I am trying to get RSSOwl to run in CentOS 6.3.

I have installed RSSOwl on several distributions. It has worked on only one, Linux Mint 13.

I copied all the RSSOwl files and directories from that working install to the CentOS installation.

It does not work. The app launches and displays correctly, synchs with Google Reader, pulls down feeds, and displays the list of feed names correctly.

But, clicking on a feed to display the individual items always produces an error.

The consistent error is that it cannot "create a browser for reading news", meaning it cannot display anything.

This is a very common error, with many users reporting it over many versions of RSSOwl. I've posted on the RSSOwl forum with no results.

The RSSOwl site identifies the error as caused by the app's dependence on an outdated version of xulrunner. The FAQ at the site specifies a workaround. That does not work. Contradicting the FAQ, the release notes indicate that the correct version of xulrunner ships with this version. That version is installed.

RSSOwl is a very good RSS reader, when it works. Anyone know the trick?

Best of luck.. I would suggest Straw or Liferea personally never used RSSOwl and wouldnt be able to help but it sounds like native application issues and unless you or someone re-writes the code it sounds pretty b0rked.

---------- Post added 07-10-12 at 02:36 PM ----------

http://liferea.sourceforge.net/

Thanks. I've used LIferea and like it. But, for me at least, it eventually starts gobbling CPU and crashes.

RSSOwl, when it works, is actually a very nice piece of code.

I threw your question at the guys in my linux user group, we'll see if I get any response. I did some quick searching on google as well and couldn't find anything. If anyone in my group can suggest something I'll post it here.

RSSOwl works only with Xulrunner versions 1.9 or below. Since Firefox 4 almost any distro has only Xulrunner 2 and higher installed.
There is a workaround for 32 bit systems, I couldn't find one for 64 bit, so I finally changed to newsbeuter.
I heard that sometimes it should help to configure RSSOwl to use an external browser, didn't work for me.

I wondered about the 64-bit thing, since that's my system. But, RSSowl worked fine on my 64-bit Mint 13 installation on the 64-bit same hardware.

I don't use Cent OS, downloading it now though so I can play.

I do use RSSOwl, a great feed reader if you ask me.

I use Slackware, I have RSSOwl up and running with Slackware64-current. This is 100% 64-bit. I also have xulrunner 1.9.2.17 installed. RSSOwl uses it own run time version of xulrunner. I was having the same problem. Apparently RSSOwl also uses the hunspell libraries, specifically version 1.2, Slackware64-current uses hunspell version 1.3.2. The fix was to provide a symlink to the version that RSSOwl was looking for. In my case for Slackware64 it was.

That is funny, I wasn't able to get it running on 64 bit Slackware -current, but it was fine on 32 bit -current. On 32 bit it also worked to use Firefox as browser for the feeds. But anyways, since I want to have consistency between my systems I chose a reader that worked on all systems (newsbeuter).

May be offtopic, but part of my decision to not use RSSOwl was also that I don't think I want to use software from developers that weren't able to port it to a supported version of xulrunner in more than 15 months.

I like the features of RSSOwl, it works they way I like. I also want a GUI reader. It also works on all three OS's that I use.

That libhunspell link is one fix listed at the RSSOwl site, but Centos 6 uses the 1.2 version RSSOwl wants.

Hmm. Since it ran for me on Mint 13 I wonder if it looks for some 32-bit libraries when it runs on a 64-bit machine That might explain the reports that it works on 32-bit and is problematic on 64-bit.

Re: Slackware -- I'm waiting until 14 is officially released. I used Slackware great deal in the past, and KDE is looking pretty good these days.