Ubuntu

Ubuntu 4.04 Chromium browse extensions blanks out monitor

Asked by Kevin Leeds

The hardware is an HP6910p notebook. It has 14.04 with all updates*

Problem: The monitor goes completely blank, so all I know to do is power off the computer and restart it.

Steps to break it:
1) Open Chromium
2) In menu bar choose 'Tools - Extensions'
3) The web page loads and there is a link for "Browse extensions" to this site
    https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions?hl=en-US
4) That URL starts to load, and displays briefly (for a second or two. I imagine javascript is loading.) and then the monitor goes completely dark, suddenly.

At that point I can not do anything that I know of except power off the computer and restart it

I had a similar result/problem months ago, watching YouTube videos, but this is not Adobe's fault I think, and it happens more reliably.

Could someone tell me where in var/logs there might be something to check? I guess it might be x-windows so I could try to configure x-windows to leave more log entries, am I on the right track maybe? Do any other setups besides hp6910p do this?

Also I think it would not be too bad if the best answer is to back up everything, reinstall the OS and everything, and then try it again. I could probably accomplish that, but maybe not today. I have been running Ubuntu and updates for several years without wiping it, and on one of the updates (to 12.04 maybe?) I got some warnings after the update process that the system might be unstable because the update was not completely solid somehow.

I have five screen shots to show how my software updates are configured. I think I recall un-selecting a package or two at some point but I'm not sure where that's stored. I am looking for the config files ... they were out of date but I think that may not be the cause.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

Try renaming the folder for Google Chrome in ~/.config as well as the folder in ~/.cache which is used for temporary files (you will need to close the browser first) then relaunch. You will then get default settings and it may help

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Kevin Leeds (knleeds) said : 		#2

I tried that! For fun I went one step farther
 cd .config
 rm -r chromium
 rm -r google-chrome
 cd ../.cache
 rm -r chromium
 rm -r google-chrome
However it still has the same problem.
Thank you for the suggestion! What might I try next??

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#3

What is the output of:

lsb_release -a; uname -a; apt-cache policy `dpkg -l | grep -i chrome | awk {'print $2'}`

Thanks

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Kevin Leeds (knleeds) said : 		#4

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS
Release: 14.04
Codename: trusty
Linux hp6910p 3.13.0-49-generic #83-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 10 20:14:51 UTC 2015 i686 i686 i686 GNU/Linux
chromium-browser:
  Installed: 41.0.2272.76-0ubuntu0.14.04.1.1076
  Candidate: 41.0.2272.76-0ubuntu0.14.04.1.1076
  Version table:
 *** 41.0.2272.76-0ubuntu0.14.04.1.1076 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-updates/universe i386 Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-security/universe i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     34.0.1847.116-0ubuntu2 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/universe i386 Packages
google-chrome-stable:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 42.0.2311.90-1
  Version table:
     42.0.2311.90-1 0
        500 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
xserver-xorg-video-openchrome:
  Installed: 1:0.3.3-1build1
  Candidate: 1:0.3.3-1build1
  Version table:
 *** 1:0.3.3-1build1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

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Kevin Leeds (knleeds) said : 		#5

(The above comment was copy & pasted to add the information requested)

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Kevin Leeds (knleeds) said : 		#6

I think I figured out the workaround -
In Chromium, I can go to Edit>Preferences>Advanced Settings and uncheck "Use hardware acceleration when available"

I was inspired by this post:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2263940&p=13263762#post13263762

I think there may be more to learn, so I think maybe I shouldn't mark it Solved yet. But I can view the Extensions store now without it crashing, so that is great!!

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Launchpad Janitor (janitor) said : 		#7

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.