after updating SuSe 9.2 to 9.3 I experience weird problems with mozilla, firefox and thunderbird. None of these can be started from K-Menu anymore, nor by clicking the file-symbol. BUT all of them start without the slightest hesitation if called in a terminal.

I think de-installing and re-installing all three of them might possibly solve the problem, but would defineltely like to avoid this, because I really do not want to loose all the different settings and passwords. It would take ages to re-configure all of that manually.

Does anybody have an idea what could be the cause of this behaviour and how I could correct it without having to perform the real drastic steps?

I don't think you'll loose settings such as Bookmarks or anything else that is user specific. I'm on the x86_64 platform and unintalled that and went with the standard i686 install so I could use Flash and other plugins and I was fine. I believe these settings are stored in the .mozilla folder. (Actual location can probably be found by navigating a little.) The folder shouldn't change when you uninstall/reinstall so they should remain. If you're worried about it I would simply navigate around your ~/.mozilla folder and look for Firefox settings and back them up somewhere so you can restore.

If I'm wrong some can correct me.

un- and re-installing everything mozilla didn't help. In stead I found out that other apps such as synaptic, the GIMP or Inkscape behave the same way. Impossible to start from either KMenu or the K-Desktop they start happily from Konsole. What's going on here?????

It sounds to me like your having a KDE problem. I've never done an upgrade from one version to the next w/o using the actual install disc. Did you use the disc or upgrade by downloading?
Try to load up Gnome or another Window Manager and see if the problem persist.

Have you tried removing/replacing the the links on the k-menu? It sounds like they are pointing to the wrong place, or maybe the permissions for those files/directories aren't set correctly after the update?

tried both, to no avail..... I am getting sort of worried that I may have to re-install 9.3 from scratch thereby losing all my settings....

If you have /home on a separate mount point simply reinstall and use the same mount point (do not format it). If you don't have a separate mount point copy the entire directory to a CD or other backup medium then reinstall/restore after reinstall. I recommend that /home is always a separate partition/mount point so you can preserve all your info going forward, especially if you're going to upgrade with each new release. You will need to make sure you use the same user names in the same order of original install too.

Sorry I can't you any better than that.

hmmm.... a complete new-install seems to be some kind of a very last resort resolution. I've booted into Gnome instead of KDE and everything worked absolutely fine. So I'll probably just change to Gnome until I find a solution for this strange KDE- behaviour. It's a pity though, 'cause I really do like KDE better....

don't worry, be happy! it's the only thing you have to do with a new Linux version, fresh install : NEVER UPGRADE !

have upgraded before (9.1-->9.2) and it'd worked like a charme. This one's different though. The strange thing is: I've created a new user with an empty home directory, copied my entire home directory, incl. all the hidden files, into the new user's directory, changed permissions accordingly, and everything - all mozilla stuff included - works perfectly well.... Can someone pleeeeease explain this to me????

I'm waiting to see what y'all come up with for this one -- the same thing happened to me. Actually, when I log into other users desktops (they're my kids, I know their passwords!) Mozilla and Firefox are fine. BTW, Epiphany is hosed, too. Only Opera and Konqueror work in my login.

When I go home, I'm gonna look at the settings for each, and in the other user's settings as well. If I find anything, I'll post it back here.

Snickdog...

still haven't found a solution other than to create a new user.

Did any of you check permissions?
I've had problems in the past where for some reason or another my home directory permissions got hosed.

(eg....directorys and files had root as owner and group)

You may need to do a chown -R username /home/username to reset them.

The only other thing I can think of is something in the home directory is corrupt. How did you do the update/install?
RPM or YaST?

If it was RPM did you then run:

rpm --rebuilddb
ldconfig
SuSEconfig
?

Hi,

Good idea about the permissions;didn't bear out in my case, unfortunately. I ran this through Yast -- regular upgrade type of thing. I upgraded my laptop the day before, no problems. There were a few issues with the server; it hung when installing a couple of files, then after the install, updated them and all was well (almost!) It's a mystery, that's for sure. I thought it was just my system, maybe some other files I had on there, until I checked here.

checked my permissions, everything's alright. I too did my upgrade with YAST.