Need help troubleshooting what keeps crashing

January 11, 2022

Ubuntu 21.10 desktop, AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (3.6 GHz), 64 GB RAM

I’m having this problem both with Wayland and without.

Common to all crash situations is Firefox (default Snap install). Sometimes just Firefox will crash, but sometimes takes my entire system down with it. Sometimes I get the Firefox crash report screen, sometimes I wind up at the Ubuntu login screen, sometimes the system just freezes to the point that only a hard reset works.

I’ve found the "about:crashes" page in Firefox and just discovered that the last 2 weeks or so of crash reports weren’t submitted, so I’ve now submitted all of those.

When I look at /var/log/syslog, I see far too much that I don’t understand, but will happily post if someone can tell me what to look for.

Thanks in advance.

Edits below as requested. No overclocking on CPU or RAM.

ls -al /var/crash

total 12
drwxrwsrwt  2 root     whoopsie 4096 Dec 16 07:38 .
drwxr-xr-x 16 root     root     4096 Dec 15 20:32 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 robert   whoopsie    0 Dec 14 06:46 _usr_lib_xorg_Xorg.1000.upload
-rw-------  1 whoopsie whoopsie   37 Dec 14 06:46 _usr_lib_xorg_Xorg.1000.uploaded

sudo lshw -C memory

  *-firmware
       description: BIOS
       vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
       physical id: 0
       version: P1.70
       date: 12/01/2020
       size: 64KiB
       capacity: 16MiB
       capabilities: pci upgrade shadowing cdboot bootselect socketedrom edd int13floppy1200 int13floppy720 int13floppy2880 int5printscreen int9keyboard int14serial int17printer acpi usb biosbootspecification uefi
  *-memory
       description: System Memory
       physical id: f
       slot: System board or motherboard
       size: 64GiB
     *-bank:0
          description: DIMM DDR4 Synchronous Unbuffered (Unregistered) 2133 MHz (0.5 ns)
          product: F4-3200C16-16GVK
          vendor: Unknown
          physical id: 0
          serial: 00000000
          slot: DIMM 0
          size: 16GiB
          width: 64 bits
          clock: 2133MHz (0.5ns)
     *-bank:1
          description: DIMM DDR4 Synchronous Unbuffered (Unregistered) 2133 MHz (0.5 ns)
          product: F4-3200C16-16GVK
          vendor: Unknown
          physical id: 1
          serial: 00000000
          slot: DIMM 1
          size: 16GiB
          width: 64 bits
          clock: 2133MHz (0.5ns)
     *-bank:2
          description: DIMM DDR4 Synchronous Unbuffered (Unregistered) 2133 MHz (0.5 ns)
          product: F4-3200C16-16GVK
          vendor: Unknown
          physical id: 2
          serial: 00000000
          slot: DIMM 0
          size: 16GiB
          width: 64 bits
          clock: 2133MHz (0.5ns)
     *-bank:3
          description: DIMM DDR4 Synchronous Unbuffered (Unregistered) 2133 MHz (0.5 ns)
          product: F4-3200C16-16GVK
          vendor: Unknown
          physical id: 3
          serial: 00000000
          slot: DIMM 1
          size: 16GiB
          width: 64 bits
          clock: 2133MHz (0.5ns)
  *-cache:0
       description: L1 cache
       physical id: 12
       slot: L1 - Cache
       size: 384KiB
       capacity: 384KiB
       clock: 1GHz (1.0ns)
       capabilities: pipeline-burst internal write-back unified
       configuration: level=1
  *-cache:1
       description: L2 cache
       physical id: 13
       slot: L2 - Cache
       size: 3MiB
       capacity: 3MiB
       clock: 1GHz (1.0ns)
       capabilities: pipeline-burst internal write-back unified
       configuration: level=2
  *-cache:2
       description: L3 cache
       physical id: 14
       slot: L3 - Cache
       size: 32MiB
       capacity: 32MiB
       clock: 1GHz (1.0ns)
       capabilities: pipeline-burst internal write-back unified
       configuration: level=3

sysctl vm.swappiness

vm.swappiness = 60

free -h

               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:            62Gi       5.6Gi       1.2Gi       179Mi        55Gi        56Gi
Swap:           71Gi        17Mi        71Gi

swapon -s

Filename                Type        Size    Used    Priority
/dev/sdb1            partition  75497468    17536   -2

UPDATED 2021-12-19

ls -al /var/crash

total 3204
drwxrwsrwt  2 root     whoopsie    4096 Dec 19 12:41 .
drwxr-xr-x 16 root     root        4096 Dec 19 12:38 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 robert   whoopsie       0 Dec 19 12:41 _opt_google_chrome_chrome.1000.upload
-rw-------  1 whoopsie whoopsie      37 Dec 19 12:41 _opt_google_chrome_chrome.1000.uploaded
-rw-r--r--  1 robert   whoopsie       0 Dec 19 12:41 _usr_bin_gnome-shell.1000.upload
-rw-------  1 whoopsie whoopsie      37 Dec 19 12:41 _usr_bin_gnome-shell.1000.uploaded
-rw-r-----  1 robert   whoopsie 3254690 Dec 19 12:41 _usr_bin_Xwayland.1000.crash
-rw-r--r--  1 robert   whoopsie       0 Dec 19 12:41 _usr_bin_Xwayland.1000.upload
-rw-------  1 whoopsie whoopsie      37 Dec 19 12:41 _usr_bin_Xwayland.1000.uploaded
-rw-r--r--  1 robert   whoopsie       0 Dec 14 06:46 _usr_lib_xorg_Xorg.1000.upload
-rw-------  1 whoopsie whoopsie      37 Dec 14 06:46 _usr_lib_xorg_Xorg.1000.uploaded

ls -al ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions

total 16
drwxrwxr-x 4 robert robert 4096 Dec 13 11:52 .
drwx------ 4 robert robert 4096 Dec 19 16:19 ..
drwxrwxr-x 4 robert robert 4096 Dec 14 06:47 date-menu-formatter@marcinjakubowski.github.com
drwxrwxr-x 5 robert robert 4096 Dec  3 08:19 sensory-perception@HarlemSquirrel.github.io

ls -al /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions

total 20
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 May 14  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 Oct 16 19:13 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Oct 16 18:49 ding@rastersoft.com
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Oct 16 18:49 ubuntu-appindicators@ubuntu.com
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Oct 16 18:50 ubuntu-dock@ubuntu.com

>Solution :

BIOS

ASRock B550M Pro4

You have an older BIOS version 1.70 from 12/10/20, and there’s a newer BIOS available, version 2.20 from 8/5/21, and can be downloaded here.

Note: Confirm that I have the correct web page for your model motherboard.

Note: Have good backups before updating the BIOS.

vm.swappiness

With 64G RAM, you can reduce swapping, and speed up operations, by adjusting vm.swappiness.

edit /etc/sysctl.conf
add vm.swappiness=10 (at the end of the file)
sudo sysctl -p (or reboot)

Memtest (do this after the BIOS update)

Go to https://www.memtest86.com/ and download/run their free memtest to test your memory. Get at least one complete pass of all the 4/4 tests to confirm good memory. This may take a few hours to complete.

Update #1:

Firefox