Hello

i Have just updated from ubuntu ver 20.04 to 22.04 and firefox does not
work. When i click on the FF symbol in favourites i get the rotating
arrows and "firefox web browser£ appers in Activities, but no window
opens. When i click on this heading i get a menu 'new window/open new
window/open new private window/ quit. When i click on any of the
'window' options the menu flashes continuously, but no window opens.
I then have to open a new menu to select quit.
What can i do to correct this?
Tom

On 9/18/22 10:09 AM, Tom Smith wrote:
> Hello
>
> i Have just updated from ubuntu ver 20.04 to 22.04 and firefox does not
> work. When i click on the FF symbol in favourites i get the rotating
> arrows and "firefox web browser£ appers in Activities, but no window
> opens. When i click on this heading i get a menu 'new window/open new
> window/open new private window/ quit. When i click on any of the
> 'window' options the menu flashes continuously, but no window opens.
> I then have to open a new menu to select quit.
> What can i do to correct this?
> Tom
After my recent upgrade, Firefox was under snap and running more slowly
and my ad ons stopped working. The first thing I came across searching
was to uninstall it from snap and reinstall it the way it was with prior
versions:
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-deb-apt-ubuntu-22-04
My ad ons started working again and Firefox was faster. Not sure if
this will help you, but thought I would share this.

On 9/18/2022 10:09 AM, Tom Smith wrote:
> Hello
>
> i Have just updated from ubuntu ver 20.04 to 22.04 and firefox does not work. When i click on the FF symbol in favourites i get the rotating arrows and "firefox web browser£ appers in Activities, but no window opens. When i click on this heading i get a menu 'new window/open new window/open new private window/ quit. When i click on any of the 'window' options the menu flashes continuously, but no window opens.
> I then have to open a new menu to select quit.
> What can i do to correct this?
> Tom

In a terminal window:

$ cat /etc/mtab | grep firefox # The snap mounts are in /etc/mtab

/dev/loop6 /snap/firefox/1810 squashfs ... # Snap modules are loopback mounted
# Snap contains everything Firefox needs
# But the file system access is "contained"
*******
$ snap list

Name Version Rev
firefox 104.0.2-1 1810

*******

$ which firefox

/snap/bin/firefox # snap presumably, is ahead of /usr/bin in the PATH variable.

*******

# Now, run it, check for error messages into the Terminal window

$ firefox

*******

Then tell us, what the firefox command returned, that is abnormal.

You can see in my example, there is a shedload of messages. VAAPI
would be on an Intel graphics system, whereas my card is NVidia.
The viaduct error is spit out, during the Firefox shutdown sequence.

bullwinkle@TUNAFISH:~$ firefox
update.go:85: cannot change mount namespace according to change mount (/var/lib/snapd/hostfs/usr/share/cups/doc-root /usr/share/cups/doc-root none bind,ro 0 0): cannot create directory "/usr/share/cups/doc-root": permission denied
update.go:85: cannot change mount namespace according to change mount (/var/lib/snapd/hostfs/usr/share/gimp/2.0/help /usr/share/gimp/2.0/help none bind,ro 0 0): cannot create directory "/usr/share/gimp/2.0": permission denied
update.go:85: cannot change mount namespace according to change mount (/var/lib/snapd/hostfs/usr/share/libreoffice/help /usr/share/libreoffice/help none bind,ro 0 0): cannot create directory "/usr/share/libreoffice/help": permission denied
update.go:85: cannot change mount namespace according to change mount (/var/lib/snapd/hostfs/usr/share/xubuntu-docs /usr/share/xubuntu-docs none bind,ro 0 0): cannot open directory "/var/lib": permission denied
Gtk-Message: 12:58:53.049: Failed to load module "xapp-gtk3-module"
Gtk-Message: 12:58:53.214: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
Gtk-Message: 12:58:53.231: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
[GFX1-]: glxtest: VA-API test failed: failed to initialise VAAPI connection.
ATTENTION: default value of option mesa_glthread overridden by environment.
ATTENTION: default value of option mesa_glthread overridden by environment.
Missing chrome or resource URL: resource://gre/modules/UpdateListener.sys.mjs
Missing chrome or resource URL: resource://gre/modules/UpdateListener.sys.mjs
[2022-09-18T16:59:50Z ERROR viaduct::backend::ffi] Missing HTTP status
[2022-09-18T16:59:50Z ERROR viaduct::backend::ffi] Missing HTTP status
bullwinkle@TUNAFISH:~$

