[Bug 612131] Re: Unprovoked shutdowns of Firefox

[shanen (Shannon Jacobs)]

Thank you (Mr Gersten) for linking from the other bug. If I can at least
temporarily overcome my increasingly hopeless feelings towards Ubuntu, I
may also attempt the steps recommended by "madbiologist" (since the
backtrace approach failed (and going even farther by the way, the
backtrace had probably failed even earlier, since the software had
already been installed at some point before I attempted to follow the
most recent instructions)).

I do note that this bug report seems to be linked to firefox 3.0, and
I'm sure that the current version of the bug on the afflicted machine is
NOT 3.0, and did not even appear until 3.5 or later. It doesn't appear
that any of the latest "Report Problem..." information has been copied
over to this bug. However, I've made a note of this bug number, and I
should have plenty of opportunities to get that information again.
Firefox shut down at least three times this morning during a short
session on that machine.

Just in case it's related, I'll report this symptom though I doubt it is
directly related to this bug. Rather I think this belongs to an earlier
Java-related bug which I never even bothered to report. That Java bug
had gotten worse about the time this bug appeared, but after the upgrade
from 9.10 to 10.4, it has returned to its previous state. At least I
don't remember ever reporting this one, but it goes far enough back that
I may have reported it during my 'youthful enthusiasm for Ubuntu' phase.
The origins may have involved extensive difficulties installing Java to
execute within Firefox for the use of such <sarcasm>trivial and
unknown</sarcasm> websites as Yahoo. (Did the sarcasm pseudo-tag
survive? If not, take it as a micro-review of the Yahoo portal. Yahoo
certainly deserves to be regarded as trivial and unknown for their
ongoing support of spammers.) Anyway, Java does work, but there is an
initialization delay of several minutes each time before it is ready to
function normally. This has been it's stable-but-buggy state for a long
time, going back well before this bug. However, at some point, probably
close to the appearance of this bug, Java became completely disabled
within Firefox. At that point, I simply regarded it as yet another lack-
of-usability problem of Ubuntu, and I didn't even report it (unless I
was venting and have already forgotten the vent). I simply stopped
attempting to use any webpage that used Java on the afflicted machine.
(There are no Java-in-Firefox problems on other machines, but I don't
recall if I ever tried it under Ubuntu, though I'm sure it was okay for
Windows.) As noted early in this paragraph, after the upgrade from 9.10
to 10.4, Java was again running within Firefox, though once again with
the long delay for some kind of initialization. I haven't timed it
exactly, but it's about three or four minutes. Some kind of network
timeout before a fallback? I haven't cared enough to investigate. I just
work in another program or on another machine for a while. During this
weird initialization period, Firefox is completely unusable on the
afflicted machine. (Users are so adaptable, eh? I now apparently regard
it as "normal" that hitting a webpage that invokes Java will cripple
Firefox for several minutes.)

With regards to your (Mr Gersten's) encouraging comment in the duplicate
bug report, I accept that you are sincere in encouraging the reporting
of bugs--but the results are NOT showing up in improvements in the
usability of Ubuntu for regular non-technical users, or even for quasi-
pseudo-technical former hackers like me. I remain extremely and
increasingly disillusioned with Ubuntu. I still think it is a great idea
to create a viable Linux-based alternative to Windows, but Ubuntu is
clearly going in the wrong direction. There was a time, probably about 2
years ago, when I was feeling that I could consider recommending Ubuntu
as an alternative OS without being inundated with calls for help from
any non-technical friend who followed my recommendation--but that is NOT
the case now. As noted earlier, I think the real problem is that ALL of
the economic models for Linux have failed and are continuing to fail.
Proper testing is fundamentally tedious and boring work... (I can't
reveal any details of internal discussions within our company, but I
will hazard a summary of my perceptions here: The local Ubuntu partisans
have lost their enthusiasm, too. In the best case, should you simply
hope that my own disillusionment is the most extreme case? If I were
you, I wouldn't put that in your business plan.)

-- 
Unprovoked shutdowns of Firefox
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/612131
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