Comment 163 for bug 10910

Revision history for this message
In , Bruce Kingsbury (zcat-u) wrote :

I have just followed the procedure of;

1) Download Firefox-24.0 English(UK) version for Linux
2) Download Firefox-24.0 English(UK) version for Linux again and compare just to be sure I didn't accidentally get the wrong one
3) Check environment and observe LANG=en_NZ.UTF-8
4) Check printer settings and see that default paper size is A4
5) rm -rf ~/.mozilla so there are no previous settings.
6) As root, rm -rf /opt/firefox and extract the one I just downloaded
7) as normal user again, run firefox and get the usual first-run page
8) about:config and search for paper_size

Observe that paper size is letter.

There is nothing on my computer that suggests it should be using letter, and no other program that I ever print from has EVER decided that the paper size should be letter. Only firefox gets this wrong. It's been getting it wrong now for well over ten years.

I like everything else about firefox except for this one infuriating bug.

This bug was first filed in 2002. It's now 2013. I've just upgraded to Firefox 24.0 on all my machines and my default paper size has, once again as it does every upgrade, reverted to the US_Letter papersize.

I live in the other 96% of the world that uses A4 paper, so every time I try to print from Firefox I get an error message on my printer.

OpenOffice and Libreoffice get the paper size right. GIMP gets the paper size right. Inkscape gets the papersize right. Abiword gets the paper size right. Gedit gets the paper size right. Tuxpaint gets the papersize right. EVERY OTHER program I use under any distro of Linux manages to correctly determine that I use A4 paper and doesn't give me any problems.

But not Firefox.

Firefox defaults to US_Letter. Even though my printer is set for A4. Even though my language is en_NZ. Even when I've manually changed ALL of the defaults back to A4 under about:config it still bloody-mindedly sets everything back to US-Letter every singe time there's some minor point-update of Firefox.

Firefox is the ONLY program that does this.

And it's been doing it far too long.

Pleas, for the love of Free Software, FIX THIS BUG.