Whole PC crashes with 1 simple website

Please post any bugs you have found
Post Reply
Message
Author
PuppyNewbie2014
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon 10 Feb 2014, 07:36

Whole PC crashes with 1 simple website

#1 Post by PuppyNewbie2014 »

Hello,

this website

http://www.campustimes.org/2014/02/06/s ... rce-rates/

results after approx. 20 seconds or so in a screen which is filled with 2 or 3 colours, I think white and red mostly. Then the whole system crashes and doesn't respond anymore, not even to CTRL-Alt-Del. Reset button necessary.

But only on my desktop PC, not on my laptop.

I scanned the website with virustotal.com, didnt find any viruses.

Funny is also that after restart, Firefox 27 doesn't work at all anymore, loading any website results in crashes, too. Only resetting the profile helps. Seamonkey continues to work afterwards without reset (preinstalled puppy version).

Puppy Linux Precise, newest version, on laptop and desktop PC.

Desktop:
AMD Athlon XP 2700+, 512 MB RAM, nvidia Geforce 3 Ti 200.
Frugal install

Laptop:
Intel Celeron M, 1,73 Mhz, 1,5 GB RAM
Puppy Live-CD with safe-file

It's a little bit disappointing that this happens, I never managed to crash my Windows XP system completely, only single programs. Especially not with a normal website. But in general I like puppy.

Does someone know what's going on?

If a single normal website can crash the whole operating system and damage even the browser installation, so that I have to reset it, then I consider using WINE with windows-version of firefox or maybe a VM or something like this, probably that would prevent that the whole system crashes?

gcmartin

#2 Post by gcmartin »

Welcome @PuppyNewbie2014
  • Which Puppy are you running?
  • Do you have a SWAP partition/file on your HDD?
Here to help

PuppyNewbie2014
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon 10 Feb 2014, 07:36

#3 Post by PuppyNewbie2014 »

Hi, thx for helping.

As I said, newest puppy precise version, so it is 5.7.1.

No swap file.

User avatar
Barkin
Posts: 803
Joined: Fri 12 Aug 2011, 04:55

#4 Post by Barkin »

PuppyNewbie2014 wrote:this website

http://www.campustimes.org/2014/02/06/s ... rce-rates/

results after approx. 20 seconds or so in a screen which is filled with 2 or 3 colours, I think white and red mostly.
Viewed that webiste for over a minute on Puppy Linux 525 with FireFox 16.0.2 , no problem.
My CPU usage seemed a little excessive for a short while after loading the page, but no crash/hang.
PuppyNewbie2014 wrote:Funny is also that after restart, Firefox 27 doesn't work at all anymore, loading any website results in crashes, too. Only resetting the profile helps. Seamonkey continues to work afterwards without reset (preinstalled puppy version).
It's possible for malware to affect the browser (FireFox) rather than the operating system, so Linux is not immune to that. If say a browser hijack attempt went wrong it could cause firefox to malfunction thereafter.

When you reinstall FireFox add the NoScript addon it can prevent security exploits like hijacking in the future, ( but won't fix your current problem ) ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NoScript
Attachments
campustimes OK 4 me.png
(32.87 KiB) Downloaded 519 times

User avatar
ardvark
Posts: 1448
Joined: Tue 02 Jul 2013, 03:43
Location: USA

#5 Post by ardvark »

Hi...

While there may certainly be a software explanation/fix for this issue, I'm wondering in case there isn't, if another video card for your desktop system (which you mentioned where the problem was taking place) might be a solution. If your current card is using a AGP 4X/8X slot, perhaps something like this might work. :)

This would also enable you to use more recent Nvidia drivers, such as the 173 release.

Regards...
Our Lord and Savior [url=http://peacewithgod.jesus.net/]Jesus Christ[/url] loves and cares about you most of all!

PLEASE READ! You don't have to end up [url=http://www.spiritlessons.com/Documents/BillWiese_23MinutesInHell_Text.htm]here![/url]

User avatar
mikeb
Posts: 11297
Joined: Thu 23 Nov 2006, 13:56

#6 Post by mikeb »

That page has a hell of a memory hit for a simple blog.... I guess some horrible javascript going on since there is not enough actual content to do this and I also notice ram usage fell after 20 seconds. Initially ram and swap climbed dramatically along with 100% cpu.

Your freeze could simply have been the temporary memory overload causeing a hard lock which would indeed mess up your profile.

Bad websites are everywhere i am afraid and this is another one. Looks like it could be wordpress based which is pretty awful for browsers.

My test was on firefox 3.5 just to dispel any update browser theories.

mike

User avatar
01micko
Posts: 8741
Joined: Sat 11 Oct 2008, 13:39
Location: qld
Contact:

#7 Post by 01micko »

That page has a hell of a memory hit for a simple blog.... I guess some horrible javascript going on since there is not enough actual content to do this and I also notice ram usage fell after 20 seconds. Initially ram and swap climbed dramatically along with 100% cpu.
I noticed an immediate spike too (nothing devastating but definitely noticeable). I'd contact site admin and request the code be reviewed.

Tested on slacko 5.6.5.6, firefox-17.0.11-esr
Puppy Linux Blog - contact me for access

User avatar
mikeb
Posts: 11297
Joined: Thu 23 Nov 2006, 13:56

#8 Post by mikeb »

I noticed an immediate spike too. I'd contact site admin and request the code be reviewed.
most of them fumble their way through grabbing whatever seems to work from code sites...there's usually a meg of unneeded javascript behind this crap of which only a couple of tiny functions are used.

