firefox: since 3.6 replaced 3.5, haven't been able to start it more than once

[Martin-Éric Racine]

Binary package hint: firefox

Since Firefox 3.6 replaced Firefox 3.5 today, I have only been able to restart it exactly once, when prompted to do so to complete the profile upgrade. Since then, it dies upon launch, without explanation and without Apport catching the crash either.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue Jan 26 09:33:57 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: firefox 3.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu1
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=fi_FI.UTF-8
 LANGUAGE=fi_FI.UTF-8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-11.15-generic
SourcePackage: firefox
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-11-generic i686

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

Directly launching firefox-bin reports that:

/usr/lib/firefox-3.6/firefox-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libxul.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Could this be it? Or does finding libxul.so simply require some wrappper?

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

Launching with "firefox -safe-mode" works, so I'd guess that some extension or custom setting is causing this, but how do I find out which one is the culprit? Presumably, some extension require a binary upload but, again, which one?

[michael37 (misha37)]

Might be related to bug 513047? Try to create new profile -- start firefox -ProfileManager

[michael37 (misha37)]

Ugg, sorry for type in comment 4, should be bug 513074

[Miguel Rodríguez (migrax)]

After much trial and error disabling extensions I'm able to use firefox again after disabling the 'Weave' extension.
No matter if I use the 1.0r2 or the 1.0r4 version, firefox does not start for me if I have it enabled.

Hope this helps.

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

Well, it just seems that a lot of firefox/mozilla/xulrunner plug-ins will need to be rebuilt for 3.6.

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

It just seems that if some version-specific plug-ins are installed, rather than disabling them at launch like 3.5 did, 3.6 instead silently refuses to start and requires -safe-mode to start at all.

[aslam karachiwala (akwala)]

I've been seeing similar behavior since updating to the following on Ubuntu 9.10 amd64:

- Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.2pre) Gecko/20100219 Ubuntu/9.10 (karmic) Namoroka/3.6.2pre
(from http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu)

- Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686 (x86_64); en-US; rv:1.9.2) Gecko/20100115 Firefox/3.6
(from ubuntuzila: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/ubuntuzilla)

It happens with all of my profiles -- I have multiple profiles dedicated to each of the above.

If I launch FF with an affected profile in safe mode, that works fine; then, I quit that FF instance and launch FF with the same profile normally, and that succeeds. So, a normal launch of FF needs to be preceded by a safe mode launch. However, I've noticed that restarting a running FF instance often works fine.

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

@Martin-Éric Racine
Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please execute the following command, as it will automatically gather debugging information, in a terminal:

apport-collect 512673

This will help us to find and resolve the problem. Bear in mind that you may need to install the python-launchpadlib package from the universe repository. Thanks in advance!

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

Micah Gersten, please notice that the bug was filed with Apport already.

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

@Martin-Éric Racine

I know, but I fixed the apport firefox hook since then, please run apport-collect.
Thanks.

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

@Micah Gersten, please see Bug 528680.

[dino99 (9d9)]

tried apport-collect but cant even if i repeatidly erase launchpad.credentials:

oem@dub:~$ sudo rm -f /home/oem/.cache/apport/launchpad.credentials
oem@dub:~$ apport-collect 512673
Error connecting to Launchpad: [Errno 1] Opération non permise: '/home/oem/.launchpadlib'
You can reset the credentials by removing the file "/home/oem/.cache/apport/launchpad.credentials"

troubles:
- unable to open FF again in an other workplace
- in case of several opened pages into the same workplace, FF ask again to log in even if i'm logged, and if try to log again on that new page, i cant coz i'm already logged as might unlogged first.

[gear3895 (gear3895)]

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1193567&page=42
Firefox 3.6 won't start another time after the first launch. It starts only once.

2010 Feb 18... after some updates on my Ubuntu Linux 9.04,
Firefox 3.6 starts only once, will not start again, unless I move the directory, or run Firefox 3.0.18, or reboot...

I launched Firefox 3.6 everyday before that date, all was good before that update.

