935458 - Firefox crashes when opening gmail with GStreamer enabled

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: Audio/Video: Playback, defect, P5)

Description

[pili]

Attachment: bp-53be3900-487a-451d-82d0-57e5a2131104.txt

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:23.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/23.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 2013080200

Steps to reproduce:

Login in to gmail.com


Actual results:

The page starts loading the inbox. It then proceeds to load the contacts and soon crashes. The same thing happens over and over again at precisely the same point. I tried to upgrade to firefox v23 and v25 but I get the same results. I downgraded after encountering additional problems with those versions


Expected results:

It should load gmail interface. This works perfectly in my Windows version of firefox. I have attached one of many crash reports

Comment 1

[Loic]

Firefox 23 is EOLed, update to the last version, Firefox 25, and test again, please.

In addition, provide crash reports (about:crashes in the location bar) or stack trace with GDB.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/How_to_get_a_stacktrace_for_a_bug_report

Comment 2

[pili]

After running some more debugging tests, I think I found out some sources of the problem:
- I had multiple libmad.so files and I deleted one of them. Why this is used with the gmail site is unclear to me
- I had to remove the crystalhd plugin for gstreamer
So for the gmail website, it was the these two libraries that were causing the problem. For now, the website appears stable.

With respect to v24  and v25, they are not yet an option for me. Those two have major issues - they don't complete loading some web pages and hang/freeze up instead. Until I can figure out what causes that behaviour, they are simply unusable. I have to stick to v23 for now.

Comment 3

[Loic]

Maybe you can reset your profile, some add-ons may be incompatible after the update of Firefox.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-firefox-easily-fix-most-problems
and cause various issues.

Comment 4

[pili]

OK, I upgraded to v25 and experienced the same problems I dreaded. Basically, v24 and v25 will freeze on some web sites (e.g. youtube.com). Firefox tries to load it and then freezes while loading the page. This same behaviour occurs:
- After I start with a new problem
- Using safe mode
Hence, I know it is not an extension problem. Version 23 seemed capable of loading most pages without these hangups. Anyway, I've done more debugging and I think I can see a possible cause:

** Firefox is trying to use either gstreamer or pulseaudio. Just before it hangs, I see these messages:

(firefox:26376): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: cannot register existing type `GstFormat'

(firefox:26376): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `result != 0' failed

(firefox:26376): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: cannot retrieve class for invalid (unclassed) type `<invalid>'

(firefox:26376): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: cannot register existing type `GstQuery'

(firefox:26376): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `result != 0' failed

(firefox:26376): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: cannot retrieve class for invalid (unclassed) type `<invalid>'

(firefox:26376): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: cannot register existing type `GstObject'

(firefox:26376): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `result != 0' failed

(firefox:26376): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: cannot retrieve class for invalid (unclassed) type `<invalid>'

** Looking at the trace in gdb, I notice that it it loads the following libraries: 
  - /usr/lib64/libpulse.so.0
  - /usr/lib64/libjson.so.0
  - /usr/lib64/pulseaudio/libpulsecommon-4.0.so
  - /lib64/libwrap.so.0
  - /usr/lib64/libsndfile.so.1
  - /usr/lib64/libFLAC.so.8
  - /usr/lib64/libvorbisenc.so.2
  - /usr/lib64/libspeex.so.1

Note that I am not trying to play any  media file. All I did was to go the home page of Youtube for example.

Question: how I can stop Firefox from using pulseaudio or gstreamer?

Comment 5

[Loic]

Try about:config > media.gstreamer.enabled = false. It will disable support of MP4.

Comment 6

[pili]

That did the trick! Thanks a lot. It cost me an awful lot of grief to get Firefox v25 to work at last. So far it hasn't frozen on a web site like Youtube, so hopefully, that fixes the problem.

I wonder why these last two versions break when using gstreamer. Why is is enabled by default anyway?

Comment 7

[Loic]

Because MP4/MP3 support has been enabled by default in Linux since FF24 (bug 794282).

Comment 8

[Alessandro Decina]

This looks like an environment issue. Can you try to launch firefox from the command line, typing:

G_DEBUG=fatal-warnings firefox

It should crash and give you a crashdump which should help us understand the issue.

