Re: Ubuntu 12.04: Serious problems with operapluginwrapper-native

Agon Buchholz <[email protected]> writes:

> Hi,
>
> I recently switched to Ubuntu 12.04, running Opera 11.64, Build 1403,
> on kernel 3.2.0-24-generic for x86_64 with "Gnome Classic" desktop
> environment. Opera is installed, and updated, through the repository
> "deb http://deb.opera.com/opera/ stable non-free".
>
> Since the switch I have serious problems with browsing numerous web
> pages; trying to load certain pages freezes the browser completely for
> 24-36 seconds, then the page is loaded as usual. The problems seems to
> occur only on pages where some kind of multimedial content is
> embedded, e.g. a video or certain banner ads.
>
> Looking at the process list, there is a "operapluginwrapper-native"
> that appears as soon as the page in question is being accessed, and it
> disappears usually, when the Opera has left it's freezed
> stage. Sometimes, this comes with an increased CPU load [1], and
> sometimes this wrapper - whatever it is - crashes [2]. Load spikes and
> periodic crashes are not new, but I never encountered these annoying
> freezes before.

The operapluginwrapper is the process that actually runs a browser
plug-in.  On 64-bit linux, operapluginwrapper-native runs 64-bit
plug-ins, and there's another operapluginwrapper that runs 32-bit
plug-ins.

If the plug-in itself freezes or crashes, the pluginwrapper will freeze
or crash.  But opera will keep running.  Unfortunately, if the
pluginwrapper freezes, opera will freeze until it decides that the
pluginwrapper is unlikely to come back to life.  This is because of the
way plug-ins are designed.  Once opera decides not to wait for the
plug-in any more, it can no longer let the plug-in run, so it kills it.
(This is fixable, but not easily.  So it hasn't been prioritized for the
last 10+ years).

One of the arguments to the pluginwrapper is which plug-in it is
running.  So while the pluginwrapper is frozen, you can figure out which
plug-in is frozen by looking at the argument list of the process.

Also, if you manually kill the pluginwrapper, opera will probably
unfreeze.  (Yes, not a solution, I know.)

(It isn't necessarily the plug-in's fault when it freezes or crashes.
Sometimes it is entirely our fault.  But I believe it is usually just
that the way plug-ins work makes it way too easy to mess something up.
I'm really unhappy that we never got around to cooperate with the
konqueror guys about making a common pluginwrapper that all (linux)
browsers could use.  That could have improved the situation
significantly.)

eirik
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