Firefox Sometimes Crashes when Loading Google Maps

Symptom:

Opening a new tab in Firefox and going to maps.google.com sometimes results in Firefox crashing.

Firefox version: 42.0
OS: Linux Mint 17.2
Graphics card: AMD Radeon 7870
Graphics Driver: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:7.3.0-1ubuntu3.1 (AMD/ATI display driver wrapper)

Other symptoms:

1. Sometimes small sections of text in Firefox are unreadable (blotched) until scrolling it off and back on to the screen
2. LibreOffice draw paints around clipart while scrolling and it doesn’t disappear until minimizing and restoring the window
3. Mint menu lags when searching

Cause:

Appears to be bug in Xorg video drivers.

Solution:

Unfortunately, replacing the Free and Open Source Xorg drivers with proprietary AMD drivers resolved all the above symptoms.

Mint menu -> Driver Manager -> Select “fglrx” driver, apply and reboot

Troubleshooting Steps:

1. Run Firefox in safe mode (Firefox did not crash in safe mode)
   1. firefox –safe-mode
2. Disable hardware acceleration in Firefox
   1. Preferences -> Advanced -> Disable “Use hardware acceleration when available”
3. Disable all add-ons (extensions)
4. Change to proprietary AMD graphics driver “fglrx”