[SOLVED] Firefox freezes/hangs

[Cosmo.]

Do you mean installing a second instance of Mint? No, no reason against that, except it might get a little bit difficult to keep track, what happened on which system. But this is solvable with some written notes.

[antikythera]

The question that arises is whether two similar but not identical Mint OS would be truly independent on one computer.

You could always have LMDE5 and Linux Mint

[Slowpoke47]

Thanks to all who posted. Next step will be a 2nd Mint install on the disk now running Windows 7, which, as mentioned, is obsolete and we haven't used it for years. I will download the current Mint OS, and will find out what version of FF is included. Since I FF would not save bookmarks (insisted on saving a list of 2 yr old bookmarks, repeated 3 times, that were supposedly deleted ), I copied and pasted them to a L-O doc, and they are in link format and work correctly. So they can be restored.
I'll examine the remaining W7 data and save anything I need before overwriting W7.

[SMG]

I installed FF103 this week. Still had the same issue with everything below the tabs freezing at what seems like random times (seems to be no correlation to how long FF has been open or how many tabs used).

In FF103 I enabledTroubleshoot mode and the same thing happened.

I then did a "refresh" in FF103 which removes all settings and customizations. I had more than I realized. I made a few settings changes, but only ones which are available through the GUI (no changes via about:config). Made default page and tab blank and disabled hardware acceleration and a few other changes. Unfortunately, it still froze.

I reverted back to FF101.1 last night and am now freeze-free until I can figure out what else to try to determine what the issue is.

[vjayer]

SAme here, no luck with v.103

I tried the following for debugging:
(first create: mkdir ~/firefox )

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rm ~/firefox/*

export NSPR_LOG_MODULES=all:5
export NSPR_LOG_FILE=~/firefox/firefox.log

firefox 2>&1 | tee ~/firefox/firefox_cli.log &

whcih creates lots of log files in ~/firefox for every child process firefox creates
firefox.log.child-233
firefox.log.child-233.moz_log
etc

There's nothing really informative in the log file themselves and the CLI output from the parent firefox command does have some warnings and extra debug info (which are already known as you can search for the exact phrase online), but no messages in here that coincides with the hang.

I did notice a strange pattern after many repeated tries in this debug mode: When the hang occurs, the last 2-4 child processes created are always missing

ls -t ~/firefox | less

this should sort by last update, with the latest updated (or newly created) at the top. For example, in one case, upon the hang, but not yet closing/killing firefox, I had:

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firefox.log.child-591
firefox.log.child-591.moz_log
firefox.log.child-590
firefox.log.child-590.moz_log
firefox.log.child-589
firefox.log.child-589.moz_log
firefox.log.child-585
firefox.log.child-588
firefox.log.child-588.moz_log
firefox.log.child-587
firefox.log.child-587.moz_log

and checking

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ps -ef | grep 'childID 591'
ps -ef | grep 'childID 590'
ps -ef | grep 'childID 589'

Yet only: "childID 585" and earlier are running. childID 591, 590, and 589 despite being the most recently created child processes, seems like they have been killed or terminated

And this is a very reproducible pattern on my end for the hanging / freezing occurrences.

I'm now monitoring the dmesg or journalctl to see if there's anything repeatedly correlating right at the time of hang

[Slowpoke47]

I installed FF103 this week. Still had the same issue with everything below the tabs freezing at what seems like random times (seems to be no correlation to how long FF has been open or how many tabs used).

This is exactly what happens with this machine now on FF 102.0.1. But our other computer, same Mate 19.2 OS, same extensions, etc, also on FF 102.0.1, runs problem free.

To vjayer- if you come up with a solution, I (and many others) would be pleased to see it.

[SMG]

SAme here, no luck with v.103

Unless you created this Mozilla Bug Report: [LINUX, NVIDIA, Regression] WebRender occasionally goes crazy, it seems we are not the only ones with this issue.

[Slowpoke47]

Planning to follow this advice:

@Slowpoke47, If you do decide to remove Firefox from LM19.2 via synaptics there are a couple of things worth noting to remove the profile completely (it doesn’t do it by default)Before re-installing FF.

1. Within the File Manager (nemo) goto View in the Filemenu (top) and make sure that ‘hidden files’ are visible (ticked)

2. Then within HOME folder navigate to:
(a) Config folder and nuke any Mozilla/firefox files within. THEN
(b) Local folder and do the same.
After that there will be no associations left with the problematic profile.

Go back to number 1. and undo what was changed.(untick hidden files)
Then continue to Install Firefox with a fresh profile, import bookmarks etc..

This is from an experienced user on the Ask Woody forum. Possibly a FF error was carried over by updating from Update Mgr rather than doing a clean remove/install.

[Slowpoke47]

After following the procedure in my previous post, FF 103.0.1 now installed, some of the errors from 102 are corrected, but the random freeze issue seems ongoing. Considering reverting to V. 101.x to see whether that version freezes or not. Never had this problem until updating to 102.0.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/in ... cale=en-US

OTOH, just about to install a second Mint Mate OS, v. 20.3, on the now-wiped second HDD. The state of that FF install may provide some evidence as to the cause of the problem.

[Cosmo.]

Be warned, that you cannot use a FF profile, which you had used in a higher version, in an older version, regardless of the method you used for downgrading. If you have a backup of your older profile, than you are fine. Otherwise you need to start from scratch.

[Slowpoke47]

Be warned, that you cannot use a FF profile, which you had used in a higher version, in an older version, regardless of the method you used for downgrading. If you have a backup of your older profile, than you are fine. Otherwise you need to start from scratch.

