Firefox ESR related crashes?

[Weeb]

I run Debian Jessie Stable with GNOME and use the default Firefox ESR browser and open drivers. As of today everything is updated, including yesterday's update for Firefox ESR and the Shockwave Flash plugin. There is this bug I used to have only occasionally since I installed Debian a few months ago: Sometimes when I was changing to another tab in Firefox, everything would go black and after a few seconds it would display the login screen again; then I would log in and find out that everything I was running had stopped (as if I had just turned on the computer). It never mattered to me because I never was able to reproduce it, for example, if the bug happened when I changed from one tab to another, I would create the same situation with the same URLs but this time everything would work just fine. Sometimes it was caused not by tabs, but by allowing to be redirected, or allowing an element, or blocking an element; either way it would never happen again under the same circumstances.

Yesterday I found the first instance of this bug that I can reproduce (and this kinda leads me to think that it became worse after the updates, but I can't be 100% sure since I never tried this exact thing before it), but I really have no idea about what to do next. I reproduced the error over and over for 10 minutes, so there should be logs about it somewhere, Right? I only know about /var/log/kern.log, and even though I don't really know what most of it means, I identified this part that repeats over and over during the time I was reproducing the error just a while ago (the "Stale PID file, overwriting" line only appears like one in every six repetitions):

Nov 18 20:52:29 Debian-8 x-session-manager[4772]: Entering running state
Nov 18 20:52:45 Debian-8 gnome-session[5173]: Entering running state
Nov 18 20:52:50 Debian-8 pulseaudio[5333]: Default and alternate sample rates are the same.
Nov 18 20:52:50 Debian-8 pulseaudio[5333]: Default and alternate sample rates are the same.
Nov 18 20:52:52 Debian-8 x-session-manager[5254]: Entering running state
Nov 18 20:53:13 Debian-8 gnome-session[5727]: Entering running state
Nov 18 20:53:18 Debian-8 pulseaudio[5891]: Stale PID file, overwriting.
Nov 18 20:53:18 Debian-8 pulseaudio[5891]: Default and alternate sample rates are the same.
Nov 18 20:53:18 Debian-8 pulseaudio[5891]: Default and alternate sample rates are the same.
Nov 18 20:53:19 Debian-8 x-session-manager[5812]: Entering running state
Nov 18 20:53:38 Debian-8 gnome-session[6213]: Entering running state
Nov 18 20:53:44 Debian-8 pulseaudio[6388]: Default and alternate sample rates are the same.
Nov 18 20:53:44 Debian-8 pulseaudio[6388]: Default and alternate sample rates are the same.
Nov 18 20:53:45 Debian-8 x-session-manager[6309]: Entering running state
Nov 18 20:54:06 Debian-8 gnome-session[6771]: Entering running state
Nov 18 20:54:16 Debian-8 pulseaudio[6938]: Default and alternate sample rates are the same.
Nov 18 20:54:16 Debian-8 pulseaudio[6938]: Default and alternate sample rates are the same.
Nov 18 20:54:17 Debian-8 x-session-manager[6859]: Entering running state
Nov 18 20:54:33 Debian-8 gnome-session[7247]: Entering running state
Nov 18 20:54:38 Debian-8 pulseaudio[7406]: Default and alternate sample rates are the same.
Nov 18 20:54:38 Debian-8 pulseaudio[7406]: Default and alternate sample rates are the same.
Nov 18 20:54:39 Debian-8 x-session-manager[7327]: Entering running state

I looked it up and found vague stuff about different audio problems, some involving Firefox crashes, but nothing involving everything crashing. The way I reproduce the crash is opening this link http://archive.is/QSYDt in a new tab, then I can see in the tab name that it loaded just fine, but only until I try to change to it the crash happens; I haven't tried with any other archive.is URLs yet, by the way. From what I've looked up this doesn't seem to be a very common issue, and the only thing I know for sure is that it always involves Firefox. What could I do to know more details about it? Is there some place where more detailed logs can be found? How sure can I be that I'm not part of a Chinese botnet? Any insight would be appreciated.

[millpond]

Install NoScript in Firefox, and see if you can repeat the error.

From here it looks like a font issue.
Or something pretending to be one.

Archive.org can very easily capture boogers in the pages.

[Weeb]

@millpond

I just tried with NoScript and something slightly different happens. This time I am able to click on the tab and see the content, and it only crashes until I start scrolling down, as long as I don't scroll it doesn't crash. I also forgot to say that I tried Firefox in safe mode too, and it makes no difference.

[Bulkley]

A couple of experiments: 1. Turn off all Firefox add-ons and restart browser. If that solves the problem turn on add-ons one at a time, testing for each.

2. Rename ~/.mozilla and restart browser. If the problem goes away it is something you configured.

[Weeb]

@Bulkley

I tried both but neither solved the issue.

[millpond]

Go to the firefox site and see if they still offer complete FF packages in tar.gz form.

Unpack, and put in /opt/firefox

If the problem persists, see if you can get an earlier version.

One potential source of conflict might be iceweasel if you have it installed. The only time I ever had problems with FF was when I installed iceweasel.

[ticojohn]

Just wanted to throw in my two cents worth. I have also been having problems with Firefox-ESR on Jessie. The crashes have been almost entirely Yahoo email related. Random crashes when replying to emails, etc. I tried running in the safe mode and that did not help. I then downloaded Firefox, but did NOT install it, and am running it from a folder in my /home directory. All of the add-ons, such as ad blocker, are active and I am not seeing any crashes. I sent a crash report but have received no replies. I don't know if that crash report went to the Firefox-ESR team or directly to Mozilla. If the latter, they will probably just tell me to use Firefox.