Firefox ESR

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#1

I need to be able to run Firefox ESR along side regular Firefox installed on OpenSUSE.

I downloaded Firefox ESR firefox-24.5.0esr.tar.bz2.
Unpacked and tried to execute firefox:
user@machine:~/Downloads/firefox> ./firefox
(process:12306): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_slice_set_config: assertion ‘sys_page_size == 0’ failed

But instead of opening Firefox ESR version 24, it opens up a new window in my Firefox version 29.
I need both the latest Firefox and the ESR for support and testing. Any idea of how I can make the ESR to work?

Found bug report I think is related to this problem:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=833117

Running on:
OpenSUSE 13.1
KDE 4.13.1

#2

On 2014-05-27 12:56, DJViking wrote:

> But instead of opening Firefox ESR version 24, it opens up a new window
> in my Firefox version 29.

You have to use the “-no-remote” switch, or perhaps “-new-instance”.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)

#3

It doesn’t work with either of those switches. I get the following message when I try:

Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system.

If I close my Firefox 29, and then start the Firefox ESR 24.5 it works.

#4

You also need to use a separate profile.

With firefox not running, try:


firefox -P

That should put you into the profile manager. Create a new profile, say “esr”. Once that is done, select the default profile since this is ordinary firefox.

Now, to start the esr firefox, use


firefox-esr -P esr -no-remote

(replace “firefox-esr” by whatever name you use for this version)

That will run firefox-esr with its own profile.

If you want firefox-esr to have the same settings as your regular firefox, then you can now shutdown “firefox-esr”.

Then


cd ~/.mozilla/firefox
cd *.esr

That puts you in the profile directory for profile “esr”.

You can delete the content of that directory, and recursively copy the content of the default profile directory. That will copy your bookmarks, etc. Before you copy, you should also shutdown the regular firefox. Otherwise you will be copying the information that tells firefox that it is already running.

Thereafter, everything should work as long as you can keep the distinct profiles straight.

NOTE: I often run two instances of firefox, with different profiles. And that works fine. You will be doing the same, except that one of your instances will be with the esr version.

#5

It didn’t work right

Created a new profile called esr. Copied the files from default profile.

Running Firefox ESR
./firefox -P esr -no-remote

Open Firefox 29, it runs compat check, it seems to use the esr profile.
I then run Firefox 29 from command line choose default profile.
I then run Firefox 24 from command line choose esr profile.
Both running. So far OK.
I close both, reopen Firefox 29, it runs compat check, somehow it seems it is using the esr profile. I have to run it at command line to choose default profile again.

The Compat check happens every time I switch between 24 and 29.

#6

That’s not supposed to happen, unless you are using the same profile or changing which is the default profile.

If you are copying files each time, that would happen.

You can look in the file “$HOME/.mozilla/firefox/profiles.ini” to see which one is the default profile. If you are doing it correctly then you want the default to always be the “default” profile and never the “esr” profile.

#7

An alternative way of doing that (and what I am actually doing) would be to use


MOZ_NO_REMOTE=1 ./firefox -P esr

That should put “MOZ_NO_REMOTE=1” in the environment for this process.

#8

My profile.ini


[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=apjjq930.default
Default=1

[Profile1]
Name=ESR
IsRelative=1
Path=5uhewha0.ESR

It looks to be working fine now. No compat check in either Firefox when switching between them.

#9

DJViking wrote:

>
> robin_listas;2645717 Wrote:
>> On 2014-05-27 12:56, DJViking wrote:
>>
>> > But instead of opening Firefox ESR version 24, it opens up a new
>> window
>> > in my Firefox version 29.
>>
>> You have to use the “-no-remote” switch, or perhaps “-new-instance”.
>>
>> –
>> Cheers / Saludos,
>>
>> Carlos E. R.
>> (from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
>
> It doesn’t work with either of those switches. I get the following
> message when I try:
>> Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window,
>> you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your
>> system.
>
> If I close my Firefox 29, and then start the Firefox ESR 24.5 it works.
>

Maybe make a new profile and have it copy over addons, plugins etc? I think
it would be problematic if you have two versions running at once because
what if some file is modified while both are running? What if the change
goes unoticed, etc. I think the best solution that I can think of is
creating a new profile and then having FF ESR use that.

#10

alanbortu wrote:
> Maybe make a new profile and have it copy over addons, plugins
etc? I
> think it would be problematic if you have two versions running
at once
> because what if some file is modified while both are running?
What if the
> change goes unoticed, etc. I think the best solution that I
can think of
> is creating a new profile and then having FF ESR use that.

Ah sorry, I just saw your question was answered already. I just
switched over to KMail for nntp and it didnt auto open the
entire thread so I didnt see it. Apologies.

#11

On 2014-05-28 03:46, alanbortu wrote:
> Ah sorry, I just saw your question was answered already. I just
> switched over to KMail for nntp and it didnt auto open the
> entire thread so I didnt see it. Apologies.

Kmail for nntp? Didn’t know it had that capability. I just tried and I
saw nowhere to set up nntp on it :-?

New version, perhaps?

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)

#12

Carlos E. R. wrote:

> On 2014-05-28 03:46, alanbortu wrote:
> New version, perhaps?
>

Ah no I am using Kontact and have KNode installed. It just all
appears as one program. Just making mistakes today :stuck_out_tongue: