I have a new build: Gigabyte A55m-ds2/A4-3300/8gb Mushkin radioactive/seagate 1 TB/Liteon cd/dvd/AntecBasiq 430w with
Linux Mint 14 Mate 64bit running. Been running this new build about a month.
Everthing was working fine till I went to Bestbuy.com website
researching laptops and Chromebooks. After several minutes of
looking at what was available my desktop went black for several seconds and I get a desktop login screen as if someone pushed ctrl/alt/backspace to reset the desktop. After logging back in
I get a crash report I think from firefox and giving me options to stop trying to access the pages that were open at the time of the crash. Just wondering what's going on and why a website would crash Firefox. Bestbuy access seems to be the only cause of the desktop restart. I tried restarting without stopping any of the sites from loading twice with same results then tried to select sites one at a time to trouble shoot to see which one was causing but things became so sensitive that I could not do that without getting a desktop restart. I do not get Linux boot dialog during this restart and it happens in less tha 30 seconds from black screen to login.

My first guess is that some script the website is running is crashing your desktop.

If you want to pursue this, you can install the noscript add-on. It will tell you what scripts are running there and give you some options as to whether or not to permit them.

You might also try going there in some other browsers, such as Epiphany or Opera, to see if they also have difficulties.

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Thanx frankbell!
I done it and went to site but unable to remember and duplicate circumstances or cause it to do it again with Bestbuy. Do I need to configure the noscript?
I Just remembered that something similar happened several days earlier while trying to run Mint 11 live as live in Virtualbox before installing Mint11 in a VM. This also happened today while I was trying to use gimp and one of the other graphic picture viewers to open a .jpg and xcf scanned files from my epson 2450 perfection photo and sometimes system just grinds to a halt trying to open the pictures and have to eboot to get out of it. Also just remembered that while I've been playing games on Publishers clearing house website I've been getting alot of script messages asking me if I want to continue or stop script. Is Linux getting like windows with scriptware?

I recommend running memtest86+ to rule out possible RAM failure.

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I ran Memtest 4.28 for three hours and it said test complete no errors; however it still looked like it was running.

The restart also happened while working on a document in open office while changing font size but couldn't duplicate it when OOffice was restarted.
I just wiped the Mint14 installation and clean installed Mint14 Mate.
Will check back if it occurs again.

I think it might be the PSU. Do you have a spare to test with ?

It doesn't seem to be software related because it can occur running any program.

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After you install noscript and have it enabled, when you go to a website, it will present a dialog asking whether you want to enable scripts. It gives you a number of options for doing so.

Here's a pretty good tutorial with some useful screenshots.

https://securityinabox.org/en/firefox_noscript

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Thanx, I also see a yes script add-on too. It says that no script blocks all script and is a hassle. Yet yes script has it's setup hassles too.
I just swapped machines and noticed that the desktop restart problem that I was happening happens here to but it seemed only when certain keys on keyboard were pressed and maybe movements and clicks using an OLD Aopen wired mouse with 4 buttons and a scroll wheel. Keyboard is an OLD HP wired with lots of xtra buttons. I don't remember having the restarts while using a wireless keyboard and mouse.
Any possibility that shorts or something else in the input devices with them was causing the restarts?

I just went to bestbuy.com in both Opera and Iceweasel (Debian's Firefox). I was able to surf the site and visit product pages with no problem. The times when I encountered scripts were when I clicked on something like "check availability" or "calculate shipping."

I was able to access information on Chromebooks, though throughout this message was displayed:


There may be something going on here other than a scripting problem.

Try starting Firefox from the command line, then repeating your search of the Best Buy site. Perhaps some useful error messages will be thrown to the terminal.

You might also look in /var/log/messages, /var/log/Xorg.0.log (since the desktop crashed) and other likely log files in /var/log. Perhaps they will offer a clue. The tail command is useful for this--see man tail for details.

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"Try starting Firefox from the command line, then repeating your search of the Best Buy site. Perhaps some useful error messages will be thrown to the terminal.

You might also look in /var/log/messages, /var/log/Xorg.0.log (since the desktop crashed) and other likely log files in /var/log. Perhaps they will offer a clue. The tail command is useful for this--see man tail for details."
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My dementia keeps me from having the brain power to work command line sorry but thanx for the help. Sure hope they get an easy to use fully GUI Linux pretty soon or I'll have to stop using computers. The way desktops are going with complexity I'm almost already out of the game. I really enjoyed the ease of use of Gnome2 in Ubuntu 10. Everything changes and my brain can't keep up...
Thing is also I can't remember what I was doing on those sites other than I was hit by scripts that the system thought it ought to notify me about..

Just a comment - maybe related: I know about a software (a simple gui with a huge amount of elements in a list) which runs on solaris, suse, redhat and it crashes all the desktops. It is a completely reproducible error. I think there is a memory handling problem in the X server itself, but I'm not really sure. (I have no root rights on these hosts, so I cannot reach those logs).

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Thanx a bunch pan64, I had suspicions of such but couldn't formulate it as well as you did. I do remember one specific occasion that it was not reproducable. I opened the file one time after posting this thread and changed fonts all in the first try without restarting desktop; so that confuses me even more. About that time an old wired keyboard and mouse were suspicioned as part of the {same like} problems and I switched to wireless. Still some function problems there tho like slow to work or not working at first use but evens out to be functional after using for a while._.
My first suspicion and for a long time now is that someone has been cracking me either directly or through websites.! But I don't have the mental where~withal to know how to catch or prevent them. I just backup and reinstall when it gets too bad to bear. Not unlike Windows everything seems very normal at first and good for a while the come a slow or sometimes fast degradation in function and performance an script attacks one after another. It gets scary. I built these two computers to swap parts and troubleshoot but to no avail. Parts is parts and they all behave the same. Thanx agin %)SW

A. You could navigate to those directories in the graphical file manager and look at the files with it.

B. Don't sell yourself short.

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It just takes me more time and only when I have the energy and focus. But I actually lose bookmarks in my brain for being able to resume doing it sometimes. Maybe can take up to 4 yrs to get something done.
If it was you telling me to use other browsers for stopping lockups, Arora worked fine and Opera installed but acted like psycho demon possed entity and I couldn't figger out how to get it Work. I don't think epiphany is in my repos. Didn't see it in browser search in synaptic. So Aurora will do and Firefox seems to be behaving since noscript. well thanx agin
L8R %)SW

Good luck. If you discover some new lead, come on back.

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