Ubuntu + Firefox + Add Reply or PM = Crash

[Robor]

Hi xtknight... I had the crash again this morning. I updated the bug on LaunchPad and uploaded the crash report (29MB! :Q ).

I don't want to go about creating a new profile to test this problem because this is my work machine and I also have a VMWare machine that is my 'work' WinXP machine. Hopefully the report I sent will provide some clues as to what is causing the crashing.

 

[xtknight]

Sheesh. Just when you want to reproduce it, you can't.

I've run Firefox from the terminal for something like 5 days straight and it still hasn't happened. Maybe that's the key to fixing it? (I doubt it.) I use VMware too as a matter of fact. I wonder if both of our machines are consuming a lot of memory and causing these types of issues. Considering everyone here who uses Linux and who has never experienced the problem, maybe it's the Firefox+VMware combo. It's not like I'm hitting OOM (out of memory), though. (Unless it's my nspluginwrapper+Flash player bug.)

 

[drag]

If you run out of memory then you can invoke the OOM Killer. It will kill proccesses semi-randomly in order to free up ram.

The idea is that it's better to guess at killing run away processes then it is to have the entire machine lock up.

Firefox is a good potential target for this. It's not uncommon for that to get choosen for annihilation

Although you'd have to have all your ram used and your swap for this to happen.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: xtknight
Sheesh. Just when you want to reproduce it, you can't.

I've run Firefox from the terminal for something like 5 days straight and it still hasn't happened. Maybe that's the key to fixing it? (I doubt it.) I use VMware too as a matter of fact. I wonder if both of our machines are consuming a lot of memory and causing these types of issues. Considering everyone here who uses Linux and who has never experienced the problem, maybe it's the Firefox+VMware combo. It's not like I'm hitting OOM (out of memory), though. (Unless it's my nspluginwrapper+Flash player bug.)

ive been having the same thing for weeks, but have never bothered to find out why its happening.

im using Xubuntu 6.10, i do have flash installed, and adblock. a few other extensions as well. i get a crash a couple of times a week when using the Reply window.

 

[greylica]

I've had problems with firefox too, but a full update solved all of my problems...

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: drag
If you run out of memory then you can invoke the OOM Killer. It will kill proccesses semi-randomly in order to free up ram.

How do you do that? Magic SysRq? I have used that a couple times, it comes in handy.

The idea is that it's better to guess at killing run away processes then it is to have the entire machine lock up.

Firefox is a good potential target for this. It's not uncommon for that to get choosen for annihilation

Although you'd have to have all your ram used and your swap for this to happen.

Originally posted by: greylica
I've had problems with firefox too, but a full update solved all of my problems...

Hmm..update from what to what?

 

[Nothinman]

How do you do that? Magic SysRq? I have used that a couple times, it comes in handy.

You don't invoke it by hand, it run on it's own when the kernel runs out of memory.

 

[magomago]

this happens to me as well

but its not just PM

it occurs in posting posts!

Every once a while it crashes when i click "send"

the pm/message always gets posted or sends but it brings everything else down

i don't have any extension on, i do'nt have any themes
but i have the english/arabic/chinese simp/chinese trad language packages installed (lol i have no idea why..is that the font packs?)

anyways this has been going on for me for a LOOOONG time, but its only once or twice a week...and firefox has an autorecover that it doesn't bother me. When I was in breezy and this would happen I stopped using FF and started using others. But once "auto recover" came into dapper or edgy for FF then I pretty much just stuck with FF

 

[magomago]

it just did it when i was editing this post

but like I said - auto recover means I don't care very much

 

[Bremen]

dang it, just happened to me for the first time, can't say I did anything differently than normal :-\

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: xtknight
Sheesh. Just when you want to reproduce it, you can't.

I've run Firefox from the terminal for something like 5 days straight and it still hasn't happened. Maybe that's the key to fixing it? (I doubt it.) I use VMware too as a matter of fact. I wonder if both of our machines are consuming a lot of memory and causing these types of issues. Considering everyone here who uses Linux and who has never experienced the problem, maybe it's the Firefox+VMware combo. It's not like I'm hitting OOM (out of memory), though. (Unless it's my nspluginwrapper+Flash player bug.)

My work lappy is Ubuntu with WinXP Pro in VMWare Server but my Firefox sessions are crashing from Ubunto - not from within WinXP Pro. I don't think RAM would be the issue as I've got 1.25GB in this machine.

My personal lappy has VMWare Server installed but I rarely run it. I don't think it's running out of RAM either because it's got 1GB of RAM and I usually don't have much open (Thunderbird, gnome terminal, Gaim, and a Firefox session).

Edit: I had a crash earlier and updated the LaunchPad bug page including my .crash file.

 

[nweaver]

same thing happening here...click reply, fill in the post, boom, it crashes (but post is posted)

I don't have any plugins, but I do have flash...maybe it's some bad flash stuff?

Don't think it's memory, because I have 2 gigs, and haven't seen a spike when closing it.

 

[Bremen]

Originally posted by: nweaver
same thing happening here...click reply, fill in the post, boom, it crashes (but post is posted)

I don't have any plugins, but I do have flash...maybe it's some bad flash stuff?

Don't think it's memory, because I have 2 gigs, and haven't seen a spike when closing it.

Just for reference I don't have flash (64 bit) and I have 4GB of ram with 2 GB swap (well I thought I had 2 GB swap, turns out its not activated since I was fiddling around with my drives and plugged them in differently... oops :0)

 

[Robor]

Just bumping this post to see if others input can help the developers figure out the cause of this crash. I posted a few more reports of the crashes and my last one gave me a little different output in the terminal as well as a new .crash report. I submitted that file with my last message. Here's a link to the open bug: LINK

 

[xtknight]

How are you even getting these bug reports? Mine just crashes with no warning.

Fixed link: bug

Edit: looks like they may be in /var/crash, although at the moment I have no files in there. Mine hasn't crashed in ages. Was it fixed in 2.0.0.2 possibly?

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: xtknight
How are you even getting these bug reports? Mine just crashes with no warning.

Fixed link: bug

Edit: looks like they may be in /var/crash, although at the moment I have no files in there. Mine hasn't crashed in ages. Was it fixed in 2.0.0.2 possibly?

Thanks for the link fix. Doh!

No, it wasn't fixed in 2.0.0.2. I'm still getting it on 2 different machines. One of the crashes was simply typing a URL into FF and hitting enter. Weird.

I only get crash reports once in a while. I'd say maybe 1/4 or 1/5. I'm sure they'll nail it down.

 

[Robor]

Just a bump to let everyone know the new info from one of the developers working on the crashing problem. See original post as I updated it rather than here.

 

[you2]

I had a similar problem and it seems to have gone away. My crashes were with gdm (not firefrox). I fixed it by removing hte nvida driver from the kernel.