That's a pretty normal looking output, indicating
nothing is wrong :-) The output would be a lot quieter
on a failure.

Paul

On 9/18/22 10:31 AM, wAYNE wrote:
> On 9/18/22 10:09 AM, Tom Smith wrote:
>> Hello
>>
>> i Have just updated from ubuntu ver 20.04 to 22.04 and firefox does
>> not work. When i click on the FF symbol in favourites i get the
>> rotating arrows and "firefox web browser£ appers in Activities, but no
>> window opens. When i click on this heading i get a menu 'new
>> window/open new window/open new private window/ quit. When i click on
>> any of the 'window' options the menu flashes continuously, but no
>> window opens.
>> I then have to open a new menu to select quit.
>> What can i do to correct this?
>> Tom
>
> After my recent upgrade, Firefox was under snap and running more slowly
> and my ad ons stopped working.  The first thing I came across searching
> was to uninstall it from snap and reinstall it the way it was with prior
> versions:
>
> https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-deb-apt-ubuntu-22-04
>
>
> My ad ons started working again and Firefox was faster.  Not sure if
> this will help you, but thought I would share this.
>
>

I had a similar issue to this but with VLC. When I installed from the
Ubuntu Software store, it seemed to install the snap version, which was
either an update or two behind the terminal install with sudo apt
install vlc, or just missing some codec extensions. Either way, the snap
store version wouldn't run anything and the terminal installation would.
Weird.

Tom Smith wrote:
> Hello
>
> i Have just updated from ubuntu ver 20.04 to 22.04 and firefox does not
> work. When i click on the FF symbol in favourites i get the rotating
> arrows and "firefox web browser£ appers in Activities, but no window
> opens. When i click on this heading i get a menu 'new window/open new
> window/open new private window/ quit. When i click on any of the
> 'window' options the menu flashes continuously, but no window opens.
> I then have to open a new menu to select quit.
> What can i do to correct this?
> Tom

Re: Firefox not working after upgrade

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2479058&p=14112458#post14112458

On 9/20/2022 2:50 AM, Andrei Z. wrote:
> Tom Smith wrote:
>> Hello
>>
>> i Have just updated from ubuntu ver 20.04 to 22.04 and firefox does not work. When i click on the FF symbol in favourites i get the rotating arrows and "firefox web browser£ appers in Activities, but no window opens. When i click on this heading i get a menu 'new window/open new window/open new private window/ quit. When i click on any of the 'window' options the menu flashes continuously, but no window opens.
>> I then have to open a new menu to select quit.
>> What can i do to correct this?
>> Tom
>
> Re: Firefox not working after upgrade
>
> https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2479058&p=14112458#post14112458

They claim here that Firefox is ready for Wayland.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/firefox

5.11 Wayland

More recent versions of Firefox support opting into Wayland mode
via an environment variable.

[from Terminal, as a test]

$ MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 firefox

To verify it worked, look for Window Protocol in about:support [typed into URL bar].
"wayland" [ means working directly under wayland at present ]
"xwayland" [ running legacy X11 by using xwayland compatibility part of wayland]
"x11" [ running X11 under X11 ]

... [ article has more advice on what to do next ]

Paul

Paul wrote:
>
> They claim here that Firefox is ready for Wayland.
>
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/firefox
>
e.g.
1782948 - [Wayland] Firefox UI freezes when we fail to show a popup
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Milestone: 105 Branch
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1782948

On 9/21/2022 12:33 AM, Andrei Z. wrote:
> Paul wrote:
>>
>> They claim here that Firefox is ready for Wayland.
>>
>> https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/firefox
>>
> e.g.
> 1782948 - [Wayland] Firefox UI freezes when we fail to show a popup
> Status: RESOLVED FIXED
> Milestone: 105 Branch
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1782948
>
>

The 105.0 is in the pipe. Snap will show up eventually.

http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/105.0/

I tried all three modes, and they worked for me. Ubuntu 2204. NVidia driver.
There were no reboots to capture the three modes. Firefox Snap 104.0.2 .

