F11: Firefox v3.5.2-2 causes daily system lockouts.

[Daniel B. Thurman]

On 09/07/09 09:33, Daniel B. Thurman wrote:
> On 09/06/09 23:51, Terry Barnaby wrote:
>> On 09/06/2009 10:11 PM, Tony Nelson wrote:
>>> On 09-09-06 13:20:31, Daniel B. Thurman wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1.2) Gecko/20090803
>>>> Fedora/3.5.2-2.fc11 Firefox/3.5.2
>>>>
>>>> After extensive testing with the divide&  conquer
>>>> method, I have discovered that FireFox is causing
>>>> all sorts of hissy-fits, the worst, being a complete
>>>> system lockout, once per day, requiring a hard-reboot.
>>>> This is cause during inactivity, and no, it is NOT the
>>>> Gnome screen-saver.  As long as FF is NOT running,
>>>> I used my system for 1 week, gnome screen-saver w/
>>>> random - not a single lockout, no problems.
>>>>
>>>> The second worse part about FF is the rendering of
>>>> the graphics are horrible - extra black lines vertically,
>>>> horizontally, both on forums with tables, and some
>>>> weird characters every now and then.
>>>
>>> I also see font rendering artifacts, mostly in Firefox, but in other
>>> apps as well.  I blame the video driver, possibly the EXA acceleration,
>>> though I haven't tried XAA yet (per `man radeon`).  I have an old ATI
>>> Radeon RV100 QY [Radeon 7000/VE] rev 0.  It could be that your lockups
>>> have the same cause.
>>>
>> I also had quite a lot of lock-ups with a system using an ATI R200 
>> based graphics chip (and issues with a R300 ATI stsrem). I suspect 
>> that the
>> fact that you use Firefox a lot leads you to suspect Firefox although 
>> the
>> problem affects many other apps ...
>> In my case compiling and using the latest freedesktop 
>> drm/mesa/xf86-video-ati
>> graphics driver code from git sources fixed the issues.
>> Unfortunately there have been no drm/mesa/xf86-video-ati updates for
>> Fedora 11 yet ...
>>
> I don't use Firefox alot.  The point of all of this is
> that if you leave firefox running, the very moment
> that your system idles and goes into screenlock, it's
> all over. You cannot get back in. You are forced to
> reboot.
>
> Likewise if you kill Firefox for the day or night,
> the system will idle, go in screenlock, and you
> can get back in after typing your password.
>
> I have tested Thunderbird, and it does not cause
> lockouts.  I have tested other browsers, same thing,
> no lockouts.
>
> The culprit is Firefox v3.5.2-2, or so I think.
>
> I am going to downgrade FF to 3.4, if that does not work,
> 3.0 or just throw it away completely,  Firefox has changed
> many things including the API (XULRunner) and has not
> tested this release fully, IMO, at least with the 945G/GZ
> graphics chip, anyway.
>
> I have F10 (Multi-boot) and do not have these kind of problems.
>
> I have a feeling F10/11 is deja-vue all over again... get it out and
> let the end-users test & troubleshoot our problems! Oy veh!
>

I removed F11-FF v3.5.2-2 and installed F10-FF v3.5.2-1 on F11:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U;
Linux i686; en-US;
v:1.9.1.2) Gecko/20090804 Remi/fc10 Firefox/3.5.2-1

Rendering problems went away.  I'll let
you know about lockouts by tomorrow.