As root firefox grey's-out the screen and is very slow starting menu-functions

[Michael B]

Binary package hint: firefox

When logged in as root, any click on the top menu bar of firefox 3.6.10 causes a very slow procedure that first grey's-out the screen, then returns to the regular view (and finally executes the menu-pop-out). This behaviour does not appear when looged in as non-root user. (FF was freshly updated)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: firefox 3.6.10+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.04.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-24.43-generic 2.6.32.15+drm33.5
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-24-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Sep 19 23:02:05 2010
FirefoxPackages:
 firefox 3.6.10+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.04.1
 firefox-gnome-support N/A
 firefox-branding 3.6.10+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.04.1
 abroswer N/A
 abrowser-branding N/A
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100429)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: firefox

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

Thank you for reporting this to Ubuntu. Are you using the same profile as the root and non-root user?

[Michael B (a-b-c)]

Am 19.09.2010 23:29, schrieb Micah Gersten:
> Thank you for reporting this to Ubuntu. Are you using the same profile
> as the root and non-root user?
>
> ** Changed in: firefox (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Incomplete
>
>
Hello

Thanks for your interest.
Yes, i am using only 1 Firefox profile at all.
Thunderbird is installed too w/ it's own profiles.

My Ubuntu installation is relatively fresh (some days), it's the 64-bit
version from the "c't magazin for Computertechnik" - DVD (www.heise.de).
The computer is a HP ProBook 6550b.

Originally just Windows 7 and HP supplemental software was installed. I
resized the main partition for Linux.

Maybe i can research myself, but i do not know about any software that
grey's out the application window. Any hint?

Best greetings

Michael

[Michael B (a-b-c)]

Hello

The reason for that bug is an apparmor profile, "/etc/apparmor.d/usr.binfirefox" and a symbolic link of same name to that file in /etc/apparmor.d/disable.

That profile-file must be adjusted.

For a testing-only workaround, (backup and) remove that profile-file and the link to it, then restart apparmor for example with "/etc/init.d/apparmor restart". Then there is no more problem using firefox as root.

[Michael B (a-b-c)]

After some more fine tuning it was possible to run firefox without modifying apparmor (possibly dangerous), but a similar problem occured. If interested please see bug#667479 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kubuntu-meta/+bug/667479).

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

If the profile is disabled, it wouldn't affect anything. Also, Firefox is not meant to be run as 2 users w/one profile. Please use a different profile for each user that you want to use.

[Michael B (a-b-c)]

There must have been a misunderstanding. I never run ff as "2 users w/ one profile". I use the per system account default ff-profile that is unique for every user of the system in her/his home directory. Ubuntu is the first Linux distro i use w/ AppArmor enabled. So far i did not care so very much about AA because still in the phase of setting up kubuntu. And the change from Gnome to kubuntu caused ff (and GIMP, as described in my other mentioned bug report) to behave strange. For example, the libmoon install hindered ff to start after migration to kubuntu, but after purge and re-install ff started w/ libmoon. To me it seems to be maybe a problem of some package-scripts that were executed installing the kubuntu-desktop package (and uninstalling several Gnome related packages).

[Michael B (a-b-c)]

After fixing other problems regarding firefox, see
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kubuntu-meta/+bug/667479
and
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/moon/+bug/538796/comments/35
while the AppArmor-firefox-profile (usr.bin.firefox) was disabled i now enabled the AppArmor-firefox-profile again deleting the symlink in /etc/apparmor.d/disabled. Both was done before the recent updates of ff to version 3.6.12 and xulrunner.
As root and non-root user firefox is now starting and running without recognizable problems.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for firefox (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]