PC freezes,screen greys out, and CPU ramps up

[oxf]

All this is happening when running Firefox 3.6 with Lucid. As far as I can tell it's not happening if I dont have FF open.

I'll be browising around and the suddenly the screen greys out, fan kicks in and CPU usage goes way up and everything, mouse/keyboard etc until color returns to the display. Certain websites set this off it seems and once it starts it usually continues and often the only remedy is a reboot.

Occasionally I get the error msg "a script is causing FF to run slowly" But often I dont get the msg. Also TOP seems to indicate Plugin Container is using 50-95% of CPU sometimes but again other times Plugin is not hogging the CPU.

I'm suspecting this might be an Adobe Flash issue? or something to do with Plugin container but not sure. Any ideas on how to diagnose and resolve this?

Thanks...

[devils casper]

I'm suspecting this might be an Adobe Flash issue? or something to do with Plugin container but not sure. Any ideas on how to diagnose and resolve this?

Rename ~/.mozilla folder. Firefox will generate new config ( new .mozilla ) on next run. New config won't have any plug-in except Plugin Container which integral part of Firefox.

Check if PC freezes again.

[oxf]

Rename ~/.mozilla folder. Firefox will generate new config ( new .mozilla ) on next run. New config won't have any plug-in except Plugin Container which integral part of Firefox.

Check if PC freezes again.

Thanks for reply!

Uhm... I cant see /.mozilla folder. I do have /usr/share/mozilla Is that what you mean?

But before I try that an update: After posting my original question once again it froze up. Couldn't do anything. Tried to open terminal but could only get it to load an empty terminal window. Complete freeze and even my desktop icons/panel dissapared.

No choice but to kill the power.

Then it wouldn't boot including in Recovery Mode. After Grub got a string of error msgs along lines of: "mounting /dev on root /dev failed
also same for /sys and /proc
init errors:
"Target file system doesn't have /sbin/init" etc etc etc.....

Then booted from live CD and ran fsck. This revealed lots, and I mean LOTS, of inode errors/dissasociations and block errors. Hit "Y" to fix them all .

Somewhere in all this there was an error linked to macromedia and a URL. It offered to delete it which I did.

Ran fsck again, all OK and then rebooted without problem. I'm using the PC right now. I don't know what started this and why???? Do you think I still need to delete the .mozilla folder ?

[oz]

Uhm... I cant see /.mozilla folder.

It should be a hidden folder within the /home folder:

ls -a

That should show all hidden folders and files in the /home folder if you run it from within /home, or you can see it from within a file manager if you enable the showing of hidden folders/files.

[oxf]

It should be a hidden folder within the /home folder:

ls -a

That should show all hidden folders and files in the /home folder if you run it from within /home, or you can see it from within a file manager if you enable the showing of hidden folders/files.

OK thanks, now I've found it. it's within my user act folder "xxxx"
i.e. /home/xxxx/.mozilla/ ........ etc etc

AS of right now since the fsck I descibed it's running fine. So maybe best to watch it for a day or two?
But if need be I just delete the .mozilla folder and all subfolders from within "xxxx" right?

[oz]

But if need be I just delete the .mozilla folder and all subfolders from within "xxxx" right?

Be sure Firefox is closed when you delete the .mozilla folder, then that folder, the sub folders, and all config files should rebuild themselves with the default values the next time Firefox starts.

[oxf]

Be sure Firefox is closed when you delete the .mozilla folder, then that folder, the sub folders, and all config files should rebuild themselves with the default values the next time Firefox starts.

OK thats great..Thanks!

[devils casper]

If you delete .mozilla folder, all of your Bookmarks, Plug-ins, saved passwords and other settings will be removed too. Its better to rename .mozilla folder instead of deleting it.
Or
Backup bookmarks and saved passwords, if any before deleting folder.

[oz]

Backup bookmarks and saved passwords, if any before deleting folder.

Yep, that's the way I do it, as it's always wise to keep backups on hand of bookmarks, ad-blocking rules, etc. In fact, it's even better to have multiple backups of all important data.

[oxf]

OK... well I'm not having a good day here!

I deleted (after backup) the .mozilla folder and didn't really help at all. Shortly after the cpu/greying out problem started up again.

I noticed that besides Plugin Container, Firefox Bin was way up there too. At one point 99% of cpu usage. I did a bit of googling around on this and found that many people report a FF Bin issue. As soon as I get a chance I'll read more on that.

BUT I'm getting a more sinister problem. Twice now in the last 12 hours I had the problem and it was so bad it froze most of my controls. I did still have touch pad/cursor and tried to shut down..it wouldn't respond. Tried to do it via terminal but terminal was just an empty white box. Then I lost all icons and toolbar and just desktop background remained.

Somehow trying various key combinations I got to a blank login screen (progress I thought) But nooo..
When I tried to login I get this error:
"end request: I/O error. dev sda, sector 4345808"
twice in fact. This doesn't sound good to me, do I have a hardware problem??
No option but had hit the power button

Anyway if any of you guys have any thoughts, even if not an answer, I'd like to hear them. I wondering if a clean install might be in order?
That said since I've rebooted it's fine again but this place the only website I've dared to visit!