Navigation buttons greyed out

[Carl-Erik Kopseng]

Binary package hint: firefox

I few days ago I was browsing, and suddenly the navigation buttons were greyed out (grayed out). This was in the middle of a session, and so didn't happen after installing a plugin. The only way to fix it was to remove the .mozilla directory, and start up firefox again.

[Carl-Erik Kopseng (kopseng)]

This guy seems to have the same problem (although not having a clue on what he is doing): http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=810042

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Sun, Jun 01, 2008 at 01:19:46PM -0000, Carl-Erik Kopseng wrote:
> Public bug reported:
>
> Binary package hint: firefox
>
> I few days ago I was browsing, and suddenly the navigation buttons were
> greyed out. This was in the middle of a session, and so didn't happen
> after installing a plugin. The only way to fix it was to remove the
> .mozilla directory, and start up firefox again.
>

Try to disable your extensions in tools -> addons. If that doesnt help
attach the file that pops up when running

 find $HOME/.mozilla -name localstore.rdf

in a terminal.

Further I assume this is about ffox 3

 affects ubuntu/firefox
 status invalid
 affects ubuntu/firefox-3.0
 status incomplete

 - Alexander

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

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!

[jd (jeff-dyke)]

I'd like to reopen this bug with some of the additional information that you asked for. Plus a note. When i see this behavior (all the time now) and am using tabs, it seems that the page never completes loading (even though it appears to) as the spinner is still spinning on the tab. (even on this bug page). Also Right Click on the page and "Back", "Forward","Reload" and "Stop" are greyed out, but all others are active. These same buttons are greyed out in the top navigation.

This started happening to me this morning. I had upgraded the new linux headers last night, but see this with both -18 and -19, currently i'm in : Linux flipjeff 2.6.24-18-generic #1 SMP Wed May 28 20:27:26 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux
Firefox is from repository and has been completely removed and reinstalled.

Please contact me with any other info you'd like (I did disable all add-ons and restart, but no difference)
Thanks
Jeff

Here is my find $HOME/.mozilla -name localstore.rdf
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<RDF:RDF xmlns:NC="http://home.netscape.com/NC-rdf#"
         xmlns:RDF="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
  <RDF:Description RDF:about="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#fbPanelBar1"
                   width="1406" />
  <RDF:Description RDF:about="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#toolbar-menubar"
                   currentset="menubar-items,spring,throbber-box" />
  <RDF:Description RDF:about="chrome://mozapps/content/extensions/extensions.xul#extensionsManager"
                   width="520"
                   height="380"
                   sizemode="normal"
                   screenX="0"
                   screenY="25" />
  <RDF:Description RDF:about="chrome://browser/content/places/places.xul#placesContentKeyword"
                   ordinal="11" />
  <RDF:Description RDF:about="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul">
    <NC:persist RDF:resource="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#main-window"/>
    <NC:persist RDF:resource="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#sidebar-box"/>
    <NC:persist RDF:resource="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#sidebar-title"/>
    <NC:persist RDF:resource="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#stumbleupon"/>
    <NC:persist RDF:resource="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#toolbar-menubar"/>
    <NC:persist RDF:resource="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#nav-bar"/>
    <NC:persist RDF:resource="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#PersonalToolbar"/>
    <NC:persist RDF:resource="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#su_info_toolbar"/>
    <NC:persist RDF:resource="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#fbPanelBar1"/>
    <NC:persist RDF:resource="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#fbSidePanelDeck"/>
  </RDF:Description>
  <RDF:Description RDF:about="chrome://mozapps/content/extensions/extensions.xul#viewGroup"
                   last-selected="extensions" />
  <RDF:Description RDF:about="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#nav-bar"
                   currentset="unified-back-forward-button,reload-button,stop-button,home-button,urlbar-container,search-container" />
  <RDF:Description RDF:about="chrome://mozapps/content/downloads/unknownContentType.xul">
    <NC:persist RDF:r...

[jd (jeff-dyke)]

ping? Was curious if this got reopened appropriately and was directed at the right group. I noticed that my report states firefox, when it is actually, firefox-3.0, but the system will not allow me to change it. States that its already open under that version.

SHould i open a new one or is the information here sufficient. Using opera as a full time browser is a bit painful, and would like to get firefox back.

