Ubuntu

Firefox crashes when password "Remembered" (null username)

Asked by Stuart Young

When accessing any site that requires a single password (ie: no username), such as the admin section of a mailman mailing list server, if firefox is told to remember the password (or has a previously remembered password), then firefox appears to crash out (vanishes).

Sites with a username option seem to have no problem.

Note that this problem is ONLY present if you "Remember" the password. If you do not, it works fine. If you do, it vanishes every time you try and access that site, and you have to go and clear the password for the site from the password manager. Note that sites in the password manager that do not have a matching username have <> in the username field.

Tested this on 2 different Ubuntu 6.06 installations, so it doesn't appear to be this specific install.

Example site: http://lists.linux.org.au/admindb/test1

Results from: dpkg -s firefox

Package: firefox
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: web
Installed-Size: 22988
Maintainer: Eric Dorland <email address hidden>
Architecture: i386
Version: 1.5.dfsg+1.5.0.9-0ubuntu0.6.06
Replaces: mozilla-firefox (<< 1.5.dfsg+1.5.0.9-0ubuntu0.6.06)
Provides: www-browser, mozilla-firefox
Depends: fontconfig, psmisc, debianutils (>= 1.16), libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.9.0), libc6 (>= 2.3.4-1), libcairo2 (>= 1.0.2-2), libfontconfig1 (>= 2.3.0), libfreetype6 (>= 2.1.10-1), libgcc1 (>= 1:4.0.2), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.10.0), libgtk2.0-0 (>= 2.8.0), libidl0, libjpeg62, libpango1.0-0 (>= 1.12.2), libpng12-0 (>= 1.2.8rel), libstdc++6 (>= 4.0.2-4), libx11-6, libxcursor1 (>> 1.1.2), libxext6, libxfixes3, libxft2 (>> 2.1.1), libxi6, libxinerama1, libxrandr2, libxrender1, libxt6, zlib1g (>= 1:1.2.1), libnspr4 (>= 2:1.firefox1.5.dfsg+1.5.0.9-0ubuntu0.6.06), libnss3 (>= 2:1.firefox1.5.dfsg+1.5.0.9-0ubuntu0.6.06)
Suggests: firefox-gnome-support (= 1.5.dfsg+1.5.0.9-0ubuntu0.6.06), latex-xft-fonts, libthai0
Conflicts: mozilla-firefox (<< 1.5.dfsg+1.5.0.9-0ubuntu0.6.06)
Conffiles:
 /etc/firefox/profile/bookmarks.html 5a4fbaf732ce80b66b4f05fb5d6cf2a6
 /etc/firefox/profile/localstore.rdf ea03cc19c2a3f622fa557cd8ea9da6eb
 /etc/firefox/profile/search.rdf 939dcfba9fa92f86bcacb487df9dede1
 /etc/firefox/profile/mimeTypes.rdf 69cdcb7e0209f2e9d29000ee1c0ee2f0
 /etc/firefox/profile/chrome/userChrome-example.css 4788fdaa51b0a238cb21f5c2877ef06d
 /etc/firefox/profile/chrome/userContent-example.css d3765c7d2de5626529195007f4b7144a
 /etc/firefox/profile/prefs.js 99940ecd258d83b3355ab06fca0ffddb
 /etc/firefox/firefoxrc 8a85ef440bb82bd19fdea6c15d1b05b8
 /etc/firefox/pref/firefox.js fdab5286f88abaccc3a6fa04ab12ef13
 /etc/gre.d/firefox.conf 78294e50a5a3631c4ce025a226d7b422
 /etc/mozilla-firefox/profile/prefs.js 99940ecd258d83b3355ab06fca0ffddb obsolete /etc/mozilla-firefox/profile/extensions/Extensions.rdf 4e5887ce2461b9874016a170750c05e1 obsolete
 /etc/mozilla-firefox/profile/chrome/userContent-example.css d3765c7d2de5626529195007f4b7144a obsolete
 /etc/mozilla-firefox/profile/chrome/userChrome-example.css 4788fdaa51b0a238cb21f5c2877ef06d obsolete
 /etc/mozilla-firefox/profile/mimeTypes.rdf 69cdcb7e0209f2e9d29000ee1c0ee2f0 obsolete
 /etc/mozilla-firefox/profile/search.rdf 26d13f5d96ad118b5de5d234f9d052fa obsolete
 /etc/mozilla-firefox/profile/localstore.rdf ea03cc19c2a3f622fa557cd8ea9da6eb obsolete
 /etc/mozilla-firefox/profile/bookmarks.html 44e419e6fc9b2a2a954b73708d5223cc obsolete
 /etc/mozilla-firefox/pref/firefox.js 9b21e21aa3f8a0ab8f134ba04b8846ff obsolete
 /etc/mozilla-firefox/mozilla-firefoxrc fa562ca63014f5e9dd470a37766376d6 obsolete
Description: lightweight web browser based on Mozilla
 Firefox is a redesign of the Mozilla browser component, similar to
 Galeon, K-Meleon and Camino, but written using the XUL user interface
 language and designed to be lightweight and cross-platform.
 .
 This browser was previously known as Firebird and Phoenix.

