Bug#657880: iceweasel: kernel shutdown caused by ice weasel

[bill salavar]

Package: iceweasel
Version: 3.5.16-11
Severity: important

Iceweasel brings down the whole OS spontaneously.  Very severe.  No particular action seems to be a trigger, but it is repeatable and occurs shortly into a browsing session (e.g. the shutdown occurred while simply typing into a google search field).  The shutdown is immediate (but not as abrupt as a kernel panic).  When the bug hits, it appears to (in effect) execute "shutdown -h", as all the usual shutdown dialog appears on the screen.  Note that iceweasel is running as a user, but it's able to shutdown the OS and thus everything else with only user privileges.

The most severe aspect to this bug must be outside the iceweasel package.  No matter how severe an iceweasel bug is, it should never cause the OS to shutdown.  The kernel may be where the worst bug lives.

-- Package-specific info:
I simply did a squeeze netinst from a USB stick to install squeeze from scratch.  Everything else appears to function.  I copied an old ".mozilla" folder to the user space.  When iceweasel ran for the first time, it spotted 3 plugins that were no longer supported, and removed them.  One of the other plugins (deemed to be supported) may be part of the cause.  

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 6.0.4
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Hardware: Thinkpad T61

Versions of packages iceweasel depends on:
ii  debianutils                  3.4         Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii  fontconfig                   2.8.0-2.1   generic font configuration library
ii  libc6                        2.11.3-2    Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libglib2.0-0                 2.24.2-1    The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgtk2.0-0                  2.20.1-2    The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libnspr4-0d                  4.8.6-1     NetScape Portable Runtime Library
ii  libstdc++6                   4.4.5-8     The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  procps                       1:3.2.8-9   /proc file system utilities
ii  xulrunner-1.9.1              1.9.1.16-11 XUL + XPCOM application runner

iceweasel recommends no packages.

Versions of packages iceweasel suggests:
ii  libgssapi-krb5-2    1.8.3+dfsg-4squeeze5 MIT Kerberos runtime libraries - k
ii  libkrb53            1.8.3+dfsg-4squeeze5 transitional package for MIT Kerbe
pn  mozplugger          <none>               (no description available)
ii  ttf-lyx             1.6.7-1              TrueType versions of some TeX font
pn  ttf-mathematica4.1  <none>               (no description available)
ii  xfonts-mathml       4                    Type1 Symbol font for MathML
pn  xprint              <none>               (no description available)

Versions of packages xulrunner-1.9.1 depends on:
ii  libasound2            1.0.23-2.1         shared library for ALSA applicatio
ii  libatk1.0-0           1.30.0-1           The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libbz2-1.0            1.0.5-6+squeeze1   high-quality block-sorting file co
ii  libc6                 2.11.3-2           Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libcairo2             1.8.10-6           The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra
ii  libdbus-1-3           1.2.24-4+squeeze1  simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libfontconfig1        2.8.0-2.1          generic font configuration library
ii  libfreetype6          2.4.2-2.1+squeeze3 FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii  libgcc1               1:4.4.5-8          GCC support library
ii  libglib2.0-0          2.24.2-1           The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgtk2.0-0           2.20.1-2           The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libhunspell-1.2-0     1.2.11-1           spell checker and morphological an
ii  libjpeg62             6b1-1              The Independent JPEG Group's JPEG 
ii  libmozjs2d            1.9.1.16-11        The Mozilla SpiderMonkey JavaScrip
ii  libnspr4-0d           4.8.6-1            NetScape Portable Runtime Library
ii  libnss3-1d            3.12.8-1+squeeze4  Network Security Service libraries
ii  libpango1.0-0         1.28.3-1+squeeze2  Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpng12-0            1.2.44-1+squeeze1  PNG library - runtime
ii  libreadline6          6.1-3              GNU readline and history libraries
ii  libsqlite3-0          3.7.3-1            SQLite 3 shared library
ii  libstartup-notificati 0.10-1             library for program launch feedbac
ii  libstdc++6            4.4.5-8            The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  libx11-6              2:1.3.3-4          X11 client-side library
ii  libxrender1           1:0.9.6-1          X Rendering Extension client libra
ii  libxt6                1:1.0.7-1          X11 toolkit intrinsics library
ii  zlib1g                1:1.2.3.4.dfsg-3   compression library - runtime

-- no debconf information