[sclug] OS crash whne using flash on full screen mode

[Alex Butcher]

On Mon, 12 Jul 2010, Olivier Lauret wrote:

> Hi Guys,
>
> Thank you all for answering to this email. To answer to the questions:
>
>   * Screen saver should start after 1 hour and 45 min, so I don't think it
> could be related to this, but I turn it off and will see if this problem
> happens again.
>   * The problem seems more specific as it doesn't crash every time I look
> at a flash video in Full screen (it did for the world cup final :) )
>   * No error message in /var/log/messages or /var/log/Xorg.0.log* (actually
> no message at all around the time of the crash)
>   * All Ubuntu updapes should be installed. Couldn't find a similar issue
> in  <https://bugs.launchpad.net/>, but true, I haven't looked at all 3000+
> issue regarding flash

That'll probably be because it's probably not a Flash-specific problem. 
Flash is just a bit of user-mode code, and shouldn't be able to do anything
to the kernel or the hardware that could cause a crash.  If a crash does
result from something Flash does, it's because it's asked a driver or the
kernel to do something, and they've accepted it when they should know that
the hardware isn't capable, or they've done it wrong.

>   * Video Chipset: "Intel Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics
> Controller". I'm still pretty new with Linux, I don't know how to find out
> which driver I'm using.

grep Loading /var/log/Xorg.0.log

is probably quite a good way, as it'll show you all the modules that Xorg is
loading during startup. My guess is that you'll have an 'intel_drv.so' line
amongst there. Use your OS package management tool to determine the version
of xserver-xorg-drv-intel, which owns that module file.

Searching things like:
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-intel/?field.searchtext=flash&orderby=-importance&search=Search&field.status%3Alist=NEW&field.status%3Alist=INCOMPLETE_WITH_RESPONSE&field.status%3Alist=INCOMPLETE_WITHOUT_RESPONSE&field.status%3Alist=CONFIRMED&field.status%3Alist=TRIAGED&field.status%3Alist=INPROGRESS&field.status%3Alist=FIXCOMMITTED&field.assignee=&field.bug_reporter=&field.omit_dupes=on&field.has_patch=&field.has_no_package=>
<http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Intel+Mobile+GM965%2FGL960+Integrated+Graphics+Controller%22+xv+crash&aq=f&aqi=m1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=>
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-intel/?field.searchtext=xv&orderby=-importance&search=Search&field.status%3Alist=NEW&field.status%3Alist=INCOMPLETE_WITH_RESPONSE&field.status%3Alist=INCOMPLETE_WITHOUT_RESPONSE&field.status%3Alist=CONFIRMED&field.status%3Alist=TRIAGED&field.status%3Alist=INPROGRESS&field.status%3Alist=FIXCOMMITTED&field.assignee=&field.bug_reporter=&field.omit_dupes=on&field.has_patch=&field.has_no_package=>

suggests that others are reporting similar problems.

Xv (aka XVideo) is an X extension for efficient colourspace conversion and
scaling video using the GPU hardware.  Flash will use this for video
playback.  Other apps (e.g.  mplayer, xine, vlc) will use Xv too, if you
tell them to, and may or may not cause similar crashes depending on whether
what specifically they try to do.  I'd encourage testing with these apps
too, which will probably confirm (i.e.  by resulting in similar crashes
under at least some circumstances) that your problem is a more general
Xv/Intel driver issue, rather than a problem with Flash specifically.

> Regards,
> Olivier

Best Regards,
Alex


>
> 2010/7/8 David Given <dg at cowlark.com>
>
>> On 2010-07-08 09:06, Olivier Lauret wrote:
>> [...]
>>
>>  When I'm watching a flash video on full screen mode (happens for many
>>> sites), the computer is crashing (simply stop as if you press the power
>>> button) about 15 minutes after the start of the video.
>>>
>>
>> A total shot in the dark here, but... does it still happen if you turn your
>> screen saver off?
>>
>> --
>> ???? ?????????????? ????? http://www.cowlark.com ?????
>> ?
>> ? life?{ ?1 ??.^3 4=+/,?1 0 1?.??1 0 1?.??? }
>> ? --- Conway's Game Of Life, in one line of APL
>>
>