Quite willing to try things (including manually installing developer built packages) to resolve this.

Question information

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Status:
Solved
For:
Ubuntu Edit question
Assignee:
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Solved by:
Stuart Young
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Last reply:
Revision history for this message
Stuart Young (cef) said : 		#1

Sorry, example site should be: http://lists.linux.org.au/admin/testl

That's a lower case L instead of a 1.

Revision history for this message
Wolf Canis (wolf-canis) said : 		#2

Hello Stuart,
I'm using Ubuntu 6.10 edgy and haven't that problem as you it described. I checked your example page. And told firefox to remember the password and as I go back again to the sample page firefox insert the password. No crash, all works fine. Below my firefox installation info:

Package: firefox
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: web
Installed-Size: 28580
Maintainer: Ubuntu Core Developers <email address hidden>
Architecture: i386
Version: 2.0.0.1+0dfsg-0ubuntu0.6.10
Replaces: mozilla-firefox
Provides: www-browser
Depends: fontconfig, psmisc, debianutils (>= 1.16), libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.12.1), libc6 (>= 2.4-1), libcairo2 (>= 1.2.4), libfontconfig1 (>= 2.3.0), libfreetype6 (>= 2.2), libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1-12), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.12.0), libgtk2.0-0 (>= 2.10.3), libjpeg62, libmyspell3c2, libpango1.0-0 (>= 1.14.5), libpng12-0 (>= 1.2.8rel), libstdc++6 (>= 4.1.1-12), libx11-6, libxft2 (>> 2.1.1), libxinerama1, libxrender1, libxt6, zlib1g (>= 1:1.2.1), libnspr4 (>= 2:1.firefox1.5.dfsg+1.5.0.5-0ubuntu6.06.1), libnss3 (>= 2:1.firefox1.5.dfsg+1.5.0.5-0ubuntu6.06.1)
Suggests: firefox-gnome-support (= 2.0.0.1+0dfsg-0ubuntu0.6.10), latex-xft-fonts, libthai0
Conflicts: mozilla-firefox (<< 1.5.dfsg-1)
Conffiles:
 /etc/firefox/profile/bookmarks.html 0d70c4b9319abf1cc118978df585864d
 /etc/firefox/profile/localstore.rdf ea03cc19c2a3f622fa557cd8ea9da6eb
 /etc/firefox/profile/search.rdf 939dcfba9fa92f86bcacb487df9dede1
 /etc/firefox/profile/mimeTypes.rdf 69cdcb7e0209f2e9d29000ee1c0ee2f0
 /etc/firefox/profile/chrome/userChrome-example.css 4788fdaa51b0a238cb21f5c2877ef06d
 /etc/firefox/profile/chrome/userContent-example.css d3765c7d2de5626529195007f4b7144a
 /etc/firefox/profile/prefs.js 99940ecd258d83b3355ab06fca0ffddb
 /etc/firefox/firefoxrc 8a85ef440bb82bd19fdea6c15d1b05b8
 /etc/firefox/pref/firefox.js fdab5286f88abaccc3a6fa04ab12ef13
 /etc/gre.d/firefox.conf 9b8235a5e3572b5649620bb686d21c6c
Description: lightweight web browser based on Mozilla
 Firefox is a redesign of the Mozilla browser component, similar to
 Galeon, K-Meleon and Camino, but written using the XUL user interface
 language and designed to be lightweight and cross-platform.
 .
 This browser was previously known as Firebird and Phoenix.
Original-Maintainer: Eric Dorland <email address hidden>

Perhaps the content of your .mozilla directory is damaged. To test this, save your current .mozilla directory and then delete .mozilla. You can do this in a terminal window with following command:

YourHostname:~$ mv .mozilla .mozilla.save

After that start firefox:

YourHostname:~$ firefox

Now test firefox with your sample page. If it now works your .mozilla directory is damaged.
If you do so as I suggested, please post your experience.

Thanks,
            Mr Canis

Revision history for this message
Stuart Young (cef) said : 		#3

Of note: In my original note I mentioned that I have tried this on 2 machines, one of which was a default (new) install.

Secondly, this applies to Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper) LTS. Since Firefox 2 is not available for Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, I'm not using it. In this case I do not believe that backports are an option.

Also, this problem has only surfaced recently (most likely introduced with a security update), but I could not tell you how long ago. I do know that I have used Firefox on Ubuntu 6.06 LTS with this site before without issues.

Finally, after using your suggested option, it still crashes. Running it from the command line, it reports "Segmentation fault" when it crashes.

Revision history for this message
Wolf Canis (wolf-canis) said : 		#4

Hello Stuart,
it seems that your request correspondents to the bug:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/77859

Perhaps you found that by your self. Anyway, it seems that this is a bigger problem.
Why you don't upgrade to edgy?

Mr Canis

Revision history for this message
Best Stuart Young (cef) said : 		#5

Appears indeed to be the same bug.

I've got a business requirement that currently doesn't allow me to use Edgy on these machines, hence why I'm using Dapper.

Since this is a duplicate of that bug, I'll mark this as Solved and go watch that bug instead.