Firefox Flash plugin floods syslog on Ubuntu

February 15, 2017

Firefox Adobe Flash plugin floods /var/log/syslog with the messages like these:

Feb 15 22:25:52 pcpaulesl1 plugin-containe[3776]: IA__gtk_widget_get_visual: assertion 'GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed
Feb 15 22:25:52 pcpaulesl1 plugin-containe[3776]: IA__gdk_colormap_new: assertion 'GDK_IS_VISUAL (visual)' failed
Feb 15 22:25:52 pcpaulesl1 plugin-containe[3776]: IA__gdk_colormap_alloc_colors: assertion 'GDK_IS_COLORMAP (colormap)' failed
Feb 15 22:25:52 pcpaulesl1 plugin-containe[3776]: IA__gtk_widget_modify_bg: assertion 'GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed

This is inconvenient as the disk is filled with the irrelevant data, the disk IO is consumed, and syslog becomes inconvenient to read.

One of the possible solutions is to send such output to /dev/null instead of syslog. This can be done by sending the STDERR stream to /dev/null.

As usually Firefox is started from the dash, or via application menu, the most convenient way is to modify the .desktop launcher file so it was run with the proper parameters.

Usually .desktop files are stored in /usr/share/applications. The firefox.desktop file from this directory should be modified by changing the following line:

Exec=firefox %u

to such one:

Exec=bash -c 'firefox %u 2>/dev/null'

This modification would send all the error output to /dev/null keeping syslog clear.

Post a comment if you have any other options.