"wayland" [ means working directly under wayland at present ]
"xwayland" [ running legacy X11 by using xwayland compatibility part of wayland]
"x11" [ running X11 under X11 ]

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/MHgVxtC7/FF10402-three-modes.gif

And I have seen rendering failures before, where the GUI
on Firefox starts to render, and the menus don't work. Which
implies an "OpenGL and friends" issue on the particular setup
I witnessed that on. In the picture above, you can see "WebGL Extensions"
and also a list of OpenGL routines -- in the failure cases,
those were poorly populated and lots of stuff was missing, and
that's why Firefox jammed up with no menus. So I can
sympathize with the OP. Failures do happen. Maybe for
my pictures, just switching to Nouveau would be enough
to break it. The above picture was just to see if the modes
work, and they seem to. I didn't do some sort of full matrix test.

The reason I tend to use the NVidia driver, is Nouveau loses
contact with my particular video card. I have a 1080 and a 1050,
and Nouveau has no trouble with the 1050, but the 1080 problem
might be with the silicon. The NVidia driver uses its watchdog
timer, to recover the communications.

Paul

Paul wrote:
> On 9/21/2022 12:33 AM, Andrei Z. wrote:
>> Paul wrote:
>>>
>>> They claim here that Firefox is ready for Wayland.
>>>
>>> https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/firefox
>>>
>> e.g.
>> 1782948 - [Wayland] Firefox UI freezes when we fail to show a popup
>> Status: RESOLVED FIXED
>> Milestone: 105 Branch
>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1782948
>>
>>
>
> The 105.0 is in the pipe. Snap will show up eventually.
>
> http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/105.0/
>
> I tried all three modes, and they worked for me. Ubuntu 2204. NVidia
> driver.
> There were no reboots to capture the three modes. Firefox Snap 104.0.2 .
>
>       "wayland"   [ means working directly under wayland at present ]
>       "xwayland"  [ running legacy X11 by using xwayland compatibility
> part of wayland]
>       "x11"       [ running X11 under X11 ]
>
>       [Picture]
>
>       https://i.postimg.cc/MHgVxtC7/FF10402-three-modes.gif
>
> And I have seen rendering failures before, where the GUI
> on Firefox starts to render, and the menus don't work. Which
> implies an "OpenGL and friends" issue on the particular setup
> I witnessed that on. In the picture above, you can see "WebGL Extensions"
> and also a list of OpenGL routines -- in the failure cases,
> those were poorly populated and lots of stuff was missing, and
> that's why Firefox jammed up with no menus. So I can
> sympathize with the OP. Failures do happen. Maybe for
> my pictures, just switching to Nouveau would be enough
> to break it. The above picture was just to see if the modes
> work, and they seem to. I didn't do some sort of full matrix test.
>
> The reason I tend to use the NVidia driver, is Nouveau loses
> contact with my particular video card. I have a 1080 and a 1050,
> and Nouveau has no trouble with the 1050, but the 1080 problem
> might be with the silicon. The NVidia driver uses its watchdog
> timer, to recover the communications.
>
>    Paul
>
1783924 - Enable HW-WR on all Mesa drivers in release
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Milestone: 105 Branch
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1783924

"So lets finally draw a line from where on rendering regressions will be
driver issues and not our business."

