
every day, and it's full of graphics and videos, and it froze up on me a few
times, but it never crashed to have to reboot it.
The Force Quit doesn't help either, the firefox comes back to haunt me, like
Mc Donald's hamburger.

On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 12:16 PM, madbiologist <email address hidden> wrote:

> If I'm understanding you correctly, you need to scroll down to the
> buttons on the Restore screen because you had a _lot_ of tabs open?
> Maybe too many for 512 Mb RAM? When RAM is full your swap partition
> should be used but if that gets full too then you might have a
> (crashing) problem. What does the Resources tab of System Monitor (under
> System -> Administration) show? Or it could be that one of the tabs has
> a page with a bad piece of Javascript, causing Firefox to crash.
>
> To get out of the Restore cycle you describe, as soon as you have
> successfully restored a browsing session, close Firefox before it
> crashes again. You will be asked if you want to save all your open
> tabs, I recommend saying "no", but even saying "yes" should result in
> your next Firefox launch working better than an automatic restore,
> although it might crash again after that depending on number of tabs
> open and/or a bad piece of Javascript on a page in one particular tab.
>
> --
> firefox 3.5 crashes
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/582640
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Mike Cap (nancy-mike)]

And the bad Java script, shouldn't that be overwritten when it's
reinstalled??? i reinstalled it once already, it didn't help.

On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 12:16 PM, madbiologist <email address hidden> wrote:

> If I'm understanding you correctly, you need to scroll down to the
> buttons on the Restore screen because you had a _lot_ of tabs open?
> Maybe too many for 512 Mb RAM? When RAM is full your swap partition
> should be used but if that gets full too then you might have a
> (crashing) problem. What does the Resources tab of System Monitor (under
> System -> Administration) show? Or it could be that one of the tabs has
> a page with a bad piece of Javascript, causing Firefox to crash.
>
> To get out of the Restore cycle you describe, as soon as you have
> successfully restored a browsing session, close Firefox before it
> crashes again. You will be asked if you want to save all your open
> tabs, I recommend saying "no", but even saying "yes" should result in
> your next Firefox launch working better than an automatic restore,
> although it might crash again after that depending on number of tabs
> open and/or a bad piece of Javascript on a page in one particular tab.
>
> --
> firefox 3.5 crashes
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/582640
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[madbiologist (me-again)]

I'm not sure how to stop Firefox starting on it's own after a reboot. I'll have to leave that to someone else.

Re what you saw in the terminal - was it scrolling through different processes and killing them or scrolling through files and checking them? An fschck (filesystem check) can sometimes happen after a crash and is usually a good thing.

You reinstalled Firefox or reinstalled Ubuntu? The Javascript I'm referring too is that which is part of a web site/page that you visit, so won't be overwritten by an install. It might be worth installing clamav and running a virus scan. A last resort would be to reinstall Ubuntu, taking the opportunity to install the latest Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" which includes Firefox 3.6.3. Firefox 3.6.3 has been widely reported to have fewer crashes then 3.5.x, although I had very few problems with 3.5 after 3.5.1 (ie. with 3.5.2 and later). Otherwise, as I said in comment 2, Firefox 3.5.10 seems to be scheduled for release on the 1st June 2010.

[Mike Cap (nancy-mike)]

The reason firefox was starting on it's own may be more simple than i
thought, apparently there is a little box you can click in Startup
Applications setup, to re-load at startup whatever was running at the time
of shutdown. I donno if it was there all this time, but i don't use the
Startup menu so i wouldn't know, i only found it when i was trying to STOP
IT from doing it.
Problem is somebody is ssetting these as default, many people don't even
know these features are there. Like sound, they mute it as default!!! so,
next thing i panic, my sound doesn't work.... this was in 9.10, i haven't
even got that far in 10.04
Anyway, thanks for notifying me about the 10.04 upgrade, i upgraded it, and
firefox 3.6.3 seem stable (so far), and actually quite fast.
Except i opened another can of worms, 10.04 won't boot for me, and it
stubbornly insists on switching to Czech language. (that's why i used to
wait a bit before upgrades, when some of the bugs are taken out of it) So I
removed it temporarily. I only seldom use it, anyway (of course it doesn't
mean it shouldn't work properly....).
Now I have to boot in recovery mode, log-in and choose "Start in failsafe
graphics" or to that extent.
USB still doesn't work properly, and i am scared to even try the printer,
after the nightmare i had with it, until i upgraded to 9.10. It's a new
printer ( i buy new ones, it's cheaper than replacement ink, at least here
in Canada, if you catch a good sale) So it runs on CUPS protocol, and i
guess it's new to everybody so they had problems making it work. But I
didn't know, so i was, forever, trying to figger out what i was doing wrong.
It turned out -- nothing, the print function didn't work.
And now i am trying to make Startup disk on my USB, that doesn't work
either.
I am just ready to file official bug report.
thanks again
vikingstork

