ubuntu-users Digest, Vol 27, Issue 26

[Art Edwards]

Alain Muls wrote:
> On Friday 03 November 2006 07:38, ubuntu-users-request at lists.ubuntu.com wrote:
>> Has anyone else had Firefox freeze?
>>
>> Art Edwards
> 
> Hi
> 
> I also have problems with firefox freezing from time to time (reported 3 times 
> with no succesfull responses). I had this problem with v1.5.0.1 and now also 
> with v2 on Dapper Drake. These intermittent freeze behaviour occured with and 
> without extensions/themes enabled. Sometimes it occurs when switching 
> desktops, sometimes when I close firefox, and sometimes just in between. 9 
> times out of 10, it returns to normal after 4-5 seconds, but the 10th time it 
> hogs the CPU and even waiting for several minutes will not bring the system 
> back. I have to force a reboot by pressing the ON/OFF button.
> 
> This is something that need to be addressed, so please some good advice!
> 
> Tx/Alain
> 
I have been a debian user, and only recently put ubuntu on my home
desktop, as well as my childrens' computers. This is the first time I
have had a problem on a 32-bit machine. You should know that you don't
have to reboot. If you open a terminal window and type

ps ax | grep firefox

you will get a line with the PID (process ID) for the hung firefox.

You can then issue a kill command

kill -9 PID

where PID is the number from the ps command. This will kill the firefox
process. You can do something similar with the top command, but this is
not as sure. top lists the top users of cpu time. firefox may hang, but
not hog the cpu, so you won't see it in the top listing.

I'm pretty sure that the freezing is a bug in the new firefox-2. I hope
someone is listening. I'll try to file a bug with firefox.

Art Edwards