Firefox gives blank page on statrup with an OK button

[Deepak]

Binary package hint: firefox

Am facing one problem while running Firefox on power pc machine running Ubuntu. Let me give the details.

1. I have a headless ( monitor less) power pc machine on which I have installed Ubuntu.
2. I used apt-get install Firefox to install Firefox on this ( Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.3, Copyright (c) 1998 - 2007 Mozilla.org)
3. I run X ming on my Windows XP machine and use putty to connect to the power pc machine.
4. When I run Firefox & on the putty terminal, Firefox throws up a blank dialog with OK button. When I press OK, Firefox closes.
5. If I run Firefox in safe-mode it opens without any issues. But the preferences tab is blank again.

Can someone tell me what could be the issue here ? I want to get the Firefox running in the normal mode.

I tried the same with Firefox 2.0.0.4 ( by building the from the source). I observed the same behavior.

I also tried with Firefox 3.0, This time the dialog displayed the message "Error Launching browser window: No XBL binding for browser". In addition on the console, I get this error "(Gecko:2236): G Lib-CRITICAL **: g_hash_table_unref: assertion `hash_table != NULL' failed."

[Andreas Moog (ampelbein)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Could you please try this:

Go to ~/.mozilla/firefox/<your profile>

Rename chrome to chrome-old

Start firefox.

Does that work for you?

[Deepak (dipaktc)]

Thank you for your reply.

When I go to the folder ~/.mozilla/firefox/, I see following directory strcuture

cafgdq2t.default
profiles.ini

Considering that cafgdq2t.default is my profile, I renamed the chrome folder to chrome-old and then started firefox ( both 2.0.0.3 and 3.0). But there is no difference.

[Andreas Moog (ampelbein)]

Could you please try with a fresh profile as explained in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Bugs?action=show&redirect=DebuggingFirefox ? The message you receive generally shows a problem with your profile.

[Deepak (dipaktc)]

When I try firefox -ProfileManager, it is not creating the profiles. I have attached the screenshots I get. In the 4th screen, when I press on Next button, it hangs. I waited for about more than 30 minutes, but it does not proceed.

I have tried this a couple of times.

[Andreas Moog (ampelbein)]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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Deepak wrote:

> When I try firefox -ProfileManager, it is not creating the profiles. I
> have attached the screenshots I get. In the 4th screen, when I press on
> Next button, it hangs. I waited for about more than 30 minutes, but it
> does not proceed.
>
> I have tried this a couple of times.

There seems to be a serious issue with your firefox-installation. Please
rename your whole ~/.mozilla directory to ~/.mozilla-old and try again.

Also, please check if the user you are starting firefox with has
sufficient permissions on ~/.mozilla/*.
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[Deepak (dipaktc)]

Ok. I tried renaming the .mozilla folder to .mozilla_old and started firefox. Still it did not help.
I removed firefox installation by apt-get remove firefox. Deleted the .mozilla folder. Then installed again by apt-get install firefox.
Then tried to create a new profile. But it still hangs.

[Deepak (dipaktc)]

One more thing I observed is when I start firefox in safe mode and go Edit->preferences, sometimes it gives me a blank window and sometimes it shows all the options. If I go to the content tab and change the fonts and the color settings and close this window, they are not retained.

[Deepak (dipaktc)]

Am doing all this as root so I guess there is no question of not having permissions.

[Andreas Moog (ampelbein)]

Very strange. Please make a backup-copy of your mozilla-folder, try purging (apt-get purge) firefox and install again. Same thing?

[Deepak (dipaktc)]

Yes it is strange.

I tried "apt-get --purge remove firefox" and installed again. But I do not see any change.

When I do Edit->Preferences ( in safe mode), then I get the attached screen.

[Andreas Moog (ampelbein)]

Could you try starting in Safe-Mode and remove all installed extensions? Also, please double-check that you have removed the .mozilla-directory belonging to your account.

[Deepak (dipaktc)]

There are no extensions installed. See attached.

[Deepak (dipaktc)]

Attached is the strace output of firefox in safe mode and normal mode. Can someone help me figure out what could be the problem?

[Andreas Moog (ampelbein)]

You are starting firefox as root:

stat64("/root/.mozilla/firefox/37w4fa73.default", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0700, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0

So you have to move /root/.mozilla to /root/.mozilla-old and try again.

From your previous comment:

>When I go to the folder ~/.mozilla/firefox/, I see following directory strcuture
>cafgdq2t.default
>profiles.ini

That shows you have been renaming the wrong profile directory, as i said in comment 12 ;-)

[Deepak (dipaktc)]

When I login in root, my home directory is set to /root.

So When I renamed the mozilla folder or the chrome folder as you mentioned, I was changing in /root/.mozilla only.

[Andreas Moog (ampelbein)]

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In which directory is the folder cafgdq2t.default then? You must rename
the folder named 37w4fa73.default because that is the profile firefox is
using.
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[Deepak (dipaktc)]

I renamed the default folder in /root/.mozilla/5x8ifah0.default to 5x8ifah0.default.old and then launched firefox.

I got the attached screen

[Deepak (dipaktc)]

I also tried installing epiphany browser and when I start it I get the following error

root@(none):~/.mozilla/firefox# epiphany

(epiphany:7610): libgnomevfs-WARNING **: Failed to create service browser: Bad state

(epiphany:7610): libgnomevfs-WARNING **: Failed to create service browser: Bad state

(epiphany:7610): libgnomevfs-WARNING **: Failed to create service browser: Bad state

and when I run with option --g-fatal-warnings, it terminates.

root@(none):~/.mozilla/firefox# epiphany --g-fatal-warnings

libgnomevfs-WARNING **: Failed to create service browser: Bad state

aborting...
Aborted (core dumped)
root@(none):~/.mozilla/firefox#

[Deepak (dipaktc)]

When I tried to run firefox3 after changing the default folder as mentioned in my above post, attached is the screen I got. It says there is another instance of firefox running!!