Thank you for the tip. I'm leaning toward the second Mate install as the next move. As mentioned, I may get some insight from that as to the cause of this problem.

[Slowpoke47]

Here’s a snapshot of the current status:

Laptop is HP 8130U, 4GB RAM, 1tb HDD. Running Mate 19.2 and FF v. 102.0. The computer and browser both running w/o any issues.

Desktop is Dell Inspiron 1519, also 4GB RAM, 1 tb HDD running Mate 19.2 and FF 103.0.1 and second HDD, 360 GB, now running Mate 20.3 and FF v. 95.0.1. The 20.3 OS was just installed this past week. Before updating from FF v. 101.x about 6 weeks ago, this machine also ran w/o issues, including pre-loading of tabs mentioned below. Note that Mate 20.3 ran yesterday for about 8 or 9 hours without a hiccup.

Since updating the desktop from FF 101 in the desktop, the following errors have arisen. Important to stress that none of these errors were present before the FF update to v. 102.0.

The display freezes randomly, about 10 minutes to maybe 3 hours between freezes. During a freeze, the cursor is functional and I can close FF using the “X” icon, upper right. Restarting FF restores normal operation until the next freeze.

Some web pages do not display properly, leaving out (for example) parts of a form that I was to fill in. Various fonts display in the wrong sizes, typically larger.

The add-on icons no longer appear in the upper right, even though the add-ons themselves are activated.

Attempts to save bookmarks to .html or .json produced files with 3-year-old bookmarks that were deleted back then. They were listed in triplicate. I was unable to save the current bookmarks using either method over several tries.

Pages with tabs attached to home page do not load until the tab is selected. Before v. 102, they displayed instantly when clicked- i. e. they were already loaded. Note that the laptop, running v.102.0, loads these pages by default, but FF v.95 in the desktop does not. Perhaps there is a setting for this?

On any of the Invidious apps (similar to Youtube, video clips), many of the videos display an error message, cannot load… These pages open w/o problem on Opera and FF 95 (desktop) and FF 102 on laptop.

On the desktop, since updating from FF 101, a critical setting on Paypal regarding no-password login was apparently not recognized by the site. Using Opera, the setting was retained.

Seems to me that all the evidence points to a randomly occurring FF issue starting with v. 102.0, especially since others have reported similar problems within the same time frame.

A minor display issue in our email program is apparently not connected with FF because the error occurs in Opera as well. However, just to confuse the issue, it does not occur in FF v. 95, OS Mate 20.3.

[Slowpoke47]

Trying to install FF v.101.0.1 in Mate 20.3 OS. Successfully removed FF 95.x completely. Have FF 101.0.1 tarball downloaded and extracted. Need correct Terminal input or non-Terminal path to install.

[Slowpoke47]

OP here- On Mint 20.3, FF has continued to misbehave. But today installed two updates- FF 103.0.2 and Linux kernel 5.4.0-124.140 at about 10:30 AM EDT (US). FF has been running about 4 1/2 hours so far without incident. I am advised to post this System Reports pop-up:

[SMG]

That sounds promising, Slowpoke-47. I have not yet seen FF 103.0.2 come through to me yet. I will give the new kernel and that version a try later this week.

The bug report I referenced earlier was closed by the OP because no one else reported having that problem.

Release notes for 103.0.1

New
Enabled hardware acceleration on newer AMD cards.

Fixed
Fixed a crash on Firefox shutdown caused by a bug in the audio manager.

Release notes for 103.0.2

Fixed
Fixed menu shortcuts for users of the JAWS screen reader.
Fixed an occasional non-overridable certificate error when accessing device configuration pages.
Fixed an issue with Picture-in-Picture displaying in fullscreen on macOS.

[Slowpoke47]

That sounds promising, Slowpoke-47. I have not yet seen FF 103.0.2 come through to me yet. I will give the new kernel and that version a try later this week.

The bug report I referenced earlier was closed by the OP because no one else reported having that problem.

Release notes for 103.0.1

New
Enabled hardware acceleration on newer AMD cards.

Fixed
Fixed a crash on Firefox shutdown caused by a bug in the audio manager.

Release notes for 103.0.2

Fixed
Fixed menu shortcuts for users of the JAWS screen reader.
Fixed an occasional non-overridable certificate error when accessing device configuration pages.
Fixed an issue with Picture-in-Picture displaying in fullscreen on macOS.

Those updates I mentioned must have been sizeable- took about 12 minutes to download.

[antikythera]

There's no incremental package update mechanism for debs. When you are using the standard build from the repository compiled by the linux mint developers, you download the entire application each time it gets updated

[Slowpoke47]

Update install in previous post was in Mint Mate 20.3. Just ran the same updates in 19.2, second disk in same machine, and that download ran just about 20 seconds or so.

[Slowpoke47]

OP here- On Mint 20.3, FF has continued to misbehave. But today installed two updates- FF 103.0.2 and Linux kernel 5.4.0-124.140 at about 10:30 AM EDT (US). FF has been running about 4 1/2 hours so far without incident. I am advised to post this System Reports pop-up: Screenshot at 2022-08-10 13-56-38.png

Maybe I should have shown the text that was generated in a new tab when clicking "pastebin" on this pop-up:
/tmp/mintreport/crash/StackTrace

[Slowpoke47]

After running all day yesterday w/o issue, FF today has just frozen after about 2 hours on Mate 20.3.