[SOLVED] Slackware 13.1: Firefox 3.6.6 not opening, no terminal info output.
SlackwareThis Forum is for the discussion of Slackware Linux.
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
Slackware 13.1: Firefox 3.6.6 not opening, no terminal info output.
Hi again, people.
Here's the issue: Firefox does not open under any circumstances, it's allocated in the memory and has it's process ids, but the browser is not opened at all. There's not terminal output when ran in terminal, no dmesg, debug..., nothing. The only info I could give:
Backup and remove ~/.mozilla directory, and re-run firefox. Maybe You profile is broken, and thus it cannot be initialized properly.
See, what will happened after the removal of this directory.
Since this is Firefox 3.6.6, means you did the upgrade, and I assume everything was working previously to this upgrade?
How did you upgrade Firefox? slackpkg, upgradepkg, installpkg?
Check that you only have one Firefox installed. ls /var/log/packages | grep firefox
You can try safe mode firefox -safe-mode
double check you don't have a non compatible plugin. By default Slackware only ships with libnpjp2.so (java) and skypebuttons.so (something from KDE. Still not sure why KDE would assume I have/will install skype)
Double check the /usr/lib/firefox directory is linked to /usr/lib/firefox-$VERSION, and there is not another /usr/lib/firefox-$SOMETHING.
Could even be a missing library. ldd /usr/lib/firefox/firefox-bin | grep "not found"
I upgrade via slackpkg. I'm synced to the -current tree, so: slackpkg update -> slackpkg install-new -> slacpkg upgrade-all.
Firefox was, indeed, working fine. I really don't know when things got messed up.
As requested:
Code:
rodrigo@darkstar:~$ ls /var/log/packages | grep firefox
mozilla-firefox-3.6.6-i686-1
rodrigo@darkstar:~$ firefox -safe-mode
rodrigo@darkstar:~$ ls /usr/lib/firefox-3.6.6/plugins/
libnullplugin.so*
rodrigo@darkstar:~$ ls /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/
libnpjp2.so@
rodrigo@darkstar:~$ ls -l /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 34 2010-05-30 19:05 libnpjp2.so -> /usr/lib/java/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so*
rodrigo@darkstar:~$ ldd /usr/lib/firefox/firefox-bin | grep "not found"
libxul.so => not found
libxpcom.so => not found
The "firefox -Safe-mode" line means that everything is as usual: no reponse. The ldd returing those "not found" libs it's because libxul.so and libxpcom.so are under the /usr/lib/firefox-3.6.6 directory, and are included in $PATH once the firefox script starts.
The ldd returing those "not found" libs it's because
Is because things are not installed properly
libxul.so and libxpcom.so are part of seamonkey. Granted the 32bit firefox may ship with that library in that path, but it (firefox) looks to /usr/lib/seamonkey-$VERSION/ for the libraries.
On my clean full Slackware 32bit install, I can remove libxul from /usr/lib/firefox , and firefox runs. I put that libxul back, and remove the one from seamonkey, firefox does not run.
You might get by with linking those two missing libs from /usr/lib/firefox to /usr/lib. Or install seamonkey.
If you notice your ls /usr/lib/seamonkey-2.0.5/ does not contain the missing libraries, that's only the seamonkey-solibs. Strange things still did not work after installing Seamonkey, yet Seamonkey itself works. On my test system, I removed seamonkey, and did an ln -s of those two Firefox libs to /usr/lib/ - I hate it when other people say this but, works for me. Sounds like a side effect from not doing a complete install .... but things worked before, and all you did was upgrade Firefox. Wonder what's missing?
Might want to try Firefox in it's own directory. Just uncompress the file from the Slackware source. It's the same thing Mozilla ships upstream. Should run from it's own directory. The SlackBuilds between 13.1 and the security release of Firefox have not changed, so this is something upstream.
I think the main problem is that I have no output about anything, it just hangs at the terminal without any further info - I can only guess, but I don't know for sure. On my install I only select packages in the A, AP, N, X and XAP series. The D, F, L, K, T and TCL are fully installed, so I don't know if it is a full install issue. It used to work, but got lost somewhere.
I'll try later the static firefox download and see if anything changes, but thank you, disturbed1.
EDIT: I've just tried the static firefox download and things are just the same - firefox won't show a browser window, although the process is allotacted in memory. I have no idea what's going on or if I'm missing some dependecies, but 'till firefox updates, I'll just stay with Google Chrome.
Thanks, everyone.
Last edited by rfernandez; 06-28-2010 at 04:02 PM.
libxul.so and libxpcom.so are part of seamonkey. Granted the 32bit firefox may ship with that library in that path, but it (firefox) looks to /usr/lib/seamonkey-$VERSION/ for the libraries.
On my clean full Slackware 32bit install, I can remove libxul from /usr/lib/firefox , and firefox runs. I put that libxul back, and remove the one from seamonkey, firefox does not run.
You might get by with linking those two missing libs from /usr/lib/firefox to /usr/lib. Or install seamonkey.
The seamonkey libs should not be required to use Firefox, although it will probably fall back on them if some of Firefox's libraries are removed.
While Firefox is running, you can try this to see that it does in fact use its own copy of libxul.so:
lsof | grep libxul
As far as why the 32-bit Firefox 3.6.6 would not be running, I'll admit I was a bit concerned since we do not compile the 32-bit Firefox and perhaps a change in the upstream compile could break it on Slackware, but I've tested on a 32-bit Slackware 13.1 updated with slackpkg to include Firefox 3.6.6 and the other updates and can report that it's working here.
Well, indeed a lsof | grep libxul show that firefox use it's own copy, the same for libxpcom. But, is there someway I can trace or debug the application in order to see what it's trying to accomplish? Without any output it's hard just guessing... AFAIK, all dependencies are solved.
Try downgrading back to FF 3.6.4 and let us know if that still comes up.
Also, /usr/lib/firefox*/firefox is just a shell script to launch the binaries. You can try editing it to see more precisely where it hangs. Be sure to read the comments (at least one refers to debugging)
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.