Firefox doesn't remember toolbar

[Annorax]

Hi all,

I'm on Kubuntu 8.10 with Firefox 3.0.5. Whenever I change the navigation toolbar to add more buttons and close Firefox, when I come back the toolbar is reset.

Is there any way to save the toolbar's buttons?

Thanks,
Matt

[mpstump]

Re: Firefox doesn't remember toolbar

I'm having a similar problem with Firefox. The back button stopped working (extremely annoying for my web habits), and the homepage button doesn't work either. A temporary workaround is to launch firefox from the terminal with sudo

sudo firefox

but I'd like to resolve this completely. I'll keep searching and reply if I find anything.

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[Guest]

Re: Firefox doesn't remember toolbar

Try disabling the "Ubuntu Firefox Modifications" addon if you have it. That extension kept my Firefox from saving my toolbar layout.

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Firefox doesn't remember toolbar

I noticed a problem with firefox, that if I am su'd or sudo'd into some application that opens firefox, it will change files in the ~/.mozilla directory to root.root ownership. When I then try to start firefox as a normal user, it behaves strangely to say the least. The bookmarks disappear, settings change, on and on. I fixed this with:

cd ~
sudo chown -R username.username .mozilla

where username is your own user name.

That may or may not be your problem, but it's worth checking the file ownerships
in your .mozilla directory, if firefox is behaving strangely. This can also be (and was, for me) a problem with copying your .mozilla directory from another installation.

[mpstump]

Re: Firefox doesn't remember toolbar

Thanks Dr., that did the trick. I'm also having the same problem with amarok, knetworkmanager, etc. So, I'm guessing I can use the chown command recursively to my home directory, or should I just do the .kde directory? I'm curious about your syntax, the man page says to use a colon, is the period interchangeable, or does it mean something else?

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Firefox doesn't remember toolbar

You're right, the syntax should be: sudo chown -R username:groupname file

The period worked; not sure why.

You should be able to chown pretty much anything in your home directory this way, though I wouldn't do it just for the fun of it. Some programs might be weird about their group ownerships. Of course if you have a backup, then no harm in trying.

[kubicle]

Re: Firefox doesn't remember toolbar

You're right, the syntax should be: sudo chown -R username:groupname file

The period worked; not sure why.

Very old versions of chown used period instead of colon in the syntax, and the period is still recognized in place of the colon for compatibility. Of course the new syntax (colon) should be used for all purposes.

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Firefox doesn't remember toolbar

Thanks for the clarification on the command.

This problem of changing the ownership of a user's files to root when sudo'ed is definitely a bug. It happened again to me today. I was doing some work on the login screen from SystemSettings, and somehow it changed the ownership of ~/.kde/share/config/kdefilepickerrc to root:root without me knowing. As soon as I opened another application that wanted me to select a file, the whole system froze. I can't reproduce it reliably enough for a bug report, but it's definitely a recurring problem.

The first time it happened, I was sudo'ed into an application (don't remember which) that wanted to open the default web browser, at the time set to firefox. During the process of doing that, it set the ownership of files in .mozilla to root:root, which produced the result described in the Annorax's original post.

As soon as I can find a way to do this on command, I'll file a bug report.

[kubicle]

Re: Firefox doesn't remember toolbar

This problem of changing the ownership of a user's files to root when sudo'ed is definitely a bug. It happened again to me today. I was doing some work on the login screen from SystemSettings, and somehow it changed the ownership of ~/.kde/share/config/kdefilepickerrc to root:root without me knowing. As soon as I opened another application that wanted me to select a file, the whole system froze. I can't reproduce it reliably enough for a bug report, but it's definitely a recurring problem.

The first time it happened, I was sudo'ed into an application (don't remember which) that wanted to open the default web browser, at the time set to firefox. During the process of doing that, it set the ownership of files in .mozilla to root:root, which produced the result described in the Annorax's original post.

As soon as I can find a way to do this on command, I'll file a bug report.

Do you launch GUI apps with plain 'sudo' instead of 'kdesudo'? (That's one thing that can change ownerships in some cases).

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Firefox doesn't remember toolbar

I generally don't launch gui applications with either, but from the menu which then asks for the password. Whether that's sudo or kdesudo, I don't know. This happened while using SystemSettings, and I don't know which method it uses for assigning permissions.
From the CLI I usually use sudo, and you're right, I probably shouldn't.

[sabbathpriest]

Re: Firefox doesn't remember toolbar

cd ~
sudo chown -R username.username .mozilla

where username is your own user name.

Thank you, this resolved the issue for me too.