On 9/19/22 7:08 PM, Zachary Fetters wrote:
> On 9/18/22 10:31 AM, wAYNE wrote:
>> On 9/18/22 10:09 AM, Tom Smith wrote:
>>> Hello
>>>
>>> i Have just updated from ubuntu ver 20.04 to 22.04 and firefox does
>>> not work. When i click on the FF symbol in favourites i get the
>>> rotating arrows and "firefox web browser£ appers in Activities, but
>>> no window opens. When i click on this heading i get a menu 'new
>>> window/open new window/open new private window/ quit. When i click on
>>> any of the 'window' options the menu flashes continuously, but no
>>> window opens.
>>> I then have to open a new menu to select quit.
>>> What can i do to correct this?
>>> Tom
>>
>> After my recent upgrade, Firefox was under snap and running more
>> slowly and my ad ons stopped working.  The first thing I came across
>> searching was to uninstall it from snap and reinstall it the way it
>> was with prior versions:
>>
>> https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-deb-apt-ubuntu-22-04
>>
>> My ad ons started working again and Firefox was faster.  Not sure if
>> this will help you, but thought I would share this.
>>
>>
>
> I had a similar issue to this but with VLC. When I installed from the
> Ubuntu Software store, it seemed to install the snap version, which was
> either an update or two behind the terminal install with sudo apt
> install vlc, or just missing some codec extensions. Either way, the snap
> store version wouldn't run anything and the terminal installation would.
> Weird.
I use VLC too, but the snap version. The first thing I did was download
and install the necessary codecs described in #2 here:
https://itsfoss.com/things-to-do-after-installing-ubuntu-22-04/
From there, certain videos still played blocky, so disabled hardware
accelerated decoding, also #2 here:
https://windowsreport.com/vlc-pixelated/
All good again with all videos, plays like it should.

On 9/21/2022 9:29 AM, wAYNE wrote:

>
> I use VLC too, but the snap version.  The first thing I did was download and install the necessary codecs described in #2 here:
>
> https://itsfoss.com/things-to-do-after-installing-ubuntu-22-04/
>
> From there, certain videos still played blocky, so disabled hardware accelerated decoding, also #2 here:
>
> https://windowsreport.com/vlc-pixelated/
>
> All good again with all videos, plays like it should.

When this happens, the need to "disabled hardware accelerated decoding" is
because you don't currently HAVE accelerated decoding. You are exchanging
one soggy decoding path in software, for another software path.

It's up to you, whether you run the FOSS driver for the video card
or run the hardware manufacturer driver. If your video card is modern
enough to run the manufacturer driver, then the hardware acceleration
provided is worthwhile. You can still "disabled hardware accelerated decoding"
if you want, even if you added a better driver for the video card.
You're still in control at that point.

The video card has multiple subsystems. A "proxy" for detecting whether the
video card has been "made useful" by your OS, is the application glxgears.
You run it in a Terminal, without elevation (no sudo needed). It's
a benchmark. Without the additional arguments, it is capped at 60FPS.

vblank_mode=0 glxgears

__GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK=0 glxgears

Removing the screen refresh synchronization, allows the hardware
acceleration to run (pretty much) as fast as possible. I believe
on powerful hardware, the interrupt limiter eventually cuts in
at around 20,000 FPS. A measure of 4,000 FPS is good for smelly
but still effective GPUs. If the OS uses a pure software path
for OpenGL support, then the speed might measure in the
hundreds of FPS (weak).

If you get a high number like that, chances are you have a good
driver. If there is good OpenGL support, then the video card
might just have a video decoder block as well.

inxi -G # graphics summary
inxi -F # only copy the relevant bits...

The detail as to what driver is running (nvidia or nouveau, some
ati/amd thing, an intel), should be shown in that output.

The video decoder situation is shown separately. Maybe QuickSync
support of movie playing, is shown in the VAAPI details. NVidia
and ATI/AMD have their own branded video decoders in hardware.
If video decoders are present, the CPU won't have much to do when
a video plays. The blocky stuff can disappear, because QuickSync
does all the work, and your CPU is not railed.

Firefox "about:support" can highlight some of these details too,
as Firefox plays videos and knows what the subsystem needed is.

