Firefox won't start

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1

Hi,
I am not able to start Firefox 24.0, or any other Mozilla application (ie Seamonkey, portable Firefox).
I have re-installed all Mozilla packages to no avail.

% rpm -qa '*ozilla*'
MozillaFirefox-24.0-1.33.1.x86_64
mozilla-nspr-4.10-1.14.1.x86_64
MozillaFirefox-branding-openSUSE-21-2.5.1.x86_64
mozilla-nss-3.15.2-1.16.1.x86_64
mozilla-nss-certs-3.15.2-1.16.1.x86_64

I have also renamed the .mozilla folder upon re-install, so it isn’t related with any config files.

using:

% sudo firefox

or

% firefox

doesn’t work either, the cursor just stays there on a new line
http://s13.postimg.org/q2vmkg0rb/terminal.png

I found a way to make firefox work, but it is a pain.

  • if I log in to the root account,
  • open firefox there (it sometimes also fails to open),
  • log out from root account,
  • log to my user account and BAM firefox works again. This lasts until I restart the computer.

I also checked the folder permissions for the .mozilla folder and they were correctly attributed.
Any ideas what might be the reason behind all of this, Firefox worked correctly yesterday.

Thanks in advance

2

Just found out something interesting using:

% su -c "firefox"

results in the same cursor and nothing else.

But if I do % su
and then %firefox
I get this:
http://s22.postimg.org/mo722kczl/term.png

3

That’s not related to firefox at all. You cannot run GUI programs using “su” or “sudo”, because the environment is not setup completely then (it won’t find the user’s X and dbus sessions, and so on).
Use “kdesu” instead, or “su -”.
Well, you shouldn’t run firefox as root anyway, but that’s a different story… :wink:

Does Firefox work if you start it in safe mode?

firefox -safe-mode
4

Hi wolfi,

I thought sudo / su worked since they work on Fedora. :slight_smile:

I have tried to start firefox in safe mode too, and the outcome was the same.
I have also deleted the .mozilla folder upon re-installation, so I am confident it isn’t a firefox addon issue.

5

I have ran a strace against firefox. I saw it being requested in some other threat, and I thought it might help debugging this.

Here is the result

http://speedy.sh/JtVqC/firefoxtrace

Also I leave my repos here:


#  | Alias                     | Name                                   | Enabled | Refresh
---+---------------------------+----------------------------------------+---------+--------
 1 | libdvdcss                 | libdvdcss                              | Yes     | Yes    
 2 | opensuse-security-x86_64  | opensuse-security-x86_64 (added by me) | Yes     | Yes    
 3 | packman                   | packman                                | Yes     | Yes    
 4 | repo-debug                | openSUSE-12.3-Debug                    | No      | Yes    
 5 | repo-debug-update         | openSUSE-12.3-Update-Debug             | No      | Yes    
 6 | repo-debug-update-non-oss | openSUSE-12.3-Update-Debug-Non-Oss     | No      | Yes    
 7 | repo-non-oss              | openSUSE-12.3-Non-Oss                  | Yes     | Yes    
 8 | repo-oss                  | openSUSE-12.3-Oss                      | Yes     | Yes    
 9 | repo-source               | openSUSE-12.3-Source                   | No      | Yes    
10 | repo-update               | openSUSE-12.3-Update                   | Yes     | Yes    
11 | repo-update-non-oss       | openSUSE-12.3-Update-Non-Oss           | Yes     | Yes
6

Lets just be sure
Open a normal terminal and use your mouse to copy and pate this:

mv .mozilla .mozilla-broken

Now try Firefox

If it still fails. create a new user and try Firefox in there. Does it work

7

[QUOTE=drkdfndr;2595446]Hi wolfi,

I thought sudo / su worked since they work on Fedora. :slight_smile:

[QUOTE]
Well, sudo works since it’s creation (in the 90ties?) and su since the creation of Unix (60ties), but we fail to see why you use it “becoming root” in starting FF.

FF is an end-user application. To be used by a normal user and not by root.
Also you say somewhere that you login in the root account. That is also something you should never do.

8

Hi caf,
I tried to rename the folder again but it still didn’t work.

So, I have created a new user account, and the exact same thing happens.

  • I try to open firefox in my account, but it won’t start
  • I log out and log in to my newly created account
  • Try to open firefox there (sometimes it will start, other times it won’t start)
  • Log out and then log back in to my user account and firefox works again!

Exactly what happened, when I repeated the same steps with the root account. I can do this steps with any of the account the outcome is always the same - trying to start firefox in other accounts make it work for all the others.

Well, sudo works since it’s creation (in the 90ties?) and su since the creation of Unix (60ties), but we fail to see why you use it “becoming root” in starting FF.

FF is an end-user application. To be used by a normal user and not by root
Also you say somewhere that you login in the root account. That is also something you should never do.

I meant to say that I can use su -c to start programs with graphical interface in Fedora. Usually use it with dolphin.
Wasn’t trying to accomplish anything specific with that, really. Is just something that gets thrown around if you search for solutions.

9

I meant to say that I can use su -c to start programs with graphical interface in Fedora. Usually use it with dolphin.
Wasn’t trying to accomplish anything specific with that, really. Is just something that gets thrown around if you search for solutions.

10

Better read this: SDB:Login as root - openSUSE

11

All this root login etc…
Sounds compromising to me

12

It might be!
Though I am not using the root account to do anything besides opening and closing firefox really.
But there is not need to use the root account anymore since I have created the new one, since it will work just as well as it did with the root.
As I said it doesn’t matter which 2 accounts I use, if I try to open firefox in one of them and it fails, and I log in to another account, open firefox and then back in to my first account firefox will be working.
Any idea to what might be causing this issue?

13

No idea
But if you boot a live media session. Does it all work normally?

14

You can of course configure su or sudo to work like on Fedora.

But on a default openSUSE installation, you have to use “su -” or “su - -c”.
Or better use the tools specifically designed for that purpose (i.e. running GUI applications as root): kdesu, gnomesu, or xdg-su -c (especially the latter one should be available on all distributions and desktops)

To your problem:
Apparently something is not starting correctly on login sometimes.

Sounds a bit like this:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=309965

When Firefox is not starting, could it be that not all Autostart applications have been started? Or clicking on Logout/Shutdown doesn’t work?

15

I have been able to shutdown / log off when needed, though I noticed this afternoon that I wasn’t able to established a connection to TTLS encrypted wifi connections.
So I started uninstalling all recent installed applications, maybe one of them was the cause for it. And it worked!
I removed AMD flgrx driver and AMD CCC , and bam! everything is back to normal.

I needed to reinstall AMD flgrx after what I believe was a kernel patch I installed on 29/10 “kernel-firmware | 20130714git-1.9.1”!

Guess FF and the network manager share the mozilla-nss - Network Security Services package and there was some sort of conflict… seems like the obvious conclusion.

I will try a more dated version of flgrx and see if that works out for me :slight_smile:

16

Talking about networks
Some find they need to do this to speed up FF startup
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10573557/12.2_Misc/network-issue-12.2-loopback.png

17

I have checked that option, thanks :slight_smile:
I forgot to say, but in fact, much like the bug report wolfi linked too, I didn’t need to log in to a new account. Just log out and back in on the same acc.
I have reported the issue to AMD and maybe they will fix it, it happened with the latest beta 13.11 beta 6 “amd-catalyst-13.11-beta6-linux-x86.x86_64.zip”