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By default, Firefox (or Swiftfox) crashes when trying to view a full-screen video on say... YouTube.

At least for me it used to crash until I found a fix and from what I've understand it's got something to do with the graphic card drivers and it's affecting both nVidia and ATI.

By default, Firefox (or Swiftfox) crashes when trying to view a full-screen video on say... YouTube. At least for me it used to crash until I found a fix and from what I've understand it's got something to do with the graphic card drivers and it's affecting both nVidia and ATI. If that is the case for you also, you may want to read on.

To fix the full-screen flash videos bug, you need to preload a library called libGL.so.1 when you start Firefox or Swiftfox. Here is how to do it:

1. Create a new file in your home folder, let's call it fix_flash.sh and paste this:

#!/bin/sh
## replace firefox-3.6 with what you use, e.g. firefox, firefox-3.5, swiftfox
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libGL.so.1 firefox-3.5

Like the script says, replace "firefox-3.5" with the command used to launch your Firefox (depending on the version, etc). If you don't know the command, go to Applications > Internet and right click the version of Firefox you want to fix (Firefox, Minefield or whatever) and click "Add to panel". Then a new icon (launcher) will be displayed on your panel; right click that icon and select "Properties" -> you will then see the command used to launch your Firefox version in the "Command" field (never mind the %u):

If you use Swiftfox, replace "firefox-3.5" in the file with "swiftfox" (without the quotes).

2. Make fix_flash.sh executable
Use your terminal to navigate to where fix_flash.sh is located and type this in the terminal:

chmod +x fix_flash.sh

3. Now either edit your panel Firefox/Swiftfox icon or add a new icon and in the command field, put this:

/path_to_file/fix_flash.sh %u

Obviously, replace "path_to_file" with the path to the fix_flash.sh file.

4. Close Firefox / Swiftfox and run it using the newly created launcher (icon), then go to YouTube or a similar website and click the full-screen button. Everything should be ok now, no more crashes!

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