lock ups

If this is happening with the Flash 11 plugin, then you are probably experiencing bug 872714. That is my guess. If it is not, then you are probably experiencing bug 693396.

Please open a Terminal window (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run this command by pasting it into the Terminal and pressing enter:

ps ax | egrep firefox\|flash

Then select all the text in the Terminal (Edit > Select All), copy it to the clipboard (Edit > Copy), and paste it here.

Don't know what a terminal window is and how to open one. Please remember that I am 75 new with the computer and don't know what a lot of these words mean.

"Please remember that I am 75 new with the computer and don't know what a lot of these words mean."

That's no problem. Please continue asking for clarification whenever I say anything that doesn't make sense.

You can open a Terminal window by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T. That is, hold down the Ctrl (or Control) key on your keyboard, and at the same time hold down the Alt key on your keyboard, and while holding those two keys down, press the T key.

Then you can select the command (the line that starts with "ps ax") in your web browser or email, right click on it with the mouse, and click Copy. Then you can right-click in the Terminal and click Paste. Press enter to run the command, then select all the text in the Terminal by clicking on the Edit menu in the Terminal and clicking "Select All", then click Edit again and click "Copy", then paste it into your reply by pressing Ctrl+V (holding down Ctrl and pressing V) or by right-clicking on your reply and clicking Paste.

On 10/22/2011 06:20 AM, Eliah Kagan wrote:
> Your question #175645 on firefox in Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+question/175645
>
> Status: Open => Needs information
>
> Eliah Kagan requested more information:
> If this is happening with the Flash 11 plugin, then you are probably
> experiencing bug 872714. That is my guess. If it is not, then you are
> probably experiencing bug 693396.
>
> Please open a Terminal window (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run this command by
> pasting it into the Terminal and pressing enter:
>
> ps ax | egrep firefox\|flash
>
> Then select all the text in the Terminal (Edit> Select All), copy it to
> the clipboard (Edit> Copy), and paste it here.
>
  1587 ? Sl 155:45 /usr/lib/firefox-3.6.23/firefox-bin
  1788 ? Rl 181:25 /usr/lib/firefox-3.6.23/plugin-container
/usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/libflashplayer.so 1587 plugin true
  4843 pts/0 S+ 0:00 egrep --color=auto firefox|flash

Assuming you obtained that information when there were no Firefox windows open, that confirms that you are affected by 872714. I would encourage you to subscribe to the bug (click the green "Subscribe" link on the right side of the bug page), and also to indicate that it affects you (use the green "This bug affects..." link near the top of the bug page).

As a temporary workaround before that bug is fixed, you can kill the firefox-bin, plugin-container, and libflashplayer.so processes (just killing the last one *might* be sufficient to make the other two terminate by themselves) using the System Monitor (see http://www.butterscotch.com/tutorial/How-To-Use-The-System-Monitor-In-Ubuntu). Or you can use a different web browser, such as Chromium (to get that, install the package called chromium-browser, which you can do in the Synaptic Package Manager). Or you can try to install a different version of the Flash player--that might be the best solution if you don't know that you need the version you currently have, so if that is the case, then please let me know and we can work on that.

Or we can proceed with standard general troubleshooting steps for browser and Flash problems to see if there are any other variables you have control over that will lead to a workaround. I am fully willing to do this (it is not much work for me), but I can tell you that it is unlikely to give particularly good results.