Firefox and Chromium Won't Start in Ubuntu 22.04 with Nouveau Driver

Question

I just did a clean install of Ubuntu 22.04 on two machines with Nvidia video cards.

With the default nouveau video driver, neither Firefox or Chromium (both snaps) will start.

Firefox gives the following error when started from Terminal:

ATTENTION: default value of option mesa_glthread overridden by environment.

(firefox:2324): Gdk-WARNING **: 13:50:57.016: The program 'firefox' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadAlloc'.
  (Details: serial 509 error_code 11 request_code 146 (unknown) minor_code 7)
  (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
   that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
   To debug your program, run it with the GDK_SYNCHRONIZE environment
   variable to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
   backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)
Exiting due to channel error.

and Chromium shows the following:

[2804:2804:0421/135208.578463:ERROR:sandbox_linux.cc(377)] InitializeSandbox() called with multiple threads in process gpu-process.
[2804:2804:0421/135208.603047:ERROR:gbm_wrapper.cc(275)] Failed to export buffer to dma_buf: No such file or directory (2)
... repeats

Both Firefox and Chromium work fine if I switch to the Nvidia 390 proprietary driver.

I got the same error with Firefox using the Live USB.

I would report these as a bug, but I'm not sure where to do so; bugzilla.mozilla.org or somewhere for Ubuntu? And Chromium?

You may have better luck using Xorg instead of Wayland: https://askubuntu.com/a/1403670/558158 — vanadium, Apr 22 '22 at 06:48
@vanadium, if I select Xorg, then Firefox works with nouveau, so you're right. Does that mean the package with the bug is actually Wayland? — linux4me, Apr 22 '22 at 14:58
Thanks @vanadium. I'll take a look at the bug reports for it, and see if adding one would help. — linux4me, Apr 22 '22 at 20:16
A friend of mine is getting this error with an NVidia 1060 3GB on freshly installed Ubuntu 22.04. Switching to Xorg fixes it. — pizzapants184, Apr 23 '22 at 20:57

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 27 '22 at 20:38

2

I have resolved this without changing to Xorg.

If you can start Firefox in safe-mode then disabling hardware acceleration may work for you as it has for me.

$firefox -safe-mode

answered Apr 27 '22 at 20:38

meolic

133
7

1

Nice catch! I wish my only issue was with Firefox. I'm stuck with Xorg because I use Chromium and some other snaps that are also affected. I've also got the [XDG Desktop issue](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/1985), which using Xorg fixes. – linux4me Apr 28 '22 at 15:37
Solution got from internet. Well, my problem is that by using nvidia proprietary driver my monitor is not recognized. Stucked with nouveau and without hardware acceleration for photo manipulation software and games. – meolic Apr 29 '22 at 05:26

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 11 '22 at 14:13

0

Step1 : Log out and then go to login screen.
Step2 : type username enter.
Step3 : press the gear button and select "Ubuntu on Xorg".

Try now , it will work

answered Sep 11 '22 at 14:13

Ritu Gupta

101

Firefox and Chromium Won't Start in Ubuntu 22.04 with Nouveau Driver

2 Answers2