Firefox is broken/will not start

Blue_Lizard · January 15, 2010, 10:50pm

Hi, when I click the Firefox icon the pointer will go into it’s usual clock/idle timer mode but the browser never opens.

I have tried reinstalling Firefox from yast, have killed all Firefox processes, I have tried starting it from the command line, and I have tried a reboot.

you see the process is running but not browser window

ps -ef | grep firefox

root 7906 1 0 Jan14 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/firefox
root 7911 7906 0 Jan14 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/firefox/firefox
root 9981 9961 0 13:46 pts/0 00:00:00 grep firefox

Thanks

chief_sealth · January 16, 2010, 12:19am

Why are you running Firefox as root?

Blue_Lizard · January 16, 2010, 12:53am

lol :). During my trouble shooting I have also tried running it as root.

chief_sealth · January 16, 2010, 1:22am

Is there any output running Firefox from the terminal? Also try running FF in a different user account (not root). If that works, rename the ‘~/.mozilla’ directory in your account, and then see if you can launch FF.

user · January 16, 2010, 1:16am

Blue Lizard wrote:
> lol :). During my trouble shooting I have also tried running it as
> root.

trouble shooting by running as root is TROUBLE alright…

a good way to get rooted.

–
palladium

Blue_Lizard · January 16, 2010, 3:25am

The output as a user that is not root is nothing, it is just a blinking cursor. That is why I am very puzzeled, there is nothing in the /var/log/messages either.

I tried renaming ~/.mozilla and then restarting no luck.

chief_sealth · January 16, 2010, 3:31am

What version of Firefox/openSUSE do you have? Did you install Firefox from the repos, or did you download it from the Mozilla website?

Blue_Lizard · January 16, 2010, 3:39am

from the repos. version is 3.5.6-1.1.1

chief_sealth · January 16, 2010, 3:43am

And openSUSE?

mmarif4u · January 16, 2010, 3:43am

Do you have some plugins installed? like mplayer for FF.
If yes, some time it broke FF, you can try to run FF after uninstalling that plugin.

Just a guess.

Blue_Lizard · January 16, 2010, 5:36am

yes opensuse:

uname -a

Linux myserver 2.6.31.8-0.1-default #1 SMP 2009-12-15 23:55:40 +0100 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

how do I view what plugins are in installed without the gui?

caf4926 · January 16, 2010, 5:41am

Post result of

zypper lr -d

mmarif4u · January 16, 2010, 6:09am

Go to YaST, and search for keyword “firefox” without quotes, and you will see mplayer pluing for FF there, if installed, uninstall it and then try through terminal to open FF.

Blue_Lizard · January 16, 2010, 6:22am

output:

# sudo zypper lr -d
#  | Alias                                  | Name                                   | Enabled | Refresh | Priority | Type   | URI                                                              | Service
---+----------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+---------+---------+----------+--------+------------------------------------------------------------------+--------
1  | OpenSuSE_11.2-Non-oss                  | OpenSuSE 11.2-Non-oss                  | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | yast2  | ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/opensuse/distribution/11.2/repo/non-oss |        
2  | Packman Repository                     | Packman Repository                     | No      | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | [Index of /pub/packman/suse/11.2](http://packman.mirrors.skynet.be/pub/packman/suse/11.2)           |        
3  | Updates_for_OpenSuSE_11.2              | Updates for OpenSuSE 11.2              | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/opensuse/update/11.2/                   |        
4  | ftp-packman.mirrors.skynet.be-55db3c5d | ftp-packman.mirrors.skynet.be-55db3c5d | No      | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | ftp://packman.mirrors.skynet.be/%2fpub/packman/suse/11.2         |        
5  | ftp-packman.mirrors.skynet.be-d98b4c97 | ftp-packman.mirrors.skynet.be-d98b4c97 | No      | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | ftp://packman.mirrors.skynet.be/%2fpub/packman/suse/11.2         |        
6  | http-download.opensuse.org-b89ed4b3    | Updates for openSUSE 11.2-0            | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | [Index of /update/11.2](http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.2/)                        |        
7  | openSUSE 11.2-0                        | openSUSE 11.2-0                        | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | yast2  | ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/opensuse/distribution/11.2/repo/oss     |        
8  | repo-debug                             | openSUSE-11.2-Debug                    | No      | Yes     |   99     | NONE   | [Index of /debug/distribution/11.2/repo/oss](http://download.opensuse.org/debug/distribution/11.2/repo/oss/)   |        
9  | repo-non-oss                           | openSUSE-11.2-Non-Oss                  | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | yast2  | [Index of /distribution/11.2/repo/non-oss](http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.2/repo/non-oss/)     |        
10 | repo-oss                               | openSUSE-11.2-Oss                      | Yes     | Yes     |   99     | yast2  | [Index of /distribution/11.2/repo/oss](http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.2/repo/oss/)         |        
11 | repo-source                            | openSUSE-11.2-Source                   | No      | Yes     |   99     | NONE   | [Index of /source/distribution/11.2/repo/oss](http://download.opensuse.org/source/distribution/11.2/repo/oss/)  |

