Firefox always crashes at some websites

[KenJackson]

Firefox always crashes at certain websites, especially Weather.com and BlueMountain.com. Here is what gets logged to ~/.xsession-errors:

The program 'Gecko' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)'.
(Details: serial 115 error_code 8 request_code 148 minor_code 3)
(Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)
(QFA)Talkback error: Can't initialize.

I had been running v1.5.0.5, but I upgraded to v2.0. Same result.
I had been running Mandriva 2006, but I upgraded to 2007. Same result.
I also just upgraded to the latest flash plugin. Same result.

Am I the only one this is happening to?

[drl]

Hi, KenJackson.

About once a week I need to re-run Firefox (1.5.0.7) because it seems to get mixed up.

Currently, I'm usually running on Xandros (Debian-derived). I haven't pursued the problem because it's low on my priority list ... cheers, drl

[KenJackson]

I have narrowed this down to flash. When files flashplayer.xpt and libflashplayer.so are in the plugins directory Firefox crashes, and when they are removed it does not crash.

However, this has been true of three different builds or flash: the previous version 7 from over a year ago (now deleted), the version 7.0 r68 that I downloaded a week ago, and the version 7.0 r68 that came with Mandriva 2007. (The last two should be the same right? But they differ.)

Further, I have three Mandriva systems (one 2006, two 2007) and it only happens on one of the 2007 machines. All of them have Firefox 2.0 with flash v7.0r68.

Also, the error message I posted from .xsession-errors is apparently irrelevant, since I no longer get it.

Also, when I used adblock to block "http://*.atdmt.com/*", one of the sites stopped crashing but the others continued. So apparently multiple flash ads are causing the crash.

I'm thinking of looping through all my installed rpms, querying each one to see if any other package requires it and review the results. That may be good to do anyway, but it'll be quite an effort.

Can anyone suggest what to try uninstalling or reinstalling?

[KenJackson]

Never mind. I fixed it with some help from this thread and also a FreeDesktop post.

Here's the solution:

# File: ~/.mozilla/firefox/init.d/Sfixflash.sh
# From: http://jackson.io/linux/#flash_crash
#
# Apparently the flash plugin crashes Firefox if the "Composite" option
# is included in /etc/X11/xorg.conf. This seems to prevent the crash.

export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1