An error occurred while loading or saving configuration information for firefox. Some of your configuration settings may not work properly.

[Nabin]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.0

Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Server ping error: IDL:omg.org/CORBA/COMM_FAILURE:1.0)
Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Server ping error: IDL:omg.org/CORBA/COMM_FAILURE:1.0)
Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Server ping error: IDL:omg.org/CORBA/COMM_FAILURE:1.0)
Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Server ping error: IDL:omg.org/CORBA/COMM_FAILURE:1.0)
Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Server ping error: IDL:omg.org/CORBA/COMM_FAILURE:1.0)

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
Package: firefox-3.0 3.0.13+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.04.1
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: firefox-3.0
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-15-generic i686

[Yannis Tsop (ogiannhs)]

i repeatedly get this error with ff 3.5.3 [ karmic] :

Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Server ping error: IDL:omg.org/CORBA/COMM_FAILURE:1.0)
Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Server ping error: IDL:omg.org/CORBA/COMM_FAILURE:1.0)
Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Server ping error: IDL:omg.org/CORBA/COMM_FAILURE:1.0)
Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Server ping error: IDL:omg.org/CORBA/COMM_FAILURE:1.0)
Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Server ping error: IDL:omg.org/CORBA/COMM_FAILURE:1.0)

[Luis Aranguren (pizzaman)]

Seems the error is related to having /tmp folder on tmpfs.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

feels like a gconf bug. can you still reproduce?

[eris23 (jdkatz23)]

I'm getting the same after latest updates:

Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Server ping error: IDL:omg.org/CORBA/COMM_FAILURE:1.0)

[Brendan Ribera (abscondment)]

I confirm what Luis suggested:

I'm running 3.5.3 on karmic; I just switched /tmp to be a tmpfs mount and pointed Firefox's browser.cache.disk.parent_directory setting to stick the cache in /tmp. I now get this error message every time I start Firefox.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

so the tmpfs mount makes the difference here?

[eris23 (jdkatz23)]

For me, it looks like subsequent updates fixed this problem.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the issue was probably a side effect of the mountall wipping tmp on upgrades in some cases which has been fixed now

[ariel cornejo (arielco)]

FYI, bug #445055 produces a similar behaviour and error message, in installations lacking the condition described by Luis (comment #3)