[SOLVED] Firefox will not open and VLC will not close; Could use some help!

Kallaste · 12-13-2011, 04:25 PM

Hi All,

This is my first post here, so I hope I am posting in the right place. Incidentally, I already posted this topic at a forum on another site, and have not yet found any help at all. I am getting desperate for a fix and so I thought I would ask those here for their input.

I just installed Xubuntu 11.10 a couple of weeks ago, and I have had a whole bunch of problems. I've actually reinstalled three times because things just keep screwing up. There is nothing really odd about my installation, and it was a fresh install as opposed to an upgrade, but for some reason new issues just keep popping up.

Here is what is going on now. Last night I was watching a movie, and when it was over, VLC did not close. Nor could I seem to close it. It was just a black screen. I could see the mouse pointer, but nothing else. Pressing the escape key did not do anything, and I could not find any way to close the program (or get back to the desktop) other than turn off the computer, which is what I finally did. When I turned it back on, it did its routine disk scan at startup and found no errors. However, when I logged back in, I was unable to open firefox through the icons on the taskbar or the start menu. When I try this, it says "Failed to execute default web browser. Input/output error." I checked, and firefox is still set to my default web browser in the settings manager.

I also opened a terminal and typed "firefox," and it says

XPCOMGlueload error for file /usr/lib/firefox-8.0/libxpcom.so:
libxul.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Couldn't load XPCOM.

Same thing with x-www-browser.

I am pretty new to all of this and have no idea what any of this means, so I would really appreciate some help.

Oh, and I did try VLC again after rebooting (just to see if it was a fluke with the particular movie or something else weird), and it did it again. It will play everything on the playlist and let the computer remain responsive throughout, but if I let it run to the end of whatever is playing, it will just stay open and not let me close or minimize it so that I have to turn off the computer.

Thanks to everyone for sharing their knowledge.

corp769 · 12-13-2011, 04:42 PM

Are you running 32 bit or 64 bit? And have you tried running VLC from a terminal?

Kallaste · 12-13-2011, 05:36 PM

It's 32 bit. I did not try running VLC from a terminal, because I did not actually have a problem getting it to run. Just to stop running.

Would running it from a terminal make a difference with that?

corp769 · 12-13-2011, 08:02 PM

I'm just curious if you would get any errors or warnings. As far as your firefox issue, I found quite a few solutions on the internet; Have you tried looking around?

Kallaste · 12-13-2011, 08:37 PM

Oh, well I just realized running VLC from the terminal will give me useful error messages. Did I mention I am new to this? Here is what it says:

Code:

user@desktop:~$ vlc
VLC media player 1.1.12 The Luggage (revision exported)
Blocked: call to unsetenv("DBUS_ACTIVATION_ADDRESS")
Blocked: call to unsetenv("DBUS_ACTIVATION_BUS_TYPE")
[0x81dd914] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
Blocked: call to setlocale(6, "")
QGtkStyle was unable to detect the current GTK+ theme.
Blocked: call to setenv("_PX_CONFIG_ORDER", "", 1)
Blocked: call to setenv("_PX_CONFIG_ORDER", "", 1)
Blocked: call to setenv("_PX_CONFIG_ORDER", "", 1)
Blocked: call to setenv("_PX_CONFIG_ORDER", "", 1)
Blocked: call to setenv("_PX_CONFIG_ORDER", "", 1)

The last five lines came up when when I played one file and dragged four more onto the playlist.

I appreciate your help.

Kallaste · 12-13-2011, 08:56 PM

Yes, I did look around for solutions before posting. I did a search for the exact error message, and put "xubuntu" in the string, and I came up with nothing of use. I just a while ago tried it without the xubuntu and found many possible solutions in an Arch Linux forum.

However, I still wonder if it may be unwise to go wildly reconfiguring both Firefox and VLC before I know what happened. What I was hoping for is to find some sort of explanation for why both VLC and Firefox would get twisted around like this at the same time. Isn't it likely they are not separate issues, but rather two symptoms of the same glitch or malfunction? Should I try to mask that malfunction without knowing what it is?

I guess I was just hoping this would be some common problem that would be obvious to more experienced Linux users. I really don't want to screw up my system and have to reinstall again.

Thanks.

Aquarius_Girl · 12-13-2011, 11:35 PM

For a temporary relief:

Code:

anisha@linux-dopx:~> ps -e
...
...
 4209 ?        00:00:00 e-addressbook-f
 4235 ?        00:05:03 firefox
 4425 ?        00:00:00 planner
 4687 ?        00:00:00 gnome-terminal
 4690 pts/0    00:00:00 bash
 4736 pts/0    00:00:00 ps

Code:

anisha@linux-dopx:~> kill -9 4235

Also, man kill, man ps

Kallaste · 12-14-2011, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anisha Kaul

For a temporary relief:

Code:

anisha@linux-dopx:~> ps -e
...
...
 4209 ?        00:00:00 e-addressbook-f
 4235 ?        00:05:03 firefox
 4425 ?        00:00:00 planner
 4687 ?        00:00:00 gnome-terminal
 4690 pts/0    00:00:00 bash
 4736 pts/0    00:00:00 ps

Code:

anisha@linux-dopx:~> kill -9 4235

Also, man kill, man ps

Firefox is not running, so I cannot kill it. My problem is that it will not run. Thank you very much for that technique, though. Quite useful.

Aquarius_Girl · 12-14-2011, 11:06 AM

You said vlc keeps on running? You can apply this method for terminating vlc.

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...3091188.0;wap2

Quote:

Error (Firefox 3)
Quote

firefox-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libxul.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Solution, install package: libxul-common

Kallaste · 12-15-2011, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anisha Kaul

You said vlc keeps on running? You can apply this method for terminating vlc.

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...3091188.0;wap2

Solution, install package: libxul-common

I tried yesterday to install the libxul-common package, but for some reason I could not find it. I looked in Synaptic Package Manager with the multiverse enabled, and it was not there. Then I entered "sudo apt-get install libxul-common" in the terminal, and it could not find it. So I searched for it here: http://packages.ubuntu.com/ and could not find it. Is there something else I should have done? How do I get this package?

However, it probably will not do any good anyway, because now my log in profile is missing. When I turned on the computer this morning, it found some sort of disk error that it prompted me to press "F" to fix. It did not say what the error was; just "Press 'F' to attempt to fix errors, 'S" to skip mounting . . ." etc. I pressed F, and then when the password prompt came up, only the guest account was there. I have never used a Linux guest account before in my life and have no idea how to do anything from there. It would not even let me log in as root.

I am guessing something happened with where my home folder is located (maybe it moved the pointer to it or something?), but I do not know how to go about fixing it. I guess I will boot with the live CD and run fsck.

Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Aquarius_Girl · 12-16-2011, 12:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BloomingNutria

I tried yesterday to install the libxul-common package, but for some reason I could not find it.

For Debain, but see if it helps: http://pkgs.org/debian-lenny/multime...1_all.deb.html
Also, http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/upgrade-firefox-on-linux/

Quote:

Originally Posted by BloomingNutria

However, it probably will not do any good anyway, because now my log in profile is missing. When I turned on the computer this morning, it found some sort of disk error that it prompted me to press "F" to fix. It did not say what the error was; just "Press 'F' to attempt to fix errors, 'S" to skip mounting . . ." etc. I pressed F, and then when the password prompt came up, only the guest account was there. I have never used a Linux guest account before in my life and have no idea how to do anything from there. It would not even let me log in as root.

Starting a new thread (in newbie section) on this issue would be helpful.

Kallaste · 12-16-2011, 06:39 AM

Okay, I will. Thanks for your help.