launching firefox-3.0-b5 again fails when firefox is already started

[roots]

Binary package hint: firefox

this error occured for a few times recently: i chose apport to upload an error report, it then attempted to open the launchpad page in firefox, which was already running. then, apport stopped with the error message that firefox was already open but did not respond. however, firefox was running fine, as i instantly tested. the error message could only be confirmed by "ok", so no possible second try after quitting/reopening firefox.

os: ubuntu hardy testing
compiz fusion, nvidia restricted drivers
firefox 3 beta 5
apport v. 0.107

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added by Kai Stempfle:

How to reproduce:
1. launch firefox
2. try to launch firefox again

affects package:
kastit01@Wingthor:~$ apt-cache show firefox
Package: firefox
Priority: optional
Section: web
Installed-Size: 120
Maintainer: Alexander Sack <email address hidden>
Architecture: all
Source: firefox-3.0
Version: 3.0~b5+nobinonly-0ubuntu1
Depends: firefox-3.0
Filename: pool/main/f/firefox-3.0/firefox_3.0~b5+nobinonly-0ubuntu1_all.deb
Size: 64210
MD5sum: a98dc88be20123632bd735175145b0e0
SHA1: d8b79d9d97c9ee6be222877ef79392c4e5076079
SHA256: dd540c7b13344139ba1cdb15f60f48c4004a49775db030e3371759c18a102691

[Kai Stempfle (kai-stempfle)]

Bug is actually a firefox 3.0-b5 bug, not a bug in apport.

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Alexander is there a way to give apport full access when firefox is already open or atleast give it a tab, instead of failing because its open already?

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Root and Kai, this is seen because firefox can only have one instance open at a time, (this happened when tabs were introduced IIRC. Personally apport should have full access to anything it needs so the bugs can be filied correctly. Allexander is the Ubuntu Mozilla maintainer he should beable to give insite to this.

[Daniel Hahler (blueyed)]

Kai, I cannot reproduce your testcase. If Firefox is running already, it can be started again (under normal circumstances that is).

This bug itself (when being invoked from apport) is a duplicate of bug 198195 and I'm marking it as such.
I could trace it down to Firefox being unable to restart, if it's been invoked from a non-existent directory (see the testcase in bug 198195).