Firefox only works for root

[kovacs]

After upgrading to Dapper (a process which has made me reconsider the "Linux for everyone" tag that kubuntu lays claim to) I am having problems getting Firefox to run.

After spending 4-5 hours managing to make KDE start on boot, I now find that Firefox does not start for my personal user.

I can start it as root using kdesu firefox from konsole, but the Firefox icon no longer works. I have uninstalled Firefox, reinstalled it, tried both the Ubuntu and the Mozilla versions (Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 is currently installed) but it still refuses to start for any user other than root.

I get a taskbar button with a rotating hourglass for 15 seconds or so, then nothing.

I figure it's a permission problem - but where?

[aysiu]

Re: Firefox only works for root

Can you post the output of the terminal command?

firefox

[kovacs]

Re: Firefox only works for root

Can you post the output of the terminal command?

firefox

I have now removed firefox 1.5.0.4 and reinstalled 1.5.0.3 via Adept. This did not work at all (I did not even get an icon).

$ firefox gives me absolutely nothing.
$ ldd firefox gives me nothing

$ /usr/bin/firefox gives me "not a dynamic executable"

It does not seem to have been installed correctly.

I tried your script which I found on Ubuntu forums but it did not work either. It installed firefox 1.5.0.4 in /opt/firefox/firefox but lacked 2 dependencies: libmozjs.so and another which I don't remember (something like libcom.so).

[kovacs]

Re: Firefox only works for root

While figuring this out I have moved over to Opera instead.

Shame that Firefox won't install on my system.

[aysiu]

Re: Firefox only works for root

If root can launch it but user can't, it's probably just a permissions issue. Do you know what the permissions on your /opt/firefox folder are like...?

[kovacs]

Re: Firefox only works for root

If root can launch it but user can't, it's probably just a permissions issue. Do you know what the permissions on your /opt/firefox folder are like...?

No, root can no longer launch it. After I removed the intallation made by your script, I tried a manual install. It did not work, so I tried the Adept installation again. It failed, so I removed it. I then tried apt-get install firefox and it tried to install but threw som errors at me (a missing folder I think) and gave up.

So for the first time in years I have a Firefox-free laptop.

I moved to Opera and can live with that for the time being.

[lexxonnet]

Re: Firefox only works for root

well... when you remove the previous(user installed) version of firefox, it might have taken the folder /usr/lib/firefox with it... just create the folder, and try installing firefox from the repos again... should work

[canadian]

Re: Firefox only works for root

I have a similar problem. I get the crash handler box asking if I want to restore and no matter what one I hit firefox immediately cashes. I can run it as a super user from root but it is not the same one....

[Duggan]

Re: Firefox only works for root

I'm having a similar problem. When I try to run firefox from root using kdesu I get the following error:
"kdesu cannot connect to X server"
GUI icons give no response at all.

[Duggan]

Re: Firefox only works for root

Hi,

I've managed to resolve my issue with firefox, so this may help I hope. It appears that the command that the firefox GUi buttons were trying to use was wrong. By changing the command to:
'/usr/lib/firefox/firefox'
This got the icons working. Also if you run that from Command it works great. Nice to be using firefox again.

Cheers

[kovacs]

Re: Firefox only works for root

well... when you remove the previous(user installed) version of firefox, it might have taken the folder /usr/lib/firefox with it... just create the folder, and try installing firefox from the repos again... should work

Firefox installs but I don't get a Firefox entry in my KDE Menu. I still can't run firefox as anything but root (kdesu), and it keeps throwing errors at me, like:

(Gecko:
8933): GdkPixbuf-CRITICAL **: gdk_pixbuf_get_rowstride: assertion `pixbuf != NULL' failed

(Gecko:8933): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

[kovacs]

Re: Firefox only works for root

I should add that if I run firefox from command as anything but root, or without kdesu, it just does not do anything.

[kovacs]

Re: Firefox only works for root

Finally some success. I removed absolutely all Firefox-related files I could find (there were tons of them lying around). I also deleted my .mozilla folder (bye bye settings).

Then I ran the installfirefox.sh script and it installed the latest Firefox.

I manually added it to the KDE menu with firefox -profilemanager as the startup command to force the profile manager to start.

And yes, finally, it works.

[canadian]

Re: Firefox only works for root

I gave up trying to get firefox to work, I decided to try Opera and it is sweeeeeet I do use Mozilla browser and it works fine as does Konquorer but firefox just crashes when I start it. Oh well, I customized Opera nicely and will use it.

[askrieger]

Re: Firefox only works for root

If you still have firefox installed, try the following commands from a konsole:

cd /usr/lib/firefox  <-- puts you in the right directory
sudo chmod 755 firefox firefox-bin  <-- makes both firefox startup script and binary executable by all

Please omit my comments from the commands.