Firefox 102ESR Crashes in Kali VM when moving mouse over images, links, etc
Greetings:
First experienced: Friday, Sept 2, when using burpsuite/foxyproxy during a hackerone CTF.
When using other Vbox instances on the same computer I have the same issue. This issue is usually easy to duplicate when using dev-tools or by simply doing an image search and moving the mouse across the images.
Host: Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS 5.15.0-47-generic #51-Ubuntu SMP Two different VGA controllers are present: Intel CometLake-S GT2 AMD/ATI Ellesmere Radeon RX
VirtualBox: 6.1.34_Ubuntu r150636 (Qt5.15.3) VirtualBox VGA: VMware SVGA II Adapter
Guest: Kali 2022.3 rolling 5.18.0-kali5-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 5.18.5-1kali6
Crashes have seem to involve input from the mouse and scroll function within the browser. Once, let us call it a glitch, the crash can either take place while continually moving the mouse around the browser's page or immediately outside the page with the mouse. The "glitch" is a coloration, usually pink or lime-green with characters printed to screen and then disappears. I have been unable to predict when the glitch will happen, thus no screenshot to help.
Steps I have taken:
Googled on the problem which led me to learn about the Firefox about:crashes function.
Viewed about:crashes -- seems to be a Renderer issue linked to llvmpipe or Mesa?
Checked basic system logs for host and guest for anything evident: syslog, kern, Xorg, messages, dmesg, daemon, journalctl.
Used Firefox troubleshooting and extended troubleshooting.
Installed Firefox 104 with same issue.
Reinstalled VirtualBox.
Search on Firefox Renderer issue [from crash report]
I turned off performance settings, still have same crash issue.
Last Report ID that did not fail to upload: bp-740acc47-0ed4-44a8-851c-ff21b0220905
Ultimately, I am unsure if this is a Firefox, VirtualBox, or Kali Linux issue, but Firefox is the one that this issue is having a severe impact on. My head is spinning at this moment due to all the logs and information I have digested over the weekend.
I appreciate any efforts in helping me decipher what is going on!
Respectfully,
Steve
Chosen solution
Final, albeit not elegant, solution: This was not a Firefox issue, but "something" in the Ubuntu 5.15.0-47-generic kernel. Downgrading the kernel to 5.15.0-46-generic #49-Ubuntu seems to prevent Firefox from crashing. I do not know specifically the cause.
After downgrading the host kernel, one may need to execute the command below in the host to re-install the downgraded headers to Vbox.
sudo apt install --reinstall linux-headers-$(uname -r) virtualbox-dkms dkms
**Please inspect the command above before using it to reinstall the headers for your particular linux distro.**
Be sure to boot to the host's downgraded kernel until a fix can be completed to prevent crashes in VBox guests. Use a search engine to scout how to do this if you are unsure.
Regards,
Steve
Updated to give a final resolve without rolling back the kernel: I Googled on the specific VB version and coupled it to the Ubuntu version above which directed me to a post that specified this particular issue. VirtualBox is claimed as the culprit for this issue. The solution is to uninstall VirtualBox 6.1.34 completely and install VirtualBox 6.1.38.
Thanks to the users over at Ask Ubuntu for the solution!! Below is the link to the forum post.
Ask Ubuntu Forum Is there a kernel bug causing VB to misbehave external link
Read this answer in context 👍 0All Replies (2)
Update Sept 6, 2022:
Started firefox from CLI and immediately received these two lines:
Missing chrome or resource URL: resource://gre/modules/UpdateListener.jsm Missing chrome or resource URL: resource://gre/modules/UpdateListener.sys.mjs
- I found a search result for the snap version in regards to service xdg-desktop-portal although that service seems to be running fine on the VM instance. <strike_this> I will devote some time to searching on these listeners.</strike_this> # As of 9/6/22, the missing chrome or resource URL blurb at the CLI is normal behavior.
After Firefox crashes:
ExceptionHandler::GenerateDump cloned child ExceptionHandler::WaitForContinueSignal waiting for continue signal... 4271 ExceptionHandler::SendContinueSignalToChild sent continue signal to child Exiting due to channel error. Exiting due to channel error. Exiting due to channel error. Exiting due to channel error. Exiting due to channel error.
- I will also do research on what Firefox means by "channel error."
Modified by Swolb
Chosen Solution
Final, albeit not elegant, solution: This was not a Firefox issue, but "something" in the Ubuntu 5.15.0-47-generic kernel. Downgrading the kernel to 5.15.0-46-generic #49-Ubuntu seems to prevent Firefox from crashing. I do not know specifically the cause.
After downgrading the host kernel, one may need to execute the command below in the host to re-install the downgraded headers to Vbox.
sudo apt install --reinstall linux-headers-$(uname -r) virtualbox-dkms dkms
**Please inspect the command above before using it to reinstall the headers for your particular linux distro.**
Be sure to boot to the host's downgraded kernel until a fix can be completed to prevent crashes in VBox guests. Use a search engine to scout how to do this if you are unsure.
Regards,
Steve
Updated to give a final resolve without rolling back the kernel: I Googled on the specific VB version and coupled it to the Ubuntu version above which directed me to a post that specified this particular issue. VirtualBox is claimed as the culprit for this issue. The solution is to uninstall VirtualBox 6.1.34 completely and install VirtualBox 6.1.38.
Thanks to the users over at Ask Ubuntu for the solution!! Below is the link to the forum post.
Ask Ubuntu Forum Is there a kernel bug causing VB to misbehave external link
Modified by Swolb