[Andreas Moog (ampelbein)]

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Deepak wrote:

> I renamed the default folder in /root/.mozilla/5x8ifah0.default to
> 5x8ifah0.default.old and then launched firefox.

Where is this folder coming from? Firefox obviously does not use it:

stat64("/root/.mozilla/firefox/37w4fa73.default", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0700,
st_size=4096, ...}) = 0

That is the folder firefox opens! Please have a look where this folder
is and rename it.

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[Deepak (dipaktc)]

Sorry I meant to say /root/.mozilla/firefox/x8ifah0.default folder.

Actually it creates a random name folder name. I must have re installed firefox after I last took the strace. So you see a different folder name. But I changed the correct folder name.

[Deepak (dipaktc)]

Sorry I meant to say /root/.mozilla/firefox/5x8ifah0.default folder.

Actually it creates a random name folder name. I must have re installed firefox after I last took the strace. So you see a different folder name. But I changed the correct folder name.

[Deepak (dipaktc)]

I actually installed Ubuntu on a ppc based mac. Though I couldn't start the desktop, I could open firefox via an XServer. It works well without any of the issues I have mentioned above.

Makes me wonder what could be the problem with my ppc board.

One obvious difference that I see is the cpu used in either systems are different.

My mac ppc used G5 where as my board uses e500v2 core.

Also since error messages are not getting displayed, I suspect this could be an issue with the gtk+ library ( pango??, cairo??).

I wish I knew how to go about debugging this?? Hmm!!

[Deepak (dipaktc)]

I have built the sources of firefox 2.0.0.16 with debug messages and below is the log I get when I run firefox.
Can someone tell me what could be wrong.

Type Manifest File: /root/.mozilla/firefox/fi58rhq8.default/xpti.dat
*** Registering Apprunner components (all right -- a generic module!)
nsNativeComponentLoader: autoregistering begins.
nsNativeComponentLoader: autoregistering succeeded
nsNativeComponentLoader: registering deferred (0)
pldhash: for the table at address 0x100aa958, the given entrySize of 44 probably favors chaining over double hashing.
WARNING: NS_ENSURE_TRUE(NS_SUCCEEDED(rv)) failed, file nsChromeRegistry.cpp, line 1272
GFX: dpi=96 t2p=0.0666667 p2t=15 depth=24
++WEBSHELL == 1
WARNING: NS_ENSURE_TRUE(NS_SUCCEEDED(rv)) failed, file nsPermissionManager.cpp, line 632
++DOMWINDOW == 1
WARNING: NS_ENSURE_TRUE(NS_SUCCEEDED(rv)) failed, file nsStringBundle.cpp, line 273
++DOMWINDOW == 2
++WEBSHELL == 2
++DOMWINDOW == 3
++DOMWINDOW == 4
Note: styleverifytree is disabled
Note: frameverifytree is disabled
Note: verifyreflow is disabled
pldhash: for the table at address 0x1068fdd0, the given entrySize of 68 definitely favors chaining over double hashing.
JavaScript error: chrome://global/content/bindings/tabbox.xml, line 267: tabs[val] has no properties
++WEBSHELL == 3
++DOMWINDOW == 5
JavaScript error: chrome://global/content/bindings/tabbrowser.xml, line 2420: this.mPanelContainer.childNodes[0] has no properties
++DOMWINDOW == 6
WARNING: chrome shouldn't be calling alert(), use the prompt service, file nsGlobalWindow.cpp, line 3443
++WEBSHELL == 4
++DOMWINDOW == 7
++DOMWINDOW == 8
JavaScript error: chrome://global/content/commonDialog.js, line 127: messageParent has no properties
--WEBSHELL == 3
************************************************************
* Call to xpconnect wrapped JSObject produced this error: *
[Exception... "'[JavaScript Error: "this.mCurrentBrowser has no properties" {file: "chrome://global/content/bindings/tabbrowser.xml" line: 1595}]' when calling method: [nsIDOMEventListener::handleEvent]" nsresult: "0x80570021 (NS_ERROR_XPC_JAVASCRIPT_ERROR_WITH_DETAILS)" location: "<unknown>" data: yes]
************************************************************
--DOMWINDOW == 7
--DOMWINDOW == 6
************************************************************
* Call to xpconnect wrapped JSObject produced this error: *
[Exception... "'[JavaScript Error: "aPanel has no properties" {file: "file:///home/deepak/mozilla/dist/bin/components/nsSessionStore.js" line: 521}]' when calling method: [nsISessionStore::init]" nsresult: "0x80570021 (NS_ERROR_XPC_JAVASCRIPT_ERROR_WITH_DETAILS)" location: "JS frame :: chrome://browser/content/browser.js :: delayedStartup :: line 977" data: yes]
************************************************************
nsSessionStore could not be initialized: [Exception... "'[JavaScript Error: "aPanel has no properties" {file: "file:///home/deepak/mozilla/dist/bin/components/nsSessionStore.js" line: 521}]' when calling method: [nsISessionStore::init]" nsresult: "0x80570021 (NS_ERROR_XPC_JAVASCRIPT_ERROR_WITH_DETAILS)" location: "JS frame :: chrome://browser/content/browser.js :: delayedStartup :: l...

[Duane Hinnen (duanedesign)]

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.

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

this was fixed already