Firefox 3 file download permission problem crashes firefox.

[marfie]

I used the "auto" upgrade option from 7.1 to 8.04 so I now have firefox 3.0b5.

I only have one user on the system and when using firefox I can't download a file. If I select "open file" it crashes firefox. If I select "download" then the dialogue goes away but does not download the file.

The preferences in firefox do not let me specify a download location. I can't type into the text box and the Browse option does nothing.

If I start firefox from terminal it says "Segmentation fault" after the crash.

If I use the root terminal to start firefox the downloads work as expected but I then have permissions problems with the downloaded files

[marfie (paul-marfell)]

When viewing a web page "Save page as.." does nothing.

[marfie (paul-marfell)]

Here is a listing of the firefox profile directory for the user showing root as being the owner of many of the files. Would it be safe to grant permissions to the user paul since they are in that users home?

root@gutsy:/home/paul/.mozilla/firefox/76mo3mzm.default# ls -l
total 8268
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 981 2008-05-01 00:39 blocklist.xml
drwx------ 2 paul paul 4096 2008-05-01 21:26 bookmarkbackups
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 28030 2008-04-28 00:19 bookmarks.bak
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 28030 2008-04-28 00:19 bookmarks.html
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2008-04-28 22:44 Cache
-rw------- 1 paul paul 65536 2008-05-01 21:43 cert8.db
drwxr-xr-x 2 paul paul 4096 2008-04-01 00:02 chrome
-rw------- 1 paul paul 156 2008-04-28 01:31 compatibility.ini
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 151582 2008-05-01 21:37 compreg.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7168 2008-04-28 01:31 content-prefs.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17408 2008-04-28 22:43 cookies.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2048 2008-04-28 01:32 downloads.sqlite
drwxr-xr-x 2 paul paul 4096 2008-04-01 00:02 extensions
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 488 2008-04-28 01:31 extensions.cache
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 351 2008-04-28 01:31 extensions.ini
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3660 2008-04-28 01:31 extensions.rdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4096 2008-04-28 01:31 formhistory.sqlite
-rw------- 1 paul paul 16384 2008-05-01 21:43 key3.db
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 8582 2008-05-01 21:43 localstore.rdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 4820 2008-05-01 21:28 mimeTypes.rdf
drwx------ 2 paul paul 4096 2008-05-01 21:33 OfflineCache
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2048 2008-04-28 01:31 permissions.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 196608 2008-04-28 22:51 places.sqlite
-rw------- 1 root root 3464 2008-04-28 22:29 pluginreg.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 2530 2008-05-01 21:43 prefs.js
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 3287 2008-04-01 00:02 search.rdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 2048 2008-04-01 00:02 search.sqlite
-rw------- 1 paul paul 16384 2008-05-01 21:41 secmod.db
-rw------- 1 paul paul 440 2008-04-21 00:54 signons2.txt
-rw------- 1 root root 466 2008-04-28 01:31 signons3.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 4018176 2008-04-28 00:16 urlclassifier2.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 449536 2008-04-28 22:31 urlclassifier3.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 154 2008-04-28 22:31 urlclassifierkey3.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2029495 2008-04-28 01:31 XPC.mfasl
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 109050 2008-04-28 01:31 xpti.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 1181341 2008-05-01 21:41 XUL.mfasl

[Alex Ruddick (alexrudd0)]

Yes. There is no reason why files in your home directory should be owned by root. Did you accidentally run firefox using sudo somehow?

[marfie (paul-marfell)]

Thanks. I have now changed ownership of everything in /home/paul/ and it has fixed the problem.

I am not aware of running firefox using sudo. I would normally start it from the icon. I have only tried starting it from a terminal to diagnose the problem.

I assumed it was the results of the upgrade. Once I found out about the file ownership I was optimistic for a solution but the cause eludes me.

[JonathanH (jonathan-23andme)]

I am not sure how it happened but I figured out why I had the same problem. It was specifically the Downloads directory which was owned by root. Perhaps this was changed in the upgrade somehow? I have a file in there which is owned by my user account so I think it is a recent change.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

can you still reproduce this with latest ffox?

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

 We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!