no working Mozilla after Sid dist-upgrade: suggestions?

Last night I did apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade on my Debian Sid
system. The new XFree has improved the display, thankfully, which was
sluggish and buggy after the last dist-upgrade. But now, Mozilla (1.7.1)
won't run: it segfaults:
--------------------------
me@mycomputer:~$ mozilla
selected UILocale: en-US
selected ContentLocale: US
Segmentation fault
me@mycomputer:~$
--------------------------
Firefox, which I also have on the system and which was also upgraded,
starts ok but keeps crashing when I visit certain sites (e.g., Ebay).
------------------------------------------------------------ --
me@mycomputer:~$ mozilla-firefox ww.ebay.com
selected locale: en-US

(Gecko:4544): libgnomevfs-CRITICAL **: file gnome-vfs-mime-info.c: line
916 (get_value_real): assertion `!does_string_contain_caps (mime_type)'
failed

(Gecko:4544): libgnomevfs-CRITICAL **: file gnome-vfs-mime-info.c: line
916 (get_value_real): assertion `!does_string_contain_caps (mime_type)'
failed

(Gecko:4544): libgnomevfs-CRITICAL **: file gnome-vfs-mime-info.c: line
916 (get_value_real): assertion `!does_string_contain_caps (mime_type)'
failed

(Gecko:4544): libgnomevfs-CRITICAL **: file gnome-vfs-mime-info.c: line
916 (get_value_real): assertion `!does_string_contain_caps (mime_type)'
failed

(Gecko:4544): libgnomevfs-CRITICAL **: file gnome-vfs-mime-info.c: line
916 (get_value_real): assertion `!does_string_contain_caps (mime_type)'
failed Segmentation fault
me@mycomputer:~$
------------------------------------------------------------ ----------
Unless I'm very careful what sites I visit, I can't keep the browser
running for more than a few minutes. The upshot is that I'm stuck without
a graphical browser. Dillo does work, but due to its limitations is
unsuitable for many things. I assume I'm up against the sort of stability
problems Sid is supposed to have, given it's experimental nature: does
that sound correct? I can't really function for very long without a
reliable graphical browser, though. Is there anything I can do to get one
or the other - or perhaps some third one - working? I did try update(ing)
and dist-upgrade(ing) again this morning, recalling Ray having said that
these sorts of problems are often promptly sorted out by the Debian folks,
but nothing got upgraded. Input and solutions will be appreciated.

James

PS The last version of Firefox (8.2) I had on this machine was buggy as
well, crashing when I would try to visit certain sites. The current
version is 9.1-4 and the current Mozilla version is 1.7.1.
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Re: no working Mozilla after Sid dist-upgrade: suggestions?

