firefox segmentation fault

FrancescoPx · 12-06-2006, 04:27 PM

Hi everybody,
I'm quite new of linux. I have a problem with segmentation fault in firefox 1.0.4 (debian stable on a presario x1000 laptop).
Firefox crashes when visiting for example lufthansa.com
(and trying to find a fligth) or other few sites.

I tried what suggested in linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=145916
(i.e. :

Code:

cd /usr/lib/firefox-1.0.4

and

Code:

/.run-mozilla -g firefox-bin -d gdb

)
and the result is :

Code:

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x085d8c06 in nsTableOuterFrame::BalanceLeftRightCaption ()

I have found nothing in google about!
I tried with strace and obtained (just the last part):

Code:

futex(0x903e924, FUTEX_WAKE, 1)         = 1
gettimeofday({1165437127, 688089}, NULL) = 0
gettimeofday({1165437127, 688179}, NULL) = 0
lseek(28, 37888, SEEK_SET)              = 37888
write(28, "\275UKO\333@\20>\23)\377a\344\v\246\200S\332\0334\7\362"..., 768) = 768
--- SIGSEGV (Segmentation fault) @ 0 (0) ---
unlink("/root/.mozilla/firefox/af12r7mx.default/lock") = 0
rt_sigaction(SIGSEGV, {SIG_DFL}, NULL, 8) = 0
rt_sigprocmask(SIG_UNBLOCK, [SEGV], NULL, 8) = 0
tgkill(6137, 6137, SIGSEGV)             = 0
--- SIGSEGV (Segmentation fault) @ 0 (0) ---
+++ killed by SIGSEGV +++

This happens as root as well, so probably doesn't depend on permissions. The same problem does not occour with epiphany browser. It happens with KDE and with gnome.
Thank you very much for your help!!

psisquare · 12-06-2006, 06:44 PM

This is almost certainly a bug in Firefox and, given that you're using a pretty old version (May 2005) it's probably solved by now. Your options are:

1) Get a brand-new Firefox 2.0 from Mozilla and hope that it works with all the outdated libraries Debian is shipping.

2) File a bug report with Debian's bug-tracking system. If at all possible, add a URL the developers can enter to reproduce the problem and/or the information you posted above (which is quite useful if you know how to read it).

FrancescoPx · 12-07-2006, 03:01 AM

Thank you for the answer.
In the meanwhile I tried to scan my HD with badblocks, as it gives the impression (strange noise and behaviors of the desktop manager, random and not reproducible) that something is wrong there. And in fact it found several (~100) bad blocks (I made a scan of /home for the moment). Could it be related to segm fault of firefox?

psisquare · 12-07-2006, 02:37 PM

Yes, if one of the blocks containing the firefox binary (/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/firefox-bin on my system; /usr/bin/firefox is a script) got broken, this could explain the errors you've seen. Thus, re-installing firefox might solve the problem. Before doing this, you should run "e2fsck -c" on the partition in question (assuming it's ext2 or ext3) in order to update the list of bad blocks.