system freezes when starting /usr/bin/webbrowser-app on 14.04

Could you please open a terminal, run "webbrowser-app" in it, and paste the output here?

Can you also please paste the output of the following command?

    apt-cache policy webbrowser-app liboxideqtcore0

Hello Olivier, after the tests done on my computer with 14.04 installed where the system freezed at each time I launched the webbrowser-app command, today I can launch the application "webbrowser-app" without freeze.

Here is the output requested of these 2 commands:

1- open a terminal, run "webbrowser-app":

rdy@rdv:~$ webbrowser-app
OxideQQuickWebContext: userAgentOverrideDelegate is deprecated. Please consider switching to userAgentOverrides instead
Loaded 1 UA override(s) from file:///usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/qml/Ubuntu/Components/Extras/Browser/ua-overrides-desktop.js
[0303/192631:ERROR:layer_tree_host_impl.cc(2181)] Forcing zero-copy tile initialization as worker context is missing
Erreur de segmentation (core dumped)
rdy@rdv:~$

2- apt-cache policy webbrowser-app liboxideqtcore0 , returns:
rdy@rdv:~$ apt-cache policy webbrowser-app liboxideqtcore0
webbrowser-app:
  Installé : 0.23+14.04.20140428-0ubuntu1
  Candidat : 0.23+14.04.20140428-0ubuntu1
 Table de version :
 *** 0.23+14.04.20140428-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     0.23+14.04.20140414-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages
liboxideqtcore0:
  Installé : 1.12.7-0ubuntu0.14.04.1
  Candidat : 1.12.7-0ubuntu0.14.04.1
 Table de version :
 *** 1.12.7-0ubuntu0.14.04.1 0
        500 http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-updates/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-security/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1.0.0~bzr501-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages
rdy@rdv:~$

Thank you for your help. Ren.

Olivier, I have spoken too fast !

In fact, the system freezed again ! Since I saw the message "Erreur de segmentation (core dumped)"
I launched again the command "webbrowser-app" with the var LANG set:

$ LANG=C webbrowser-app

And this time the message was surely the same one without "core dumped". I had not the time to read the error message. For me it seemed to be the same during the small amount of time that I could read it. Then the system freezed like I explained.

Olivier, need you any additional technical infos?

Is there a crash file under /var/crash for webbrowser-app? If so, can you please attach it here?

yes here it is.

Partial backtrace extracted from the core dump:

#0 0x00007fb9e12142c4 in cli_kref_get (bo=0x0, client=0x0) at ../../nouveau/private.h:46
#1 pushbuf_krel (push=0x56502fb22f70, bo=0x0, data=800210280, flags=4, vor=272, tor=800207648)
    at ../../nouveau/pushbuf.c:234
#2 0x00007fb9e121476e in cli_kref_set (bo=0x1, push=0x0, kref=0x0, client=0x5650) at ../../nouveau/private.h:70
#3 nouveau_pushbuf_del (ppush=0x56502fb22f70) at ../../nouveau/pushbuf.c:615
#4 0x000056502fb22f70 in ?? ()
#5 0x0000000000000013 in ?? ()
#6 0x00005650304dd640 in ?? ()
#7 0x000000000000004c in ?? ()
#8 0x000056502ffa4070 in ?? ()
#9 0x00005650300ae2d0 in ?? ()
#10 0x00007fb9e18604be in ?? () from /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/nouveau_dri.so
#11 0x00007fb9e17bb2bd in ?? () from /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/nouveau_dri.so
#12 0x0000000000000000 in ?? ()

Same problem here, even worst. As soon as webbrowser starts it can freeze the desktop screen, keyboard and mouse.

1) At first I was able to login with a second system (or a smart-phone with ssh) and reboot the system, but now not even this works.

2) Amazon and other "channel" web apps depends on this so I am afraid that any Web apps that uses this can freeze the system "without notice".

3) looking at the syslog/auth.log, other than some hardware conflicts I already had before, I can't spot any traces of what is causing the problem. I suspect only this in auth.log:

lightdm: PAM unable to dlopen(pam_kwallet.so): /lib/security/pam_kwallet.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

lightdm: PAM adding faulty module: pam_kwallet.so
lightdm: pam_succeed_if(lightdm:auth): requirement "user ingroup nopasswdlogin" not met by user "jxxx"

gnome-keyring-daemon[2194]: couldn't set environment variable in session: The name org.gnome.SessionManager was not provided by any .service files

polkitd(authority=local): Registered Authentication Agent for unix-session:c2 (system bus name :1.79 [/usr/lib/policykit-1-gnome/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1], object path /org/gnome/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.UTF-8)

systemd-logind[723]: Removed session c1.

CRON[3733]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
CRON[3733]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root

4) My system has this configuration:

System: Host: 965P-DS3 Kernel: 3.13.0-92-generic i686 (32 bit) Desktop: Gnome 3.10.4 Distro: Ubuntu 14.04 trusty
Machine: Mobo: Gigabyte model: 965P-DS3 Bios: Award version: F14 date: 06/25/2009
CPU: Dual core Intel Core2 CPU 6300 (-MCP-) clocked at 1866.597 MHz
Graphics: Card: NVIDIA GF119 [GeForce GT 610]
X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: nouveau (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1920x1080@60.0hz
GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on NVD9 GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.1.3
Network: Card: Marvell 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller driver: sky2
Drives: HDD Total Size: 500.1GB (7.9% used)
Info: Processes: 189 Uptime: 7 min Memory: 790.2/8093.6MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 1.9.17

@John: this issue appears to be specific to the nouveau driver. Could you test with the nvidia proprietary driver by any chance and report here whether this works better?

Ubuntu 17.04
webbrowser-app 0.23+17.04.20170321-0ubuntu1
Intel HD Graphics

When I start the webbrowser-app, the whole system freezes (sometimes the mouse works) and I have to restart.
See enclosed screen shot.

See also bug #1306617, #1645029 and #1707354

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

See also bug #1649262