Firefox won't start as non-root

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#1

This is my first openSUSE install, after a few years with Mandriva. Everything seemed to be going well, openSUSE 11.2 RC1 x64, KDE 4.3.1. Installed Flash x64 alpha and everything seemed to be working fine. Then after a number of days, firefox (and consequently Songbird) wouldn’t open.

There are a number of similar posts across the net and as a result I’ve tried:

Reapplying permissions on ~/.mozilla
Deleting ~./mozilla
Reinstalling Firefox
Reinstalling GTK and gconf2
Removing Flash and running firefox -safe-mode

Nothing has worked. Running from root works fine. Running from the icon creates some disk activity and creates two processes but no Browser windows appears. Running from the terminal doesn’t create any processes or give ANY feedback at the console.

Without any errors, I’m lost what to do next. Any suggestions would be welcome.

#2

Did you try a delete of .mozilla or re-name it .mozilla_old

Try starting FF from a terminal: firefox

what is the output in terminal

#3

Thanks for the quick reply. I think I must be using the right distro since the first reply to my first port here on the forums comes from a few miles down the road in the lakes!

Tried renaming and deleting ~/.mozilla and there is absolutely no output when you run from the terminal. Thats’s what is so confusing.

I’m going to try adding the user to the root group, to test if its permissions.

#4

No, adding to the root group had no effect.

#5

> Any suggestions would be welcome.

the lions share of testers post and receive helpful info in the forum
set up especially for software which has not yet reached its release date:

http://forums.opensuse.org/pre-release-beta/

–
palladium

#6

inheritthewind wrote:

> Without any errors, I’m lost what to do next. Any suggestions would be
> welcome.

Create a new user and try launching with that.

Greetings,

–
Camaleón

#7

@inheritthewind
Nice to know you are close by.

I hope I don’t interpret correctly from your comments that you might have been logging in as root. Or is it just running from a su terminal? Logging in as root is a No No.

Might I ask where songbird came from? And are you running FF from Factory or is it from the default install. As a browser in the meantime I guess you could install opera.

#8

@caf4926

No, su’ing to root from the terminal. Firefox is default 11.2RC1, Songbird is from packman. Both were working perfectly for a week.
I actually use opera, but my wife prefers firefox and I would need it for Songbird anyway.

@Camaleón

Created another user and Firefox starts without any problems!

So what else is in ~/ that could stop it from running apart from ~/.mozilla ??

Thanks for all your help so far.

#9

Install the package “MozillaFirefox-debuginfo.” Then, from a terminal, run

firefox --debug

Post the output here.

I’m going to try adding the user to the root group, to test if its permissions.

Do you mean you escalated your account to root? Please undo this. As caf says, never log into an X session as root.

#10

In dolphin go to the FF Icon on in the Desktop and open with kwrite.

Mine is like this:


[Desktop Entry]
X-SuSE-translate=true
Categories=Application;Network;WebBrowser;X-Ximian-Main;X-Ximian-Toplevel;
Name=Firefox
Comment=Web Browser
TryExec=firefox
Exec=firefox %u
Icon=firefox
Terminal=false
MimeType=text/html;application/xhtml+xml
Type=Application
OnlyShowIn=KDE;

Compare

#11

inheritthewind wrote:

> @Camaleón
>
> Created another user and Firefox starts without any problems!
>
> So what else is in ~/ that could stop it from running apart from
> ~/.mozilla ??

Mmm… maybe a firefox instance that is still running from your user.

Login as your standard user and look for any “firefox” proccess(es) running
in background (“ps aux | grep firefox” or “Ctrl+Esc” to launch the proccess
table). If any, just kill them all.

Anyway, that indeed makes no much sense as after shutting down and power on
the system, the processes should go away :-?

I’m not sure how the new kde 4.x manages that, but on kde 3.5
cleaning “/tmp” folder (at least for files and folders that belong to you
user) usually -not always- helped.

Greetings,

–
Camaleón

#12

@chief_stealth
Root group remoevd now, just tried it for a quick test.

Installed the firefox-debuginfo package, and ran firefox --debug from the terminal. Still absolutely no feedback whatsoever.
Strange.

@caf2926
My icon shortcut is exactly the same as yours.

#13

> So what else is in ~/ that could stop it from running apart from
> ~/.mozilla ??

maybe compare
/home/[works]/.kde4/??] to
/home/[BROKE]/.kde4/??]

–
palladium

#14

@Camaleón

Yes, I always check for existing sessions and kill them before trying again.
I forgot to mention, I tried clearing /tmp after reading another forum post. Something to do with gconf using /tmp instead of ~/.
I’m wondering if renaming .gconf, .gconf2 or .gnome might help.

#15

renaming .gconf, .gconfd and .gnome2 had no effect BTW.

@palladium
I’ll try that next.

#16

renaming .kde and .kde4 made no difference.

Since the installation is only a fortnight old, I could just create a new user and copy all my data over.

I have to admit, I would prefer to fix the current user. Since it was a new installation, I hadn’t actually done that much customisation - so it could in theory reoccur.

Any more suggestions anyone?

#17

Try some other GTK apps. Can you start GIMP without any problems? Are Firefox and Songbird the only ones giving you problems?

#18

GIMP opens fine.
This confuses me.

  • If GTK apps open fine, then it must be a firefox settng.
  • If firefox opens as another non-root user, it must be a user specific setting under ~/.
  • If removing ~/.mozilla doesn’t fix it, there must be settings elsewhere.

I looked all the way through my home folder and couldn’t find anything obvious.

#19

In your original post you said Songbird wasn’t working, either, and you seemed to think they were related. Songbird isn’t a Firefox addon, it should run alone. Does it do run at all now?

#20

No, it behaves exactly the same way when run from the icon or terminal.
Perhaps it doesn’t require Firefox but it’s based on and shares Mozilla XULrunner.
I’ve tried reinstalling that, no effect. I presume any config for it is stored in ~/.mozilla