This is a static archive of the old Zorin Forum.

The information below may be outdated. Visit the new Zorin Forum here ›

If you have registered on the old forum, you will need to create an account on the new forum.

[SOLVED] Firefox Crashes

TheKid7

Thu Sep 08, 2011 2:34:56 am

ZorinOS 5.1 Core

Firefox sometimes repeatedly crashes. The only way that I can temporarily fix the problem is to "remove" Firefox followed by "installing" Firefox. Firefox then works OK for a while and then starts crashing again.

How can I permanently correct this problem?

Thanks in Advance.

Wolfman

Thu Sep 08, 2011 6:50:04 am

Did update your PC and did you install the graphic card drivers as they are not installed automatically (Nvidia and ATI only).

Control Center > Hardware > Additional Drivers

Regards Wolfman :D

TheKid7

Thu Sep 08, 2011 11:01:40 am

Wolfman wrote:Did update your PC and did you install the graphic card drivers as they are not installed automatically (Nvidia and ATI only).

Control Center > Hardware > Additional Drivers

Regards Wolfman :D

ZorinOS is up-to-date. I remember installing updates twice.

I have an on-board video card. I remember the motherboard having Intel chipsets. I am 100% sure that the on-board video is not Nvidia or ATI.

Wolfman

Thu Sep 08, 2011 11:41:28 am

Hi,

just to be 100% sure that you do have an Intel graphics chip, please install the package "sysinfo" then once installed, open sysinfo and go to hardware and click on the drop down menu on the right and change it to "Graphics Card" and see what info you get; then post back!!.

Regards Wolfman :D

Sysinfo_001.png
Sysinfo_001.png (35.02 KiB)

TheKid7

Thu Sep 08, 2011 12:19:05 pm

Attached is the SysInfo screenshot.

Wolfman

Thu Sep 08, 2011 1:09:34 pm

I can only think that a driver may be causing the problem, if you don't have "libva-glx1" installed, that might be the problem, I don't have an Intel card so I cannot really say.

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!!!!!!!!. :!:

You can install the package via Synaptic if it is not already installed!!. :idea:

Has Firefox upgraded to version 6 ?.

Regards Wolfman :!:

Obsidian1723

Thu Sep 08, 2011 7:33:42 pm

I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but while sometimes running the latest and greatest code can fix a problem, it can quite often also be the cause of it as well.

If for example, someone is running foobar-program-version-2.0.1 which is a known stable version and it has issues, they may roll back to foobar-program-version-2.0 which is also a stable version. In such a case, newer doesn't equal better even though they are both stable versions, software isn't perfect.

Likewise, if they are running a really old (and yet stable) version, like say 1.0, sometimes upgrading to the next stable version will fix the issue, so in that case, try 2.0. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't.

Now, all that being said, onto my point.......

Let's say someone is running an UNstable software and they have issues, the very first thing I will always suggest is to use the stable version of the software UNLESS:

a) you are testing it in a break-ffix environment because you are in QA as a tester
b) you are a developer
c) you like bleeding-edge, whether or not you are a or b above. Some people just like the latest version of whatever "IT" is. For those people, there is Arch Linux, for example.

Now if you are just a normal end-user, or even a power user, or anyone who just wants it to work, or doesn't even mind a little troubleshooting (because no software is perfect or perfectly bug-free), then I recommend using the stable version of the software.

So, to conclude, do not run Zorin 4 or 5 since they are based on UNstabe versions of Ubuntu (which are they themselves pulled from debian-unstable); and instead, please try out the stable version, Zorin OS 3.1, which is pulled from Ubuntu LTS, which itself is based on debian-testing.

Yo0u can't expect old, outdated, or unstable software to work, let alone work well. I'm not saying stable = perfect, or that LTS = perfect..... I'm saying that by using as stable as possible software, your chances of mitigating problems are far less than if you are running code so bleeding-edge that it was just written 2 minutes ago.

TheKid7

Fri Sep 09, 2011 3:15:50 am

Wolfman wrote:I can only think that a driver may be causing the problem, if you don't have "libva-glx1" installed, that might be the problem, I don't have an Intel card so I cannot really say.

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!!!!!!!!. :!:

You can install the package via Synaptic if it is not already installed!!. :idea:

Has Firefox upgraded to version 6 ?.

Regards Wolfman :!:

Firefox version 6.0.2

I installed "libva-glx1" which seemed to make things worse.

TheKid7

Fri Sep 09, 2011 3:23:53 am

Obsidian1723 wrote:I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but while sometimes running the latest and greatest code can fix a problem, it can quite often also be the cause of it as well.

If for example, someone is running foobar-program-version-2.0.1 which is a known stable version and it has issues, they may roll back to foobar-program-version-2.0 which is also a stable version. In such a case, newer doesn't equal better even though they are both stable versions, software isn't perfect.

Likewise, if they are running a really old (and yet stable) version, like say 1.0, sometimes upgrading to the next stable version will fix the issue, so in that case, try 2.0. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't.

Now, all that being said, onto my point.......

Let's say someone is running an UNstable software and they have issues, the very first thing I will always suggest is to use the stable version of the software UNLESS:

a) you are testing it in a break-ffix environment because you are in QA as a tester
b) you are a developer
c) you like bleeding-edge, whether or not you are a or b above. Some people just like the latest version of whatever "IT" is. For those people, there is Arch Linux, for example.

