Ubuntu
firefox-3.5 package

Firefox freezes or crashes or hangs in Karmic

Asked by Ken Wagner

Karmic, upgrade from a very, very stable Jaunty 9.04. Also w FF 3.5.7.

On Karmic startup FireFox 3.5.7 (and I just got the 2009-12-15 update for FF) will freeze. CPU cycles are at max for 2 min. Then I start FireFox in another Workspace. This FF session will work. I then kill the 1st FF session. Additional FF sessions will then work.

Random aggravations: Sometimes my upper panel loses icons and functions, i.e., it goes dead. At times the Applications/Places/System menu disappears. But I always have my indicator-applet-session icon and can then restart. And go through this process all over again. And again. And again.

Editing the Bookmarks Toolbar folders will cause a crash in a working FF session after a bit of Bookmark editing.

Attempted fixes:
1. Removed FF and the .mozilla folders. Installed 3.5, 3.5, 3.7. And uninstalled each one. Same problemsl
2. Tried different Flash plugins and extensions. No help.
3. Checked repository source list. Appears proper.

What to do? Firefox on my Winows laptops is very stable. It was rock-solid in Jaunty. I am flummoxed!!

Happy to supply you with all the info you would like. Unit is a Toshiba L305 S5873. Latest Karmic update.

Thanks.
Kenneth in Sugar Creek, MO

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Ubuntu firefox-3.5 Edit question
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Solved by:
actionparsnip
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Revision history for this message
Best actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

try this:

sudo apt-get --purge remove firefox*; sudo apt-get --purge autoremove; sudo apt-get clean; mv ~/.mozilla ~/.mozilla_15Dec2009; sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade; sudo apt-get clean; sudo apt-get install firefox-3.5

Can you also give the output of:

dpkg -l | grep flash; dpkg -l | grepgnash; dpkg -l | grep swf

Thanks

Revision history for this message
Ken Wagner (kenneth-wagner) said : 		#2

Content of grep as system is currently (after filing question, before new changes made).

dpkg -l | grep flash; dpkg -l | grepgnash; dpkg -l | grep swf

ii adobe-flashplugin 10.0.42.34-2karmic1 Adobe Flash Player plugin version 10
ii flashblock 1.3.14~a2+snapshot20090627-0ubuntu1 mozilla extension that replaces flash elemen
grepgnash: command not found
ii libswfdec-0.8-0 0.8.4-1 SWF (Macromedia Flash) decoder library
ii swfdec-mozilla 0.8.2-1ubuntu2 Mozilla plugin for SWF files (Macromedia Fla
root@beaucoder-laptop:/home/beaucoder#

Made changes. FF now loads properly. Will advise if any problems show up again. For now it is fine.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Ken

Revision history for this message
Ken Wagner (kenneth-wagner) said : 		#3

If it's possible --

Can you explain why the steps above so quickly solved 2 weeks of frustration, install, uninstall, updates, purges, cleans, autoremoves, .mozilla removals, endless configuring, etc??

Am utterly intrigued as to what caused the problem. (I suspect it was an incompatibility between the various python libs, flash and the actual FF package installed.

Many thanks. Job well done! ActiveParsnip rules the FireFox Fandangos!!

Ken

Revision history for this message
Ken Wagner (kenneth-wagner) said : 		#4

Hi actionparsnip!!

Yesssssssssss!! It worked!! Any chance you can enlighten me as to why
it worked?
(And worked so well. FireFox is now light-years faster.)

Many thanks.

Ken
(If ever you visit Sugar Creek, Missouri, there will be a parade held in
your honor.
Also a real, live Serbian sausage BBQ with Folk Orchestra and dancing.
How's that?)

On Tue, 2009-12-15 at 11:44 +0000, actionparsnip wrote:

> Your question #94130 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/94130
>
> Status: Open => Answered
>
> actionparsnip proposed the following answer:
> try this:
>
> sudo apt-get --purge remove firefox*; sudo apt-get --purge autoremove;
> sudo apt-get clean; mv ~/.mozilla ~/.mozilla_15Dec2009; sudo apt-get
> update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade; sudo apt-get clean; sudo apt-get
> install firefox-3.5
>
> Can you also give the output of:
>
> dpkg -l | grep flash; dpkg -l | grepgnash; dpkg -l | grep swf
>
> Thanks
>

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#5

if you read the command its quite simple.

It removes (including the config (this is done using --purge) outside of $HOME) firefox and then does the same for its dependancies (using autoremove). We then got fully updated then installed firefox 3.5 from fresh.

It then renamed your old profile so we keep it. You now have a fresh profile and a fresh firefox with completely fresh config

Its running faster as you havent had time to bloatit with all the "great" addons which make firefox fill up your RAM and chew your processor to the floor.

If you want your old favourites (if you only store them locally) you will find them in the old profile in a html file, you can use firefox itself to point to the file, they will then be imported to the new profile.