So I recently did a standard upgrade with apt-get upgrade, I'm running Debian unstable, and Mozilla Debian Package 1.7.1-4. Ever since i upgraded, i get the following errors produced by
typing:
zach@ilikesugar:~$ mozilla --enable-debug &
gives the follwing:


[1] 7879
zach@ilikesugar:~$ selected UILocale: en-US
selected ContentLocale: US
LoadPlugin: failed to initialize shared library libXt.so [libXt.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory]
LoadPlugin: failed to initialize shared library libXext.so [libXext.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory]
LoadPlugin: failed to initialize shared library /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libnpsimple.so [/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libnpsimple.so: undefined symbol: _ZTV16nsQueryInterface]

[1]+ Segmentation fault mozilla --enable-debug

Mozilla will still start up and load the default page (file stored on the computer). But when I try to visit a website, it crashes with a seg fault.

I figure this is a permission problem somewhere, because everything works fine as root. I've searched through the other posts on this forum and nothing in those posts have helped.

Thanks,
~Zach

Shared libraries should have permissions 755 (ie. rwxr-xr-x). The command is chmod 755 somefile; you must be root to use it. The X11 libraries are usually in /usr/X11R6/lib/. The files whose names end in .so are usually symbolic links to the actual libraries and they must exist.

You should also update any mozilla plug-ins you might have. What type of processor (architecture) do you have?

You can find out if you are accidentally running a different version of mozilla as root by typing type mozilla. It shows where the executable is.

Simon

in the /usr/X11R6/lib directory, i found libXt.so.6 and libXext.so.6, so i made sim links of libXt.so and libXext.so and pointed them to the respective plugin. Then I chmod 755 the permissions.

I tried running mozilla again, the first 2 errors go away, but i still get the 3rd error: LoadPlugin: failed to initialize shared library /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libnpsimple.so [/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libnpsimple.so: undefined symbol: _ZTV16nsQueryInterface]

$ ls -la /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libnpsimple.so
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 77420 Nov 25 2003 /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libnpsimple.so

permissions seem to be correct there.

I have an Intel P4 processor.
type mozilla gives mozilla is /usr/bin/mozilla.

I'm not sure I follow what you're saying here...
Permissions of which files did you change,
the libs themselves, or the symlinks?

It may well be that there's prerequisites for libnpsimple
missing ... try
ldd -v /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libnpsimple.so



Cheers,
Tink

A little off the topic here, but how does one normally change the permissions of symlinks? They are usually always 777 and chmod can't touch them. It changes the target files. The man page says the symlink permissions are "never used".

Yes, well, they aren't actually missing since the problem doesn't occur while running Mozilla as root, am I right? Some file just isn't world-readable or something like that.

On the other hand, it may be that the crashing behaviour isn't caused by libnpsimple.so (what ever it is ). Does it happen every time with every web page?

Simon

Yep ... that's why I'm asking which permissions he "changed".

You should use which instead of the bash-builtin type.
For all we know he might be using tcsh ;)



Cheers,
Tink

~well, ive only been using linux for about 6 months so i wasn't aware of the permissions on the symlinks . I changed the permissions on the symlinks without checking them first. So i just checked and the chmod command didn't have any effect on any file (which is ok b/c i didn't need to do it anyway).

~ldd -v /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libnpsimple.so gave: (irrelevant info removed)

/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libnpsimple.so:
libpthread.so.0 (GLIBC_2.0) => /lib/tls/libpthread.so.0
libstdc++.so.5 (GLIBCPP_3.2) => /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5
libstdc++.so.5 (CXXABI_1.2) => /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5
libc.so.6 (GLIBC_2.1.3) => /lib/tls/libc.so.6
libc.so.6 (GLIBC_2.0) => /lib/tls/libc.so.6


~As root, everything works normal...just when another user trys using mozilla is where i see the problems. Some sites work, some don't. I know which sites will always work and those who don't. for example: www.debian.org, www.mozilla.org work, and google and hotmail always make mozilla throw a seg fault and quit.

~both which and type give the same output:
/usr/bin/mozilla

~Zach

Now check whether those files listed have the required
permissions as well ...



Cheers,
Tink

/lib/tls/libpthread.so.0, /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5 /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5, /lib/tls/libc.so.6, and /lib/tls/libc.so.6 all have premissions of 777. ARGH!

Zach

Keep going - ldd those as well ... and make sure that the
directories they live in have r-x set for users as well ;)


Cheers,
Tink

If you want, try mozilla.org's official binaries. The installation is usually pretty straightforward. I had a situation once where one build would not work and I couldn't figure out the exact reason. So I just used another one.

Sometimes problems can go away if you remove the ~/.mozilla directory and let Mozilla create it again. There might be files left from previous versions or some file might be corrupted. Back up your e-mail and important files first though.

Simon

After going through many ldd commands and verifying all of the permissions that I could follow, I decided to check if this error also occured when I ran mozilla --enable-debug & while logged in as root. And sure enough, the same shared library error showed up. So, I don't think we are looking for a solution to my problem in the correct place.

The only clue I am getting is segmentation fault when the page loads. Is there any other debugging tool I can use?

~Zach

strace mozilla

Shows system calls and received signals. Check man strace.

Simon

I works!! I used strace mozilla, and observed when the segfault occured. At the point mozilla crashed, it was having trouble accessing my true type fonts. I guess the update that I did that I was talking about at the beginning of the thread updated my ttf's and changed the permissions bc they were only readable by root. A simple chmod command fixed that!

Thanks for all your help!

~Zach