Firefox <-> library problem: Browser does not start
 

Hello,

I'm using SL, and had problems getting JAVA (JRE) working with Firefox - which is essential for my work. After a lot of ardour, I got it working with Firefox2. But suddenly Firefox crashed ("segmentation fault"), and from then on, it doesn't start again. I'm more or less a newbie on linux, so forgive me if I use clumsy terms or get things all messed up.

When trying to start Firefox I get is an error message, reading

./firefox-bin: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libfontconfig.so.1: undefined symbol: FT_Load_Sfnt_Table

There is probably something fundamentally wrong about which libraries are looked up, but I don't know how to fix it. (Note that I have two sets of libraries. One "/usr/lib" and one "/usr/lib64". Currently firefox points at /lib; if I try to link to /lib64, i get this message:

error while loading shared libraries: libg2c.so.0: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64

which I think is a problem related to Firefox not being compatible with the 64-bit machine I'm working on. I'm really confused about having double libraries, and my softwarde seems to be too...

Is there someone who can tell me how to fix this problem? I've tried Firefox 3 too, but with the same result.

Hmm, Hi, What is SL that you're using?

You should however try to configure your system to be 64bit as much as possible. And it is possible with 64bit kernels and kde or others.

I have found that symlinking the files from each (directory)to the other (directory)generally works.

See how you go.

First of all, since you're working on a 64-bit system, you need to make sure that FF and Java (and the Java plugin) are either all 32-bit or all 64-bit; in general you can't mix the 32 and 64-bit stuff. A mix of 32 and 64 may have corrupted your 'stack' and caused that segfault; manually remove or disable the java plugin for now; see the mozilla online documentation for clues on how to do it the hard way.

Is there any great need to run a 32-bit FF?

To check dependencies of a binary:
ldd /path/to/firefox-bin
but since you said FF was running before that, I doubt that there are any problems with the actual installed libraries.

Have you been tinkering with any other settings which affect the library searches and so on?
A mixed 64/32 system can be especially tricky to maintain.

Ok, thanks for the tips.

I'm making progress, Firefox 3 is running, now, however not with Java. The problem seems to have been that I downloaded the patch manually and installed it in my home directory. Now that I removed those files and downloaded FF3 with the Package Manager, it installed "correctly"

I'll double-check the plugin version for JAVA. Hopefully it'll work.

Regarding the 64/32 bit problem, we have a bunch of programs that don't run very well (or not at all) with 64bit. So we kind of need the 32bit on the side. It's a nuicance, I know.

FF 64bit running, but still no java

I've shopped around a bit, and it seems to me that JRE still doesn't work with 64bit systems! There seems to be no plugin that works with FF64. neither in JRE 1.6.0_06 or in 1.6.0_07.

See e.g.
http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?th...28887&tstart=0

I've tried to install FF i386 from the package manager (after uninstalling FF 64, but what I get then is a message that there is a conflict in the "xulrunner". Could it have something to to with FF64 having previously been installed?

How can I fix this conflict?