Firefox hangs in Ubuntu 20.04 but runs just fine if I open it through ssh first

I have two computers. Let me call them Local and Remote. Both have Ubuntu Mate 20.04 installed. All software on both computers is updated.

Here is a step by step explanation of the problem.

1. I open Firefox on Local, and it runs fine.
2. I close Firefox and open it again, and it hangs for a week. It shows up on the task bar and the title bar shows on top of the screen, and that's it.
3. I kill Firefox on Local and open Firefox on Local through ssh from Remote, and it runs fine. A bit sluggish in the beginning, but after some 60 seconds it's normal.
4. I close Firefox on Remote.
5. Repeat all from step 1.

Why does Firefox hang every time unless I open and close it through ssh first? How do I solve this? I have this problem on the one computer only.

Edit 2022-01-22 13:31 I tried to open firefox from the terminal just now and got this:

bjorn@bjorn-stua-um:~$ ATTENTION: default value of option mesa_glthread overridden by environment. ATTENTION: default value of option mesa_glthread overridden by environment. ATTENTION: default value of option mesa_glthread overridden by environment. ATTENTION: default value of option mesa_glthread overridden by environment.

There were 3 tabs open, so there is one error message for each tab, I assume. I don't know if this is of any help.

Edit 2022-01-26 22:30:

I have already tried to

• clear the cache
• delete ~/.mozilla
• sudo dpkg-reconfigure -f firefox
• sudo apt install --reinstall firefox
• purge firefox with

sudo apt purge firefox* sudo apt autoremove sudo apt clean sudo apt install firefox

• replacing ~/.mozilla with a working directory from another computer That helped a bit. That's when Firefox started to work locally if I run it through ssh first with

ssh -X bjorn@bjorn-stua-um firefox &

The output of sudo dpkg-reconfigure -f firefox gave me this:

bjorn@bjorn-stua-um:~$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure -f firefox [sudo] passord for bjorn: debconf: ikke i stand til å starte opp grensesnittet: Firefox debconf: (Can't locate Debconf/FrontEnd/Firefox.pm in @INC (you may need to install the Debconf::FrontEnd::Firefox module) (@INC contains: /etc/perl /usr/local/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.30.0 /usr/local/share/perl/5.30.0 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl5/5.30 /usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.30 /usr/share/perl/5.30 /usr/local/lib/site_perl /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base) at (eval 18) line 2.) debconf: går tilbake til grensesnittet: Noninteractive /usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure: oppgi en pakke som skal settes opp på nytt bjorn@bjorn-stua-um:~$

I don't know if that provides any useful hints or not.

1 Answer

Ok, I never found a real solution to the problem, but I decided to install a new graphics card because I wanted HDMI out. So, I did, and just like that Firefox began to behave normally again. The weird thing is that everything else worked flawlessly. Only Firefox was out of line. I consider my problem as solved, but not the issue itself. So, case closed.