Firefox 3.03 freezes when the Print dialog is accessed.

[Dovel]

Binary package hint: firefox

Using Firefox 3.03 on Intrepid. I normally use the print function in Firefox to print receipts etc to pdf. When I select print now though I get an empty dialog window popping up which I cannot close. Firefox fully freezes and I have to force quit. Doesn't seem to matter if I select the Print option from the File menu or use the print button on the toolbar. Print works fine in other applications.

Update: the problem can be fixed by manually deleting all references to system printers in about:config. This seems to suggest that the problem is caused by a FF auto config bug of some sort.

[Dovel (dov01)]

Just checked and the cups error log doesn't show anything. The access log shows that access was successful at the time I last tried to print from firefox.

[Dovel (dov01)]

Problem can be fixed by manually deleting all references to system printers in about:config. This is a very tiresome task.

Is it really necessary for FF to store such detailed printer info? Isn't that what CUPS is there for?

[TR (sem101)]

the problem continues and I have not been able to fix it using any of the suggested solutions:
see also https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=457850
editing your profile's prefs.js files is the same as twiddling with about:config but you can search and replace and make teh job less painful - in any case it does not always work. A cups restarts used to work but makes no difference now...
I think the duplicate status is wrong.

[WH Mitty (whmitty)]

I am in the same boat as TR using Firefox 3.5.5pre under Ubuntu Linux 8.04.3 LTS. I must use Opera to print pages from a site until this is rectified in a future release. This is only a duplicate in that it is the identical problem in a later version of Firefox.

[TR (sem101)]

I'm sorry I wish I could have posted a solution for this.
I spent loads and loads of time on it before I simply gave up.
No-one has posted a solution.
All I have are pointers and clues

Deleting FF settings did NOT work for me - it was a complete waste of time and effort - I wish people did some fact checking before posting time-wastey 'tps' that are merely mindless repeats of solutions that do not work.

I also removed CUPS and every reference to it that I could find.
Nothing worked.
I just had to put up with this incredibly stupid flaw [I'm not sure if it's actually a bug] until it went away at some unknown point for some equally unknown reason.

I never found a solution and the problem was replicated in other installations.
I simply updated Firefox each time there was an update and used Konqueror as the print front end.
At some point the problem went away.
I cannot tell you when as by that time I'd stopped fixing it.

My guess/theory is that this is a result of another security lockdown somewhere else that affects CUPS badly.
I might suggest that if you log in as root and try your current & broken installation you may find that CUPS prints.
This seems to suggest that something else has buggered up permissions yet again.

I'm a 'normal' loonix user - in that I use it for everyday business purposes - I am not designing nuclear launch sites or administering 1500 mail servers - and I have found that the primary cause of pretty much every stop or problem I have come across ended up as the result of some security enhancement.
You know, sometimes people just want to use loonix as a general purpose tool.
fanatical security dogma is killing desktop loonix.