On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 11:43 PM, madbiologist <email address hidden> wrote:

> I'm not sure how to stop Firefox starting on it's own after a reboot.
> I'll have to leave that to someone else.
>
> Re what you saw in the terminal - was it scrolling through different
> processes and killing them or scrolling through files and checking them?
> An fschck (filesystem check) can sometimes happen after a crash and is
> usually a good thing.
>
> You reinstalled Firefox or reinstalled Ubuntu? The Javascript I'm
> referring too is that which is part of a web site/page that you visit,
> so won't be overwritten by an install. It might be worth installing
> clamav and running a virus scan. A last resort would be to reinstall
> Ubuntu, taking the opportunity to install the latest Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid
> Lynx" which includes Firefox 3.6.3. Firefox 3.6.3 has been widely
> reported to have fewer crashes then 3.5.x, although I had very few
> problems with 3.5 after 3.5.1 (ie. with 3.5.2 and later). Otherwise, as
> I said in comment 2, Firefox 3.5.10 seems to be scheduled for release on
> the 1st June 2010.
>
> --
> firefox 3.5 crashes
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/582640
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[madbiologist (me-again)]

OK, I recommend that you use ubuntu-bug to file 4 or 5 new bug reports for the non-Firefox issues. With the report for "Now I have to boot in recovery mode, log-in and choose "Start in failsafe graphics" or to that extent." make sure you tell us what make and model your video card/chip is and attach the output of lspci -vvnn if ubuntu-bug doesn't do so automatically.

[Ioannis Vranos (cppdeveloper)]

Have you ran memtest86+ to check your system's memory? If not, I think you should do it, so as to know if you have faulty RAM.

[Mike Cap (nancy-mike)]

Ioannis,
thank you for your replay, i thought this report was already closed. It sat
there for a long time, i couldn't see for a while (real bad hay fevers) so i
didin't mark it as closed.
Anyway,I upgraded to 3.6.6 and it seems to work OK so far.
The whole problem is that the distro 10.04 was snuck on me ( i wonder how
many others too), and nowhere it was mentioned that it needs 1GB RAM ( I
have 512MB). I had no idea, so i upgraded, hoping the problems i had before
were fixed. I mean you can find system requirements is you go look for them,
but i didn't suspect it would need more than double RAM. I feel this should
be posted, clearly visible, right at the downloads.
Now i have more problems than i can report, i would have to write a book.
Everything from "it won't boot" to "no print" and "no sound".
Power management doesn't work properly, and language support got changed for
no apparent reason, and now it insists on running wrong language (until
remover it). I have no time or energy to post every one these bugs, and deal
with a flood of replies. There is a glitch in a disk image (iso) that's for
downloading. It erased a whole bunch of my files before i realized what was
happening. But i guess it's my fault.
But if you want to take these up with me, one at a time, i would be more
than happy, i know the sound problem is well known by now, some fella from
Quebec posted a message on his web page how to upgrade alsa driver, but i
haven't had time so far to do it) It has to be compiled and all that jazz. I
think i will wait for update on it.
Thanx
Mike

On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 11:57 PM, Ioannis Vranos
<email address hidden>wrote:

> Have you ran memtest86+ to check your system's memory? If not, I think
> you should do it, so as to know if you have faulty RAM.
>
> --
> firefox 3.5 crashes
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/582640
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Ioannis Vranos (cppdeveloper)]

Hi Mike,

I am just an Ubuntu user like you, that I happened to see your bug report, when searching the bugs with the keyword "Firefox" for a specific bug report I wanted to check, and I thought I should drop an answer that may helped you.

I hope someone will help you with your issues.

I will send you an email with some additional info on what I do regarding Ubuntu installations in general.

[Ioannis Vranos (cppdeveloper)]

Also I think you should have a check with memtest86+ at your PC, because of the previous crashes.