the Packman repos were just disabled ~3 hours ago.

Thanks all for your assistance thus far :good:

caf4926 · January 16, 2010, 6:34am

I don’t know of an issue with the mplayer plugin, but then I don’t use it.

There is no need to disable Packman. And simply disabling the repo will not disable the plugin.

Keep, enable and refresh repos: 2,3,9,10

Open Yast -Software Management and search for: mplayerplug-in
If it is installed remove it
If it’s not, tell me what you get from a terminal with:

zypper lu

Blue_Lizard · January 16, 2010, 6:52pm

I have enabled the repos. I do not have the mplayer plugin installed. But Mplayer itself is installed.

# zypper lu
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
S | Repository         | Name                 | Current Version      | Available Version     | Arch  
--+--------------------+----------------------+----------------------+-----------------------+-------
v | Packman Repository | easytag              | 2.1.6-1.pm.1.10      | 2.1.6-1.pm.1.12       | i586  
v | Packman Repository | gstreamer-0_10       | 0.10.25-999.pm.999.6 | 0.10.25-999.pm.999.15 | i586  
v | Packman Repository | gstreamer-0_10-lang  | 0.10.25-999.pm.999.6 | 0.10.25-999.pm.999.15 | noarch
v | Packman Repository | lame                 | 3.98.2-1.pm.4.16     | 3.98.2-1.pm.4.17      | i586  
v | Packman Repository | libenca0             | 1.9-2.2              | 1.12-1.pm.3.1         | i586  
v | Packman Repository | libfaad2             | 2.7-1.pm.2.2         | 2.7-1.pm.2.3          | i586  
v | Packman Repository | libgstreamer-0_10-0  | 0.10.25-999.pm.999.6 | 0.10.25-999.pm.999.15 | i586  
v | Packman Repository | libmp3lame0          | 3.98.2-1.pm.4.16     | 3.98.2-1.pm.4.17      | i586  
v | Packman Repository | libmp4v2             | 1.6.1-1.pm.3.1       | 1.6.1-1.pm.4.1        | i586  
v | Packman Repository | python-beautifulsoup | 3.0.7a-1.pm.1.1      | 3.0.7a-1.pm.1.2       | i586  
v | Packman Repository | wxWidgets            | 2.8.10.1-1.pm.6.11   | 2.8.10.1-1.pm.6.12    | i586  
v | Packman Repository | wxWidgets-gl         | 2.8.10.1-1.pm.6.11   | 2.8.10.1-1.pm.6.12    | i586

caf4926 · January 16, 2010, 7:54pm

It’s OK to run the updates
If FF still doesn’t work, try creating a new user account and login there, see if FF works.

Report back

Blue_Lizard · January 16, 2010, 8:55pm

BIG find. After doing the zypper updates. I logged into the server locally (not using the NX client) and the browser works!

I then logged in with just using VNC and the browser works!

So this is an NX client issue. I will read up on that.

Thanks for your help.

If you have any knowledge on what NX could be doing I would appreciate it. I think because the NX server is not running with root privileges it is causing issues with the browser?

Blue_Lizard · January 16, 2010, 9:09pm

Here is the workaround for anyone else that may experince this. It has worked for me. In summary uncheck “enable multimedia support”.

[ubuntu] Firefox not coming up from NX Client connection - Ubuntu Forums](http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1236606)

caf4926 · January 16, 2010, 9:12pm

Well done sorting that. I’ve seen people throw the towel in for less.