Mozilla/Firefox won't start as non root user in Linux

User Help for Mozilla Firefox
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the_Sisyphos
Posts: 4
Joined: March 2nd, 2004, 1:36 am
Location: DE - Mannheim

Mozilla/Firefox won't start as non root user in Linux

Post by the_Sisyphos »

If you get an error such like

./run-mozilla.sh: line 451: 22513 Speicherzugriffsfehler "$prog" ${1+"$@"}

by starting firefox/mozilla as non root user check file permissions of your /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF folder !!! especialy if you copied the Arial True Type Fonts in this folder. Cause this killed my firefox once it started, or better say, once i visited a web page wich tryed to use Arial Fonts!

Also check this things:
1.) try to start firefox/mozilla from command line without displaying a page
# firefox about:blank
2.) try to start firefox/mozilla from command line with displaying something uncritical like the plugins
# firefox about:plugins
3.) use strace to debug your session
a) first edit /usr/lib/firefox/run-mozilla.sh around line 444 to show up the paths

export MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export SHLIB_PATH LIBPATH LIBRARY_PATH ADDON_PATH DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH

b) insert

echo "export MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=$MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
echo "export SHLIB_PATH=$SHLIB_PATH LIBPATH=$LIBPATH LIBRARY_PATH=$LIBRARY_PATH ADDON_PATH=$ADDON_PATH DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH"

c) then start firefox once again from command line and quit it
d) copy the path information with the export statement and paste it to the command line

# export MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=/home/...
# export SHLIB_PATH=/usr/...

e) change the working directory to the firefox binary path

# cd /usr/lib/firefox

e) start firefox binary with strace

# strace ./firefox-bin

f) now strace punch a lot lines on the screen, wait till the browser finished loading. Then visit your crash site and strace will print some additional infos about the error. Watch for something like

open("/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/arial.ttf", O_RDONLY) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
--- SIGSEGV (Segmentation fault) @ 0 (0) ---

hope this will help some guys on linux
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logan
Posts: 3453
Joined: May 22nd, 2003, 3:51 pm
Location: NGC 2403
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Post by logan »

It seems strange that being unable to open a font would cause Firefox (Gtk) to crash, is the segfault really right after the line trying to open that font? Have you tried changing permissions on the fonts?

chmod 644 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/*.*

<i>ls -l /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/arial.ttf</i> as your user, make sure you can actually see inside the directory and that the fonts are readable by all users.
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