Score:1

Firefox and Chrome crashing constantly

cn flag

Firefox and Chrome are constantly crashing, even with all extensions removed. Everything is updated/upgraded on Ubuntu 20.04. It's been this way for months. Rebooting seems to stabilize the browsers for a little while, like 5-10 minutes, before they start crashing again. Firefox is more stable with only one tab open. Chrome crashes constantly with only one tab open. Moving the mouse around seems to trigger crashes a lot.

Today I checked "use recommended performance settings" and left hardware acceleration unchecked in Firefox settings. I will see if this makes any difference. Till now, neither box was checked.

I have two Nvidia M750 graphics cards.

$ free -m
             total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:          15977        1822       12219          56        1935       13775
Swap:          2047           0        2047
cn flag
Ray
Probably won't make a difference, but have you tried `chromium`?
Kevin Berry avatar
cn flag
Hi Ray, no. I'd love to try chromium, but not as a snap package.
in flag
If two browsers are crashing frequently, this may be a sign of memory constraints. Can you update your question to include the output of `free -m`? This will show some details about your RAM and swap file configuration.
br flag
what does your logs report happening before and during crashes?
Kevin Berry avatar
cn flag
system logs show nothing. .mozilla logs show crash reports submitted but no content. So I have no idea what's causing the crashes.
cn flag
Ray
Given you've had to tolerate this for months, you might want to consider leaving LTS and upgrading. *Maybe* you'll solve your problem and then you can get back to LTS next year. But before something this extreme, try creating a new user account. And see if the crashes happen with that account...
Kevin Berry avatar
cn flag
Trond: My logwatch showed "Segmentation Faults in Web Content: 33 Times" yesterday. So there's something as far as logged errors go.
Kevin Berry avatar
cn flag
Ray: I added a user and pounded on Firefox for 45 minutes without any problems. That was interesting. What are you thinking could be wrong in my user account? Thank you.
Kevin Berry avatar
cn flag
My guess right now is default performance settings kick in with a new user. After choosing "use recommended performance settings" and leaving hardware acceleration unchecked, and rebooting (no improvement till rebooting), everything seemed fine. I've been using Firefox half the day today without any crashes. This is a first in months!!! Thank you everyone! In a few days I can report on whether the improvement is somewhat permanent. (I don't recall choosing other than default performance settings ever, but somehow they got changed; maybe Chrome's got changed too somehow).
cn flag
Ray
Sorry, didn't know you wrote to me. You should use the @ symbol to make sure your reply generates a notification to who you're writing to. As for your question, there are various settings all over one's home directory for both Firefox and Chrome. It isn't just extensions but files in places like `~/.local`, etc. I wouldn't know how to clear it so the best test is to create a new account. If that works then all I can tell you is "something in your home directory that is storing a configuration for that program" is the cause. Where it is, I wouldn't know...
cn flag
Ray
In the past, out of frustation, I would create a new account like "Ray2" and confirm that it works. Then move my files from `~/Ray` to `~/Ray2` and then erase the "Ray" account. It's absurd, but far easier than trying to find out which configuration file is causing the problem... It's not just web browsers, but various programs. Thankfully, I've resorted to this once every few years...it isn't often.
Score:0
cn flag

A somewhat helpful solution was in Firefox settings to choose "use recommended performance settings" and leave hardware acceleration unchecked. Then reboot.

Firefox is causing segmentation faults that made launching Chrome afterwards unstable. Both browsers are running better with a lot fewer crashes, but crashes are still happening, especially after waking from sleep.

I had posted this as the answer, but it's only a 75 percent helpful answer.

Kevin Berry avatar
cn flag
Firefox crashed worse and worse, so I finally removed it and installed Google Chrome. Chrome worked fine for a day and then started trying to get all my private info into cloud storage, so I reinstalled Firefox and then removed Google Chrome. Interestingly, Firefox is not crashing yet. I'm wondering if some kind of cache builds up with Firefox and then starts causing it to crash more and more. I wil have to experiment with deleting browser cache and other cache I can find when it starts crashing to see if this fixes the issue. Ray said deleting an old configuration periodically helped.
Kevin Berry avatar
cn flag
What helps the most is to clear the cache when I start having problems, and then if I have to do that too frequently, uninstall and reinstall firefox. I have to try not to open other tabs if possible when watching videos. Otherwise, Firefox is stable enough usually for text websites unless they're crazy with video ads.
Kevin Berry avatar
cn flag
I recently installed and ran BleachBit cleaning everything in Firefox except passwords and cookies. I cleaned everything in my no longer installed Chrome also. I also cleaned everything else except Deep Scan: VIM swap files and System: Memory and Free disk space. This is a wonderful tool! I've only had one Firefox crash in one week instead of countless crashes.
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