Incompetance and bull to make a few bucks...

mike

User avatar
Karl Godt
Posts: 4199
Joined: Sun 20 Jun 2010, 13:52
Location: Kiel,Germany

#9 Post by Karl Godt »

Code: Select all

# uptime
 18:16:50 up  2:36,  0 users,  load average: 0.14, 0.11, 0.10
# free
             total         used         free       shared      buffers
Mem:       4062504       558264      3504240            0        60632
-/+ buffers:             497632      3564872
Swap:     12383496            0     12383496
http://www.campustimes.org/2014/02/06/s ... rce-rates/

Code: Select all

# uptime
 18:18:01 up  2:37,  0 users,  load average: 0.37, 0.18, 0.13
# free
             total         used         free       shared      buffers
Mem:       4062504       672532      3389972            0        60808
-/+ buffers:             611724      3450780
Swap:     12383496            0     12383496

FF ESR 17.0.11 on Macpup Opera2 / Puppy-4.3.1 full install.
No problem for me .

512 MB was ok without swap but would always rercomment SWAP ( you never now ) .

When I had P-3 or K-7 with 320MB ram
and 640 MB swap on real old and slow MW-DMA HDD
FF-3.5 crashed frequently,
messing up the whole file system, which needed to be fsck 'ed.

User avatar
mikeb
Posts: 11297
Joined: Thu 23 Nov 2006, 13:56

#10 Post by mikeb »

Ram does appear to be the key..I was ok cos i have 512swap as well as 512 ram...but without I might have locked up too.

mike

PuppyNewbie2014
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon 10 Feb 2014, 07:36

#11 Post by PuppyNewbie2014 »

Thanks for your answers all.

Yes, it is correct I think, RAM is the key. I installed today additional 1,5 GB RAM and the problem is gone.

But I have to say, I find it a bug or at least a design fault in Puppy Precise, that a swap file is not automatically created and that there is no easy GUI option to create one as far as I am aware.

And I am still disappointed that the whole OS locks up instead of only the browser, like in windows XP, where never the whole system locked up, only single programs. But I will try to use puppy instead of windows anyway, hopefully this problem was only an exception. In general I still think that puppy is a nice system, I like especially that it is fast and not bloated with still lots of software availability.

Have a nice day all of you :)

User avatar
mikeb
Posts: 11297
Joined: Thu 23 Nov 2006, 13:56

#12 Post by mikeb »

But I have to say, I find it a bug or at least a design fault in Puppy Precise, that a swap file is not automatically created and that there is no easy GUI option to create one as far as I am aware.
actually that seems to be a general linux feature though some other distros may offer to create swap during the install process.

The swap subject is on the top ten list of things mentioned in posts here and yes it should be more automatic...in puppy 2 and one it was...indeed some used a windows swap file if present and others created a swap file automatically...ok too small to be of use but at least some attempt was made. After all anything could suddenly take a chunk of ram and hard lockups are not exactly good things to happen and yes i never have ever locked up in windows dues to lack of ram space. (buggy 3d games are the way to achieve that )

Another good point that will drift away over time and of course we all have machines with 2GB plus of ram...

mike

User avatar
Burn_IT
Posts: 3650
Joined: Sat 12 Aug 2006, 19:25
Location: Tamworth UK

#13 Post by Burn_IT »

What else does one use that extra bit of disk space at the end of the map that won't go into any partition.
All my disks have swap space at the end whether needed or not. It also means I only ever use three real partitions so I always have one to use for adjusting things around?
"Just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush" - T Pratchett

User avatar
Karl Godt
Posts: 4199
Joined: Sun 20 Jun 2010, 13:52
Location: Kiel,Germany

#14 Post by Karl Godt »

Puppy should create a save file automatically if four/five conditions are met :

#w481 if low-ram, save-file is on a fast media, and no swap file/partition, then create swapfile.

swapfile_func(){

1) if [ ! -f ${localSMNTPT}/pupswap.swp ];then

2) if [ "$FASTPARTS" ];then #see /etc/rc.d/PUPSTATE

3) TOTALRAM=`free | grep 'Mem:' | tr -s ' ' | cut -f 3 -d ' '`
if [ $TOTALRAM -lt 262145 ];then #was 128000, bump up <=256MB.

4) TOTALSWAP=`free | grep 'Swap:' | tr -s ' ' | cut -f 3 -d ' '`
if [ $TOTALSWAP -eq 0 ];then

5) ..


Since current Quirky and Slacko are heading towards 200MB I'll think
I'll need to provide a patch to create a swapfile of 1GB in /etc/rc.d/rc.shutdown .

One GB should fit onto a Two GB SD-Card plus 200 MB puppy_abc-xyz.sfs and 200 MB devx and 512 MB pupsave-file.2fs .

User avatar
bigpup
Posts: 13886
Joined: Sun 11 Oct 2009, 18:15
Location: S.C. USA

#15 Post by bigpup »

Karl Godt,

That sounds like a very good thing to add to the development of Puppy.

You need to work up the code and submit it to the Woof CE project.

This is the kind of features and ideas they are looking for.
The things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected :shock:
YaPI(any iso installer)

Post Reply