[Bug 120781] Firefox hangs on websites when using gecko-mediaplayer plug in/gnome-mediaplayer/mplayer

[tcv]

Public bug reported:

Binary package hint: firefox

I apologize. This will be a little long.

A couple of weeks back, I compiled and installed the gecko-mediaplyer
plugin for firefox along with the gnome-mplayer, which is a GUI for
mplayer. The combination allows videos to play nicely within Firefox.

When I intially got it installed I noticed that it didn't work
sometimes. I quickly found that if I launched Firefox from within the
Gnome desktop (GDM), and attempted to access a page with media on it
like the following website
(http://www.apple.com/trailers/newline/rushhour3/), Firefox would
attempt to load the media links on that page but eventually hang with
the CPU usage in firefox-bin reaching 80% or more. If I launched firefox
from the terminal, however, the page would load fine 100% of the time.

I talked to a lot of people about the problem. Most asked me to check
whether the launcher in GDM was loading Firefox the same way as I was in
the terminal as the same uesr. It was exactly the same. However, it
failed 100% of the time when launched from gdm, and working 100% of the
time when I launched from terminal.

I begged the people on the gecko-mediaplayer/gnome-mplayer dev list for
assistance. We initially tried new compiles from CVS. No difference.

We then tried a LiveCD install of Ubuntu. No difference.

I tried a Fedora Core 7 LiveCD. That worked fine.

The primarily developer on the list was able to reproduce it when I gave
him the steps from the LiveCD and another user on the list tried the
same setup with his Feisty install and got the same results.

His comment to the list was:

"Well I did some poking around in the code and for some reason when
running from the menu some of gnome-mplayer instances are getting killed
off and then the plugin hangs waiting to talk to them. The question is
however, why do they only get killed off when running from the menu and
not from the command line."

In later testing, I disabled gdm from starting at bootup. I found that
if I start Gnome via 'startx' rather than 'gdm start', then launching
Firefox via the icons is fine.

====

Steps to Reproduce:

(You can do this from the LiveCD or a full install of Feisty.)

1. Boot up the LIveCD.

2. Install mplayer and gnome-mplayer from the repositories.

3. Download gecko-mediaplayer from: *
http://dekorte.homeip.net/download/gecko-mediaplayer/

(* This is tough. I THINK you can use the binaries. I compiled from
source which requires a lot of development libs and firefox-dev. Is
there a way to send my binaries?)

4. Remove the Totem plug-in from Firefox and move (or sym link) the
gecko-mediaplayer plugins into /usr/lib/firefox/plugins (the compile
puts them in /usr/local/lib/mozilla/plugins/)

5. Launch firefox and navigate to
http://www.apple.com/trailers/newline/rushhour3/ - Firefox should hang
while attempting to load three distinct media on the page, covered by
the 480p, 720p, and 1080p logos.

Please contact me for any clarification.

** Affects: firefox (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: Unconfirmed

-- 
Firefox hangs on websites when using gecko-mediaplayer plug in/gnome-mediaplayer/mplayer
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/120781
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