[SOLVED]: Problem when working with browsers

[Member Hector_A]

Hello everybody:
I’m using Linux distros since 2006 and was recently attracted to antiX. My first connection came in the form of a visit to a page titled Obmenu-Generator, how to get it running in any Linux. It provided a sure-fire method of installation and, at the same time got me interested in systemd-free systems.
After some testing with spectacular results in an old HP-Mini, I was self convinced to replace my Debian 10.7 with antiX 21 b1 with runit in my main laptop, a Dell XPS13 9350. This was Fungal_net recommendation. It was subsequently possible for me to customize the whole setup to my liking installing Openbox, Obmenu-Generator and my favorite panel lxpanel without requiring lxsession, lxpolkit and elogind. I had to keep dbus installed, otherwise alot of apps would be uninstalled.
However, I’m having a problem when I use Firefox or Vivaldi to surf the net. After a while, I get some flickering of the screen and eventually it goes blank. No keyboard, no mouse, no option to reboot. The only solution, so far, is forcing the shutdown with the on/off button. Can you help? It happens sporadically but is becoming quite annoying. Would the fact that AntiX is beta have anything to do?
Any directives provided will be much appreciated.
Cheers!

• This topic was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Brian Masinick. Reason: SOLVED

[Moderator BobC]

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That kind of problem sounds like driver, hardware, or resource related. I’d suggest seeing if the problem also exists on an unaltered system, and if it does, try on an unaltered stable 19.4 version. On each version, try it unaltered, and then install updates, shutdown, then boot up and then try again. Since it only seems to occur with browsers, it leads me to guess it might also be related to a lack of memory or CPU resources, or even heat related. You might also add light/stable browser or two to the list to see if any browser doesn’t have the problem.

The more you can confirm that the problem under a list of circumstances, but does not occur under another list of circumstances, the more info that will provide for people familiar with the programs to come up with probable causes. If you could, also be specific exactly what version of antiX you are referring to, and the same with the browsers.

[Member Xecure]

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Sharing the system information may help a bit in this troubleshooting.
inxi -Fxz

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member Hector_A]

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Hello BobC and Xecure:
Please find attached the output from inxi -Fxz that provides all the information of my system as required.
I have not yet tried a 19.4 stable full. But I did install three other 64 bit browsers and tested for flickering/blank screen in YouTube as follows:
Firefox 92.0.1 – No sound – Crashed
Vivaldi 4.1.2309.21 – Flickering – Crashed while writing this post
Chromium 90.0.4430.212 – Flickering
Pale Moon 29.3.0 – Crashed
Sea Monkey 2.53.9 – Crashed
I’ve noticed there is already antiX-21-b2-x64-full. Would you suggest giving it a try too?

[Member Hector_A]

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Trying again to upload the result of inxi -Fxz

[Member Hector_A]

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System:
Kernel: 5.10.27-antix.1-amd64-smp x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1
Desktop: Openbox 3.6.1
Distro: antiX-bullseye-b1-runit_x64-full Grup Yorum 10 June 2021
base: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: Dell product: XPS 13 9350 v: N/A serial: <filter>
Mobo: Dell model: 07TYC2 v: A00 serial: <filter> UEFI-[Legacy]: Dell
v: 1.7.0 date: 01/16/2018
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 22.9 Wh (46.8%) condition: 48.9/55.5 Wh (88.1%)
volts: 7.4 min: 7.6 model: SMP DELL JHXPY53 status: Discharging
Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Mouse charge: Normal
status: Discharging
CPU:
Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-6200U bits: 64 type: MT MCP
arch: Skylake rev: 3 cache: L2: 3 MiB
flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
bogomips: 19200
Speed: 2701 MHz min/max: 400/2800 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2701 2: 2761
3: 2795 4: 2741
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel Skylake GT2 [HD Graphics 520] vendor: Dell driver: i915
v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0
Device-2: Realtek Integrated_Webcam_HD type: USB driver: uvcvideo
bus-ID: 1-5:4
Display: server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: modesetting
unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1368×768~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 520 (SKL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.3.5
direct render: Yes
Audio:
Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Dell
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.10.27-antix.1-amd64-smp running: yes
Network:
Device-1: Broadcom BCM4350 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Dell
driver: brcmfmac v: kernel port: f040 bus-ID: 3a:00.0
IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
Device-1: Broadcom BCM2045A0 type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-3:3
Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: down bt-service: not found
rfk-block: hardware: no software: yes address: <filter>
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 238.47 GiB used: 12.62 GiB (5.3%)
ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: PM951 NVMe 256GB
size: 238.47 GiB temp: 24.9 C
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 90.17 GiB used: 7.06 GiB (7.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
ID-2: /home size: 135.04 GiB used: 5.56 GiB (4.1%) fs: ext4
dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 36.0 C mobo: 26.0 C sodimm: SODIMM C
Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0
Info:
Processes: 213 Uptime: 3m Memory: 7.41 GiB used: 1.6 GiB (21.6%)
Init: runit runlevel: 2 Compilers: gcc: 10.2.1 Packages: 1635 Shell: Bash
v: 5.1.4 inxi: 3.3.06

[Moderator BobC]

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Hector, Have you used any other antiX or other Linux versions that work without problems? If so, exactly which, and what kernel was it running?