Comment 9

[pili]

The command "G_DEBUG=fatal-warnings firefox" does not cause a crash with gstreamer disabled. However the crash returns with gstreamer re-enabled. I am not sure where the dump is,; what I get is the following message:

(firefox:24984): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: cannot register existing type `GstFormat'
Trace/breakpoint trap

Comment 10

[Alessandro Decina]

(In reply to pili from comment #9)
> The command "G_DEBUG=fatal-warnings firefox" does not cause a crash with
> gstreamer disabled. However the crash returns with gstreamer re-enabled. I
> am not sure where the dump is,; what I get is the following message:
> 
> (firefox:24984): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: cannot register existing type
> `GstFormat'
> Trace/breakpoint trap

This means that your setup is borked, and somehow two versions of gstreamer are being loaded at the same time. My gut feeling tells me it might be related to the "chrystal hd" plugin (whatever it is).

Comment 11

[pili]

In my post on 2013-11-06, I did mention that one of the issues was due to the crystalhd plugin. I removed it entirely from my system, but I still had problems until I disabled gstreamer with about:config > media.gstreamer.enabled = false. I now have firefox v27, so I tried to re-enable gstreamer today. Initially, firefox completely froze and I had to kill it through its PID.  So far, it has not yet crashed again and appears stable.

Comment 12

[Laurent Jouanneau]

Hi,

I have the same issue with vanilla firefox 33.1.1, 35 or 35.0.1 on debian squeeze i686, gstreamer 0.10.30-1. ( Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:35.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/35.0 )

The difference with the Pili's problem, is that Firefox doesn't crash, it just hangs when I quit the browser (it seems between the observer message xpcom-will-shutdown and xpcom-shutdown).  So I don't have dumps... By 'hang', I mean : no more windows, but the process doesn't exit.

There is no plugins, no extensions. It hangs with an old profile or a new profile.

In the console, I have this message, appearing when gmail starts to display the google talk buttons in the sidebar:

** (firefox:8222): CRITICAL **: gst_app_src_set_size: assertion `GST_IS_APP_SRC (appsrc)' failed

(firefox:8222): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: /build/buildd-glib2.0_2.24.2-1-i386-AScyie/glib2.0-2.24.2/gobject/gsignal.c:2273: signal `autoplug-sort' is invalid for instance `0x959f3d80'

```

If I disable gstreamer in about:config, it closes well after displaying a page like gmail.

Comment 13

[Kevin Brosnan [Ex-Mozilla]]

Enough people can repo this it should be new.

Comment 14

[patrick adams]

What Happens
Loading gmail causes firefox to crash/close as soon as the chat window starts/finishes loading.
However in about:config disabling gstreamer "media.gstreamer.enabled;false" Prevents the crash.

Tested with a new profile with no plugins, and agan with my normal fully loaded profile with all plug ins.


SYSTEM
OpenSuse 13.1 AMD64 (Phenom 1045T)
Linux version 3.11.10-29-desktop (geeko@buildhost) (gcc version 4.8.1 20130909 [gcc-4_8-branch revision 202388] (SUSE Linux) ) #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Mar 5 16:24:00 UTC 2015 (338c513)

FIREFOX
37.0.1
GDB debug output at time of crash http://pastebin.com/cFTBQY5N

GSTREAMER
libgstreamer-0_10-0 0.10.36-20.12  I think firefox is using this one, based on GDB's debug symbol requirements.
libgstreamer-1_0-0 1.4.5-60.6


TO ANY DEV
If you would like help or more info,  I can provide more info from GDB if you specifie what you need,  Email me. I am available 6PM to 11PM Central Time

Comment 15

[intendentedelleacque]

I experienced the same issue: Firefox on Linux crashes on every websites with a video element.

This started with Firefox esr31.6.0, reverting back to the esr31.5.3 I've no crash.

The crashes are caused by gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg plugin: removing it all works properly, but I lost H264 support.

Here the crash reports:

https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/dfb24bb8-8dcb-45c9-8b7c-8a6862150428
https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/be5e057b-e008-4643-b053-64c392150504

Comment 17

[intendentedelleacque]

(In reply to intendentedelleacque from comment #15)
> I experienced the same issue: Firefox on Linux crashes on every websites
> with a video element.
> 
> This started with Firefox esr31.6.0, reverting back to the esr31.5.3 I've no
> crash.
> 
> The crashes are caused by gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg plugin: removing it all works
> properly, but I lost H264 support.
> 
> Here the crash reports:
> 
> https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/dfb24bb8-8dcb-45c9-8b7c-
> 8a6862150428
> https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/be5e057b-e008-4643-b053-
> 64c392150504

Still present in Firefox esr 38.0.1

Comment 18

[Jean-Yves Avenard [:jya]]

gstreamer is going in bug 1234092