Debugger for persistent browser crash

12 réponses [Dernière contribution]
iceburn
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 12/07/2019

Which of the debuggers in synaptic package manager would be good for a browser that crashes ?

Thinkpad X230
GNULinuxTrisquel Release 11.0, Aramo 64-bit, Kernel Linux 5.15.0-101-generic x86_64, MATE 1.26.0
Intel® Core™ i5-3320M CPU @ 2.60GHz × 4
Mesa Intel® HD Graphics 4000 (IVB GT2)
Memory 8Gb RAM

Magic Banana

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I am a translator!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/24/2010

You probably only want to report the bug to the developers, unless you are one of them. For the report to be useful, launch the browser from the terminal (so that you can copy-paste the output there) and detail the simplest step-by-step procedure that triggers the crash.

andyprough
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 02/12/2015

Not necessarily true. I know of one browser where within the ladt few hours the lead dev specifically asked that a debugger be attached to the pid. Could be that this is from the same request.

iceburn
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 12/07/2019

Sorry, forgot to mention which browser - Pale Moon 33.1.0 64bit (GTK3). Yes the lead dev suggests attatching a debugger because the browser keeps crashing to desktop without leaving any clues as to why it's crashing.

Having never used a debugger I'm not certain which one will be useful in this case. Does TrisquelGNULinux already contain a debugger for use with Terminal ?

Thanks for any pointers. And I'm aware PM is probably not considered 'free' software so if that's a problem please say.

Magic Banana

I am a member!

I am a translator!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/24/2010

The developer should detail more what (s)he expects from you. Usually one uses GDB to debug C++ code compiled with the -g option. So it would mean first compiling the browser from source.

andyprough
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 02/12/2015

The lead Dev does his development in Windows, said he doesn't know how to set up a debugger on a GNU/Linux distro, but that members of our community would probably know. Other of their devs do use GNU/Linux distros, but none have posted debugging steps.

I can download the source and give it a try. Firefox has a page on debugging with GNU/Linux tools, the process should be about the same. If I can figure out the steps I'll post them here for @iceburn to repeat, and I'll post my findings to the Pale Moon forum. My problem is I haven't seen this latest version crash in the way @iceburn and others have described, so I'll have to go hunting for a page that causes it to crash and hope I can replicate it.

iceburn
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 12/07/2019

Thanks andyprough, that's a big help as I'm struggling with how to attach a relevant debugger to PM.
All the help I can offer is that the PM shutdowns started maybe 2 or 3 versions ago and turning add ons on & off and settings in prefs hasn't helped. It's happening more with this latest version (at least twice since the update).This X230 is my daily driver so can't really comment on Windows.

andyprough
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 02/12/2015

Hi @iceburn, I did get gdb debugging set up, but I had to compile the browser myself and run the debugger on the compiled code. It's quite a lot of steps and a lot to learn if you haven't compiled the browser before. I've compiled it lots of times myself so I just had to do that again and find the commands to run it with the gdb debugger attached. If you want to go through all the steps, let me know and I'll be happy to email them to you and hopefully they'll make sense to you. But if you don't want to try it then I understand, it's quite a lot of work and might not really pay off or be worth your time.

iceburn
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 12/07/2019

Hi @andyprough, I've been using PM with an add on that loads the mobile version of YouTube which is a lighter load on this laptop. Also using Abrowser more which is actually a much better browser on The 'tube'.
Using System Monitor, it's obvious Abrowser spreads the load more efficiently. makes sense considering it's packaged with GNU/Linux/Trisquel.
Thanks for the offer of help but as no freezing has occured since the PM has been tamed with the add on, it's been free of problems.

Also the OS has been fully updated since the shut-downs occured. I'd been updating security only. Maybe neccessary drivers weren't current and the update fixed that ?

andyprough
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 02/12/2015

>"I'd been updating security only. Maybe neccessary drivers weren't current and the update fixed that ?"

The newer kernels seem to be working better, it's probably that.

>"Thanks for the offer of help but as no freezing has occured since the PM has been tamed with the add on, it's been free of problems."

Excellent!

andyprough
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 02/12/2015

>"And I'm aware PM is probably not considered 'free' software so if that's a problem please say."

If you comment out the official branding section in the .mozconfig file and then compile it for yourself then the non-free user agreement no longer applies and it's as free as Firefox version 52 was. If you download and run the binary version from their website then the non-free license over their officially branded artwork and so forth applies, making it non-free.

del111
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 08/23/2023

If it was me, if it's not free software, I would probably not bother to report a bug. I would switch browser instead. e.g. you could compile Icecat if you can install all the build-deps. Pre-built binaries are OK too.

andyprough
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 02/12/2015

IceCat isn't a browser on its own, it's a script to help build Firefox without the non-free and privacy violating parts. Building Pale Moon without the non-free branding should be about the same, freedom-wise.