[Member ModdIt]

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Hi all,
I still have occasional freezing of ICEWM using palemoon and Ungoogled Chromium which may possibly be related.

present kernel 4.9.0-279-antix.1-amd64-smp

Same on earlier update Patched kernel versions.

[Member Xecure]

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If you don’t mind, please try running this command to change the xorg video module from modesetting to intel

sudo make-xorg-conf -f intel -o /etc/X11/xorg.conf
and reboot. You can then test to see how it fairs with the browsers.

If at some point you want to return to using modesetting, or it doesn’t boot to a graphical interface, remove the file created by the command above
sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf
and reboot.

Let us know if it works to give a more permanent solution. If it doesn’t work, then revert to the previous configuration (as described) and we will try to figure it out using a different path.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member Hector_A]

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Hello all:
I followed Xecure suggestion and the flickering disappeared completely. Will keep on testing to see if the blank screen appears but, so far, all seems to be working OK. There are some remaining issues, as follows:

Firefox and now Sea Monkey both have lost sound completely.
I use .xprofile to set monitor with the following contents: xrandr –output eDP-1 –mode 1368×768. Unfortunately, this does not work from the Openbox autostart file now.
When I manually set the above resolution, I also have to manually execute .febg to restore the desktop background properly.

[Member Hector_A]

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@ BobC – Sorry I missed your request. In this same machine I previously used Debian 9 and Debian 10.7. I don’t remember the respective kernels but were those provided in their web page.

Forgive me if I insist on the following:

1) How can I restore sound in Firefox and Sea Monkey?

2) How can I make 1368 x 768 screen resolution persistent or else set with Openbox autostart? .xprofile stopped working after changing the xorg video module per Xecure’s suggestion.

[Moderator BobC]

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It sounds like the kernel might be ok. If you want to try adding another, try a recent 4.9.x kernel.

Are you sure the code in .xprofile is actually running? Maybe you could add an echo line that sends output to a file so you can see if it ran.

Try using arandr to generate a new screenlayout script, and try running that instead if its different than your xrandr line. You can try it from a terminal.

Sorry, antiX doesn’t come with Openbox, so I’m not really sure where to tell you to run the script from.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by BobC.

Attachments:

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   screenshot-2021Sep28_003228.jpg
   

[Member ModdIt]

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Firefox and now Sea Monkey both have lost sound completely.

There are a lot of posts mon that theme in the forum.

Ensure you are using correct sound device using control center tool, that alsamixer is not muted.

I use an .asound.conf file in in home, content as below but you may need to edit to fit your machine

#Substitute N with a small integer, 0 for your first sound card (which is the default),
#1 for your second, and so on.

pcm.!default {
type hw
card 0
}

ctl.!default {
type hw
card 0
}

I do not need to prefix my browser start commands with –apulse, you might have to
That is as antiX uses alsa not inferior sound producing pulse audio and majority of
browsers are compiled to use pulse not alsa.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by ModdIt.

[Member Hector_A]

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@BobC – My .screenlayout was void. I used arandr as you suggested and it worked fine. The contents of default.sh now are: #!/bin/sh
xrandr –output eDP1 –primary –mode 1368×768 –pos 0x0 –rotate normal –output DP1 –off –output DP2 –off –output HDMI1 –off –output HDMI2 –off –output VIRTUAL1 –off
I discarded .xprofile and had to edit my Openbox Autostart as follows:
lxpanel –profile OB &
insync &
~/TouchpadDis.sh &
( sleep 15 && ~/.fehbg ) &
The most important change was introducing a delay for .fehbg otherwise the image appeared outsized. The delay lets .screenlayout run properly and .fehbg now waits for it to finish before displaying the background at the correct size.

@Moddit – Sound Card Chooser finds only one card: HDA-Intel – HDA Intel PCH and it tests OK. Tried prefixing –apulse Firefox in my keybinding file and it makes no difference. Also tried a single hyphen before apulse (just in case). Same result.

[Member Hector_A]

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@Xecure @Moddit – Please note that sound was lost after changing the xorg video module. The loss affects only Firefox and Sea Monkey.

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