And if you find yourself adding a *lot* of .deb files you find
underneath rocks, to try to fix things like this, chances are
you are doing it wrong. Just a warning. The reason old ways of
doing things get dropped, is because the software no longer uses
those or even touches them.

Application software that is ten to twenty years old, yes, it
depends on the old stuff. Anything under constant maintenance
(like Firefox), won't need the old ways. VLC is similarly kept
up to date. It can use ffmpeg materials or libav files, for
some of the video stuff. It does not need crusty old codec packs.

If you're using the Snap version of things, it is also more
likely that the Snap cannot even access some of these libraries
you have added. Snap is isolated. Snap applications can easily reach
your home directory, but not so easily reach /usr/bin or the like.

We are awash in a sea of change... with no life preserver in sight.

Paul

On 9/21/22 2:35 PM, Paul wrote:
> On 9/21/2022 9:29 AM, wAYNE wrote:
>
>>
>> I use VLC too, but the snap version.  The first thing I did was
>> download and install the necessary codecs described in #2 here:
>>
>> https://itsfoss.com/things-to-do-after-installing-ubuntu-22-04/
>>
>>  From there, certain videos still played blocky, so disabled hardware
>> accelerated decoding, also #2 here:
>>
>> https://windowsreport.com/vlc-pixelated/
>>
>> All good again with all videos, plays like it should.
>
> When this happens, the need to "disabled hardware accelerated decoding" is
> because you don't currently HAVE accelerated decoding. You are exchanging
> one soggy decoding path in software, for another software path.
>
> It's up to you, whether you run the FOSS driver for the video card
> or run the hardware manufacturer driver. If your video card is modern
> enough to run the manufacturer driver, then the hardware acceleration
> provided is worthwhile. You can still "disabled hardware accelerated
> decoding"
> if you want, even if you added a better driver for the video card.
> You're still in control at that point.
>
> The video card has multiple subsystems. A "proxy" for detecting whether the
> video card has been "made useful" by your OS, is the application glxgears.
> You run it in a Terminal, without elevation (no sudo needed). It's
> a benchmark. Without the additional arguments, it is capped at 60FPS.
>
>         vblank_mode=0 glxgears
>
> __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK=0 glxgears
>
> Removing the screen refresh synchronization, allows the hardware
> acceleration to run (pretty much) as fast as possible. I believe
> on powerful hardware, the interrupt limiter eventually cuts in
> at around 20,000 FPS. A measure of 4,000 FPS is good for smelly
> but still effective GPUs. If the OS uses a pure software path
> for OpenGL support, then the speed might measure in the
> hundreds of FPS (weak).
>
> If you get a high number like that, chances are you have a good
> driver. If there is good OpenGL support, then the video card
> might just have a video decoder block as well.
>
>    inxi -G     # graphics summary
>    inxi -F     # only copy the relevant bits...
>
> The detail as to what driver is running (nvidia or nouveau, some
> ati/amd thing, an intel), should be shown in that output.
>
> The video decoder situation is shown separately. Maybe QuickSync
> support of movie playing, is shown in the VAAPI details. NVidia
> and ATI/AMD have their own branded video decoders in hardware.
> If video decoders are present, the CPU won't have much to do when
> a video plays. The blocky stuff can disappear, because QuickSync
> does all the work, and your CPU is not railed.
>
> Firefox "about:support" can highlight some of these details too,
> as Firefox plays videos and knows what the subsystem needed is.
>
> And if you find yourself adding a *lot* of .deb files you find
> underneath rocks, to try to fix things like this, chances are
> you are doing it wrong. Just a warning. The reason old ways of
> doing things get dropped, is because the software no longer uses
> those or even touches them.
>
> Application software that is ten to twenty years old, yes, it
> depends on the old stuff. Anything under constant maintenance
> (like Firefox), won't need the old ways. VLC is similarly kept
> up to date. It can use ffmpeg materials or libav files, for
> some of the video stuff. It does not need crusty old codec packs.
>
> If you're using the Snap version of things, it is also more
> likely that the Snap cannot even access some of these libraries
> you have added. Snap is isolated. Snap applications can easily reach
> your home directory, but not so easily reach /usr/bin or the like.
>
> We are awash in a sea of change... with no life preserver in sight.
>
>    Paul
>
>
Thanks for the info. Well, it's whatever card is used in the Dell
Inspiron 1545 laptop. Yes, it's an old laptop, but I gave it somewhat
new life a few years back when I changed out the hard drive for SSD and
upgraded the memory. The desktop does have a video card I purchased
later and installed, but it is not an expensive one. In fact, if I try
using too much in the way of graphics, both Win and Ubuntu either freeze
or the screen goes black on Win. This doesn't happen often and I've
learned to live with it over the years. Yes, I tried the correct
drivers in Win too and it never solved it. The desktop is also an old
Dell XPS420.
Since I don't like having to hold the power button to shut down whenever
the PC freezes or goes black, I found that I could still reach the
command window and log out and reboot while in Ubuntu, a route which I'd
rather do. In Win, no such luck, so if the black screen persists, I
usually have to hold the power button to shut down.
With limited funds, I can't easily shell out for new PCs and learned to
work and live with what I have. The freezing/ black screen issues have
been going on for over 5 years anyway. While in Win, I've learned to
anticipate when I'm pushing things to hard and will close and restart
whatever software I'm using at the time. I believe this helps clear
video memory and I then won't often get the black screen.