Jeff

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 04:42:14PM -0000, jd wrote:
> ping? Was curious if this got reopened appropriately and was directed
> at the right group. I noticed that my report states firefox, when it is
> actually, firefox-3.0, but the system will not allow me to change it.
> States that its already open under that version.
>
> SHould i open a new one or is the information here sufficient. Using
> opera as a full time browser is a bit painful, and would like to get
> firefox back.
>

 affects ubuntu/firefox
 status invalid
 affects ubuntu/firefox-3.0
 status incomplete

so can you reproduce this with a fresh profile? doe disabling all
extensions help?

 - Alexander

[Carl-Erik Kopseng (kopseng)]

> so can you reproduce this with a fresh profile? doe disabling all
> extensions help?

for me, disabling all extensions did NOT help. buttons were still greyed
out, but making a new profile (actually just deleting the old profile)
"fixed" things. not a very good solutions though, since you then need
to do every customization again.

[jd (jeff-dyke)]

Ditto for me on the extensions. I took the sledge hammer approach, ran a(nother) complete removal in synaptic, deleted everything remotely related to firefox on my system and ran an install. and again ditto on Carls solution comment.

I was able to install and use firefox-2 at this point, unsurprisingly but...

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

 Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue for you. Can you try with the latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[Carl-Erik Kopseng (kopseng)]

Yes, it is still a problem.

[Ted Rice (rhys12)]

If you open terminal and run "sudo firefox" do your buttons come back? If so, it is probably a file permissions or ownership issue. I have this problem with one account of the three on my Ubuntu computer but haven't worked on it yet as I don't usually use Firefox from that user account and it works fine from the others.

I am fairly new to Linux but so far all the issues of "grayed out" programs and buttons I have encountered have involved ownership and permissions.

[Ted Rice (rhys12)]

I inadvertently solved this problem while working on another (gksudo - update manager hanging instead of opening the login box).

After I changed the line in the hosts file 127.0.1.1 so the hostname matched the one in /etc/hostname my buttons came back in Firefox.

Don't know if any of this will help, as I am new to Ubuntu linux and not really sure what I am doing at times, but it is worth looking at - it worked for me.

[Toast (nohfcs)]

I was browsing the web and came across a site that caused my entire computer to freeze; keyboard wouldn't even respond. After rebooting, I encountered this bug in firefox.
I ran firefox as root, and was prompted to restore my previous session. Restoring it, I received the original session that caused my computer to crash, not my most recent session. After rebooting again, I ran sudo firefox and choose a new session. I closed firefox, opened it normally, and everything worked fine.
My steps to fix this: open terminal, sudo firefox >> chose start new session >> close firefox, exit terminal >> open firefox normally

[srwall (srwall)]

For what it's worth... I came across this yesterday (2009-05-10) and read through this bug report.. moving my default profile fixed the problem so I moved one file at a time and started firefox after each.
my problem was fixed when I moved the places.sqlite-journal file.
After reading the post(s) about file permissions I looked and this file was owned by root.. so I chown'd it back to my user (and put the original file back in place, obviously) and all my navigation buttons came back.
So mine was a permissions issue.. but I'm curious how that file became owned by root.
Also, in addition to greyed out navigation buttons, when I would open a new tab the address bar, instead of being blank, would contain the address of the tab I was on when I opened the new tab (but the new tab was still blank as usual). And F6 would not highlight the address bar.
At least everything is back to normal for me now... if it happens again, I'll try to remember the last few things I did before the problem came around.

[christopher pijarski (kpijarski)]

I had the same problem. Removing the UBUFOX extension through synaptic did the trick for me - at last a working Shiretoku :)

[DrewPlant (rplantsprint)]

I had the same problem with permissions on the places.sqlite-journal file. When I chown'ed to myself, the navigation buttons became ungreyed the address window in new-tab was refreshed. I had previously upgraded to 3.0.15.
Cheers,
D

[axelsvag (darinsson)]

I have exactly the same problem after the 3.0.16 update. But I have not understood which files to delete, change owner or.. and where are they?

[telewatho (telewatho)]

Cheers guys!! These steps fixed it for me:

- Locate the places.sqlite-journal file in:
$HOME/.mozilla/firefox/[NAME OF PROFILE]/
- Ensure that the file is owned by root with "ls -l"
- In the folder, run: "sudo chown [USERNAME] ./places.sqlite-journal"

Then restart firefox and load a page. The buttons should be back and the URL should go blank when the "new tab" button is pressed. And normality is restored.

Hope this helps, the Watho