After deleting ~/.mozilla,
After $ sudo apt-get remove --purge firefox
After downloading and running a fresh Firefox 3.6 via $ ~/firefox/firefox,
the problem is still the same!

$ ~/firefox/firefox
... nothing shows up, no error messages in the terminal

$ ~/firefox/firefox -P -no-remote
After selecting the profile, nothing shows up.

$ ~/firefox/firefox -P
After selecting the profile, nothing shows up.

Strangely, if I move the extracted folder[from a new Firefox download] "Firefox" to another directory like "~/Desktop", then the command "~/Desktop/firefox/firefox" will launch Firefox again, but only once... why??? Somebody help me!

After installing Firefox via Ubuntu Package Manager, Firefox 3.0.18 now works every time...
But why the Firefox 3.6 won't work after the first launch???
Especially, if running Firefox 3.0.18 after running Firefox 3.6, Firefox 3.0.18 seems to launch for the first time with brief flash of importing something... After Firefox 3.0.18 running, then Firefox 3.6 runs fine, only for the first time...
It seems there is a profile conflict within .mozilla/firefox so it needs to be re-written as brand new for Firefox 3.6 to work

$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure firefox
... nothing shows up...

$ tail ~/.xsession-errors
** (gnome-panel:3782): DEBUG: Adding applet 17.
** (gnome-panel:3782): DEBUG: Adding applet 18.
** (update-notifier:3800): DEBUG: /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check returned 1 (security: 0)
** (update-notifier:3800): DEBUG: crashreport_check

[4261:4270:697768709:ERROR:/usr/local/google/b/slave/chrome-official-linux/build/src/base/file_util_posix.cc(654)] Couldn't stat /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so: No such file or directory
[4261:4261:5234941644:ERROR:/usr/local/google/b/slave/chrome-official-linux/build/src/chrome/common/temp_scaffolding_stubs.h(41)] Not implemented reached in void printing::PrintViewManager::Stop()
** (update-notifier:3800): DEBUG: /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check returned 1 (security: 0)
** (update-notifier:3800): DEBUG: /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check returned 1 (security: 0)
** (update-notifier:3800): DEBUG: /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check returned 1 (security: 0)

I tried to kill firefox-bin process before restarting Firefox...
$ ps ux | less
But no any Firefox process survives after running the command $ ~/firefox/firefox
Please help, thanks!

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

@Micah Gersten, please see bug 512673 for the updated Apport hooks' results.

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

Erm, sorry, that should be bug 530616.

[dino99 (9d9)]

comments about my previous post 14:

now FF work as it have to with the latest updates.

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

Here, it still doesn't work as expected. It still needs to be started via safe-mode, on every other launch.

[dino99 (9d9)]

now i can have FF opened into several workplaces without problems and log trouble is gone. But still have other errors:

- (firefox-bin:6396): Gdk-WARNING **: XID collision, trouble ahead

- (firefox-bin:6396): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: IA__g_object_set_valist: construct property "disable-client-side-decorations" for object `GtkWindow' can't be set after construction

-(firefox-bin:4233): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: IA__g_object_set_valist: construct property "disable-client-side-decorations" for object `GtkPlug' can't be set after construction

[Ryan (ubuntu-draziw)]

remove compatibility.ini; see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/518422 (poor workaround until the issue is fixed)

[Ryan (ubuntu-draziw)]

remove compatibility.ini; see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/518422 (poor workaround until the issue is fixed)

[gear3895 (gear3895)]

Problem solved as of 6 March 2010
Thank you lovinglinux! For those having problems with Firefox starting and don't get any errors on the terminal, verify if you have Prism installed and remove it. Prism is causing this problem here, using Firefox 3.6.

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Changed package to prism since it is the cause for the conflict. This is a known problem and is being worked on.
Marking as triaged since we have enough info to work on this.

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

John Vivirito, no, this bug is not caused by Prism, since I do not have it installed. In the future, please ask the person who reported the issue whether your assumption applies to their case, before re-assigning bugs.

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

Someone mentioned in a duplicate bug that greasemonkey is the cause, making firefox fail to start silently. I concur. Reassigning to greasemonkey accordingly.