On 9/22/2022 10:10 AM, wAYNE wrote:

>
> Thanks for the info.  Well, it's whatever card is used in the Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop.  Yes, it's an old laptop, but I gave it somewhat new life a few years back when I changed out the hard drive for SSD and upgraded the memory.  The desktop does have a video card I purchased later and installed, but it is not an expensive one.  In fact, if I try using too much in the way of graphics, both Win and Ubuntu either freeze or the screen goes black on Win.  This doesn't happen often and I've learned to live with it over the years.  Yes, I tried the correct drivers in Win too and it never solved it.  The desktop is also an old Dell XPS420.
>
> Since I don't like having to hold the power button to shut down whenever the PC freezes or goes black, I found that I could still reach the command window and log out and reboot while in Ubuntu, a route which I'd rather do.  In Win, no such luck, so if the black screen persists, I usually have to hold the power button to shut down.
>
> With limited funds, I can't easily shell out for new PCs and learned to work and live with what I have.  The freezing/ black screen issues have been going on for over 5 years anyway.  While in Win, I've learned to anticipate when I'm pushing things to hard and will close and restart whatever software I'm using at the time.  I believe this helps clear video memory and I then won't often get the black screen.

One site says:

Memory: DDR2-800, 2 slots
Graphics: Intel GMA X4500HD, or ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330, 256 MB GDDR3

The Intel option, uses shared system memory.

The Radeon, when described that way, has four silicon dies strapped to
the top of the GPU.

I would not know where to begin, to set up such a machine properly.

You need to know some details, to know you've done the best job
possible for the thing.

Sure, the OS has some automation for modprobing and adding
a driver. But when there are two GPUs, chances are the user
could do a better job of setup, than the OS.

*******

The RV710 (HD 4330) has an MP4 decoder in hardware. UVD 2.2,
full bitstream for MP4. The MPEG2 support is IDCT only (useless).
Developers in the year 2022, have abandoned using IDCT (inverse
discrete cosine transform).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Video_Decoder

That means, there is a potential some MP4 video content in
Firefox, could be accelerated by the ATI Mobility GPU.

For the Intel GPU, I can find this:

"A new feature of the GMA chip, are the integrated HD video-decoding
functions. The GM45 is able to decode HD-videos in the formats
AVC, VC-2, and MPEG-2 to help the CPU."

But it doesn't say whether that's full-bitstream decoding, or
only partial decoding. The MPEG-2 would help with a Hollywood DVD
perhaps. These things depend on the "profile" supported, matching
what Hollywood uses.

Paul