Now if you are just a normal end-user, or even a power user, or anyone who just wants it to work, or doesn't even mind a little troubleshooting (because no software is perfect or perfectly bug-free), then I recommend using the stable version of the software.

So, to conclude, do not run Zorin 4 or 5 since they are based on UNstabe versions of Ubuntu (which are they themselves pulled from debian-unstable); and instead, please try out the stable version, Zorin OS 3.1, which is pulled from Ubuntu LTS, which itself is based on debian-testing.

Yo0u can't expect old, outdated, or unstable software to work, let alone work well. I'm not saying stable = perfect, or that LTS = perfect..... I'm saying that by using as stable as possible software, your chances of mitigating problems are far less than if you are running code so bleeding-edge that it was just written 2 minutes ago.

I downloaded and burned ZorinOS 3.1 Core 32 bit to DVD+R using one of my Windows XP Pro PC's. I verified the MD5 Sum after download and had IMGBurn do a verify after the DVD+R was burned.

The installation of ZorinOS 3.1 repeatedly failed giving an error message that either my hard drive or my optical drive is having read/write errors. I am currently performing a thorough test of my hard drive.

If the hard drive tests out to be OK, I will order a new DVD burner tomorrow.

I am now suspicious that a possibly failing DVD burner may have had a contribution to my problems. When I install the new DVD burner next week, I will find out.

Obsidian1723

Fri Sep 09, 2011 4:03:00 am

TheKid7 wrote:I downloaded and burned ZorinOS 3.1 Core 32 bit to DVD+R using one of my Windows XP Pro PC's. I verified the MD5 Sum after download and had IMGBurn do a verify after the DVD+R was burned.

The installation of ZorinOS 3.1 repeatedly failed giving an error message that either my hard drive or my optical drive is having read/write errors. I am currently performing a thorough test of my hard drive.

If the hard drive tests out to be OK, I will order a new DVD burner tomorrow.

I am now suspicious that a possibly failing DVD burner may have had a contribution to my problems. When I install the new DVD burner next week, I will find out.


I'm not sure if you want this advice, so here it goes, I offer it anyway.......

1) Download the ISO of Zorin OS Core 3.1 32-bit Edition

NOTE: I always download using wget -c -t0 http://etc by copying the direct download link into gnome-terminal because I find this to be much more reliable than a regular http download through a web browser. Some would say to just use torrents and tor, but both of these are inherently insecure and major security risks to use. I recommend using wget, not torrents or http downloads via web browsers, but it is only a suggestion and recommmendation. Of course, check the downloaded files for the md5 hash checksum, as that is always sound advice and a good practice to use.

2) Using unetbootin, make a USB thumb drive into a bootable drive to install Zorin OS from and install it.

Caveat: Obviously this is an exercise in futility and completely pointless to do IF your BIOS does NOT support booting from USB; and in such a case, yes, checking and perhaps replacing the hard drive and the optical drive is the only choice; however...... IF your BIOS DOES support booting from USB, you are a rockstar, because your show, the install, will go on. Also, checking the hard drive is always good to do.

Make the bootable USB and install Zorin OS from it. My reasoning isn't just to get Zorin OS installed, but also a means of troubleshooting the issue at the same time while solving it.

If the optical drive is the problem, you just bypassed it.
If your errors on install go away, then you know it is the optical drive's fault. Replace it.

Now if the problem still remains while installing Zorin OS from USB, then it could be either the hard drive or the optical drive as you already know.

At this point, shut the PC down, go inside of it and disconnect the optical drive and reboot to USB to install Zorin OS. How did it go? Did it install ok? If it did, and without error, then it's the optical drive. If it does have errors still with the optical drive disconnected; then we know it is the internal hard drive. At that point, you can check the drive for errors, boot from USB and try the install again. If it works, ok. If not, then replace the internal hard drive, reconnect the optical drive since we know that's good, nowq boot to USB and install from there.

So if at this point, now that we've reconnected the optical drive, if we have errors, that too must be bad and must be replaced. We've already replaced the hard drive at this point, so excluding we may have a bad hard drive from the factory (rare, but it can happen), chances are good the optical drive is bad at that point.

IF you have done ALL of this and you STILL have issues.......... at that point, then I must say it is either going to be the RAM (rare these days, but possible), or more than likely, it's the motherboard. If it's the mobo, you may as well just go with whatever version and OS works well with it. The other option is to build or buy a new PC (even if that one is used) that does work well with the OS and version that you want to use.

TheKid7

Wed Sep 14, 2011 12:23:49 pm

I removed my existing IDE DVD-RW drive and installed my new ASUS SATA DVD-RW drive and then installed ZorinOS 3.1 32 bit.

There was only one issue during the installation. When I selected to use the entire hard disk, the hard disk partitioning program crashed. I selected retry and use entire hard disk and there were no more crashes or errors of any kind. ZorinOS 3.1 seems to be working properly.

I conclude that my problem was a failing DVD-RW drive.

Obsidian1723

Wed Sep 14, 2011 5:46:57 pm

I concur that is is a failing optical drive. Glad to see you get it working :)

I'm going to make this thread [SOLVED]