Chromium not starting on Ubuntu 20.04
I am running Ubuntu 20.04 x86_64 and using chromium installed with snap:
$ snap list
Name Version Rev Tracking Publisher Notes
chromium 84.0.4147.89 1229 latest/stable canonical✓ -
core18 20200707 1880 latest/stable canonical✓ base
gtk-common-themes 0.1-36-gc75f853 1506 latest/stable canonical✓ -
snapd 2.45.2 8542 latest/stable canonical✓ snapd
It all seems up-to-date, but chromium can not start. If I launch it, it aborts the execution. In both /var/log/syslog and /var/log/kern.log, the following line is generated:
kernel: [ 1590.847960] traps: chrome[5324] trap int3 ip:557cd4d7b152 sp:7fffde23a9c0 error:0 in chrome[557cd1a59000+7234000]
Also, in /var/log/apport.log, for each execution attempt, this line appears:
ERROR: apport (pid 5556) Thu Jul 16 10:32:47 2020: host pid 5324 crashed in a separate mount namespace, ignoring
What could it be the problem?
Note that the program is chromium, but despite this, the log lines automatically report the name chrome, for reasons I do not know (maybe because chromium is anyway based on chrome).
Update: when launched from a terminal, according to a suggestion in an answer, I get:
$ chromium-browser --disable-extensions
[11036:11036:0716/152514.953429:ERROR:sandbox_linux.cc(374)] InitializeSandbox() called with multiple threads in process gpu-process.
WARNING: Kernel has no file descriptor comparison support: Operation not permitted
Trace/breakpoint trap (core dumped)
With chromium --disable-extensions, the message is the same.
Update 2:
$ chromium-browser --disable-gpu --disable-software-rasterizer
MESA-LOADER: failed to retrieve device information
MESA-LOADER: failed to open i915 (search paths /snap/chromium/1229/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri)
failed to load driver: i915
MESA-LOADER: failed to open kms_swrast (search paths /snap/chromium/1229/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri)
failed to load driver: kms_swrast
MESA-LOADER: failed to open swrast (search paths /snap/chromium/1229/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri)
failed to load swrast driver
Trace/breakpoint trap (core dumped)
and the same with chromium --disable-gpu --disable-software-rasterizer. I did not intentionally install any graphic driver, so I guess I'm using the default ones shipped with Ubuntu 20.04. I use the CPU integrated graphic card, CPU is Intel Core i5 4670.
I also tried to run chromium-browser --disable-gpu --disable-software-rasterizer after export MESA_GLSL_CACHE_DISABLE=true, but the error messages are the same as above.
Solution 1:
I just got this problem, seemingly out of the blue. Turns out I may be related to a problem I already reported about fonts not loading in the Chromium Snap.
I found the following workaround :
-
First, close all instances of chromium
-
Empty global and local font cache. Erase all existing cache files and rescan. Rerun Chromium:
sudo rm /var/cache/fontconfig/* rm ~/.cache/fontconfig/* sudo fc-cache -r -v rm -rf ~/snap/chromium/common/.cache/fontconfig/ chromium-browser
This set of commands is a workaround for a problem I already reported here:
[chromium] File chooser is not displaying font
Solution 2:
Thanks to the fundamental observations from the Antoine Pintout answer, I recalled that I had installed several new fonts, not included in the Ubuntu base system.
A first effect was that the "Save page" window in Chromium was no more able to use any font, displaying instead a vertical empty rectangle ▯ for each letter. It is exactly the same issue as in the Antoine Pintout linked report.
However, Chromium was still working. Then, after some days, it presented the issue of my question.
Yesterday and today, Ubuntu deployed several updates that I applied: between them, snapd and xorg-* (but not xserver-xorg-video-intel). After the updates, Chromium still didn't start.
Instead of using the workaround suggested by Antoine Pintout, I simply removed the fonts I had installed, and the issue disappeared: Chromium was able again to start. I don't know if the recent updates contributed to this.
It is worth noting that I then reinstalled all the fonts that I had just removed, and Chromium was not affected by them, this time: it works. Again, I don't know if the updates brought some fixes.
By the way, the integration between Chromium, snap and Ubuntu still requires some improvements.
Solution 3:
Sometimes its helpful when troubleshooting a crash if you launch the application directly from a terminal so you can see the app's output messages, instead of from the Ubuntu dash or launcher bar ... so open up a terminal ( ctrl + alt + t ) and in terminal issue
chromium --disable-extensions
Does it run better now ? if yes then issue is probably due to a bad extension ... if it still crashes can you update your question with a copy and paste of messages shown in the terminal
UPDATE alright now from your new crash its GPU related, so launch from terminal using
chromium --disable-gpu --disable-software-rasterizer
and lets see if it comes up OK or not ... btw did you install graphics drivers yourself ? or are you using the default nouveau ?
UPDATE2 just googling about I see Chrome stop working after upgrade to Ubuntu 20.04 so if you are willing to destroy your Ubuntu install meaning anything of value is safely backed up ( Dropbox, or MEGA nz, or on a memory stick, cloud ...) run the suggested removal of package xserver-xorg-video-intel ... I am on a Ubuntu 20.04 laptop using the default nouveau drivers even though I have an Nvidia card yet I do have that intel package installed as per
dpkg -l | grep xserver-xorg-video-intel
which comes back with
ii xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.917+git20200226-1 amd64 X.Org X server -- Intel i8xx, i9xx display driver
OK so I just issued
sudo apt purge xserver-xorg-video-intel
and after a reboot can confirm the machine is fine so that may resolve your issue (as per above link) ... depending on your risk appetite try that purge and let us know (as long as your backups are current )