Firefox fails to launch in unity8 zesty

[kevin gunn]

daily iso of zesty exploring clean u8

to repro
1) open app drawer
2) find ff icon, click to launch

journal shows the following
http://pastebin.ubuntu.com/24080554/

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Firefox works fine (almost - bug 1625846) when run manually. This is just a U8/Libertine launching/permissions problem.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Here's a terminal command for working Firefox:

mirrun Xmir :1 -sw -rootless -flatten --desktop_file_hint=unity8 & sleep 2 ; env DISPLAY=:1 firefox

You don't need all those options. Just -sw to work around bug 1607238, and -flatten to work around bug 1625846.

[kevin gunn (kgunn72)]

fwiw, this isn't a libertine app. this is a preinstalled pkg that just comes as part of the image.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

In that case Unity8 needs to come with Xmir already running (and accessible to apps). It's not right now.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Oh, it seems Firefox/GTK needs fixing. It's trying to use both X11 (bug 1668429) and native Mir:

Feb 27 14:31:01 kg-Studio-1737 firefox[6135]: /build/gtk+3.0-MH7ynA/gtk+3.0-3.22.7/./gdk/x11/gdkwindow-x11.c:5573 drawable is not a native X11 window
Feb 27 14:31:01 kg-Studio-1737 firefox[6135]: Ignoring unknown Mir event 11
Feb 27 14:31:01 kg-Studio-1737 firefox[6135]: Ignoring unknown Mir event 8

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Understandably we may not want to invest the time in fixing Firefox to run with pure GTK (pure Mir) right now. A quicker fix should be just to resolve Unity8 launching bug 1668429.

[Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan)]

Is this still an issue? it just spins forever on startup here

[Stephen M. Webb (bregma)]

It's going to be an issue until Firefox gets fixed upstream to not try to use X11 when it's using Mir.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

or "try to use X11 when it's using pure GTK" :)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

or "to not try to use X11 when it's using pure GTK".

As far as Mir is concerned X11 and GTK are alternatives to each other. Given the choice we should choose pure GTK.