At 09:14 AM 7/16/2004 -0500, James Miller wrote:
>Last night I did apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade on my Debian Sid
>system. The new XFree has improved the display, thankfully, which was
>sluggish and buggy after the last dist-upgrade. But now, Mozilla (1.7.1)
>won't run: it segfaults:
>--------------------------
>me@mycomputer:~$ mozilla
>selected UILocale: en-US
>selected ContentLocale: US
>Segmentation fault
>me@mycomputer:~$
>--------------------------
>Firefox, which I also have on the system and which was also upgraded,
>starts ok but keeps crashing when I visit certain sites (e.g., Ebay).
>----------------------------------------------------------- ---
>me@mycomputer:~$ mozilla-firefox ww.ebay.com
>selected locale: en-US
>
>(Gecko:4544): libgnomevfs-CRITICAL **: file gnome-vfs-mime-info.c: line
>916 (get_value_real): assertion `!does_string_contain_caps (mime_type)'
>failed
>
>(Gecko:4544): libgnomevfs-CRITICAL **: file gnome-vfs-mime-info.c: line
>916 (get_value_real): assertion `!does_string_contain_caps (mime_type)'
>failed
>
>(Gecko:4544): libgnomevfs-CRITICAL **: file gnome-vfs-mime-info.c: line
>916 (get_value_real): assertion `!does_string_contain_caps (mime_type)'
>failed
>
>(Gecko:4544): libgnomevfs-CRITICAL **: file gnome-vfs-mime-info.c: line
>916 (get_value_real): assertion `!does_string_contain_caps (mime_type)'
>failed
>
>(Gecko:4544): libgnomevfs-CRITICAL **: file gnome-vfs-mime-info.c: line
>916 (get_value_real): assertion `!does_string_contain_caps (mime_type)'
>failed Segmentation fault
>me@mycomputer:~$
>----------------------------------------------------------- -----------
>Unless I'm very careful what sites I visit, I can't keep the browser
>running for more than a few minutes. The upshot is that I'm stuck without
>a graphical browser. Dillo does work, but due to its limitations is
>unsuitable for many things. I assume I'm up against the sort of stability
>problems Sid is supposed to have, given it's experimental nature: does
>that sound correct? I can't really function for very long without a
>reliable graphical browser, though. Is there anything I can do to get one
>or the other - or perhaps some third one - working? I did try update(ing)
>and dist-upgrade(ing) again this morning, recalling Ray having said that
>these sorts of problems are often promptly sorted out by the Debian folks,
>but nothing got upgraded. Input and solutions will be appreciated.
>
>James
>
>PS The last version of Firefox (8.2) I had on this machine was buggy as
>well, crashing when I would try to visit certain sites. The current
>version is 9.1-4 and the current Mozilla version is 1.7.1.


I can't comment on your specific problem, but at least I should clarify
what I meant by "promptly". I didn't mean instantly. Realistically, it
takes a day or so for the bug to be identified, and another day or so for
it to be fixed ... assuming it is routine, not a serious upstream problem,
or a major incompatibility related to a shared-library change. These
routine bugs are often just delayed recompiles, situations in which the
source needs no actual changes, but the binary simply needs to be
recompiled against a new set of library headers.

Occasionally, I've seen fixes take weeks, though the only specific case I
remember is with an optional package that had a small user base (that
happened to include me ... the package in question was vcr).

At the Debian site (start at www.debian.org and follow obvious links), I
don't see any new "important" or "grave" bugs reported for mozilla-browser.
Segfaults usually mean library mismatches in practice, so I'd wait a day or
so and try another update/upgrade. (There was an old, reportedly fixed,
problem with mozilla and E-Bay, but it looks different from yours.)

Firefox-mozilla had two "grave" bugs recently reported, though neither
description matches yours very closely.

You might consider, in circumstances like this, filing bug reports at the
Debian site.

PS - the current version of firefox-mozilla is 0.9.1-4, not (as you write
it) 9.1-4. The leading 0. part indicates, as is customary, that it is an
alpha package, not yet version 1.0. So its being buggy should be no
surprise, and is at least partly an upstream issue, not a Debian one.

Sorry I can't provide more specific help.




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Re: no working Mozilla after Sid dist-upgrade: suggestions?

Thanks for your reply, Ray. So, I guess my assumption that these
problems are products of the beta-nature of Sid is correct in your view?

On Fri, 16 Jul 2004, Ray Olszewski wrote:

> I can't comment on your specific problem, but at least I should clarify
> what I meant by "promptly". I didn't mean instantly. Realistically, it
> takes a day or so for the bug to be identified, and another day or so for
> it to be fixed ... assuming it is routine, not a serious upstream problem,
> or a major incompatibility related to a shared-library change. These
> routine bugs are often just delayed recompiles, situations in which the
> source needs no actual changes, but the binary simply needs to be
> recompiled against a new set of library headers.

I thought I recalled you saying at some point that you had a problem with
something one day and next morning it was already fixed. This is probably
what I had in mind when I said "promptly."

> At the Debian site (start at www.debian.org and follow obvious links), I
> don't see any new "important" or "grave" bugs reported for mozilla-browser.
> Segfaults usually mean library mismatches in practice, so I'd wait a day or
> so and try another update/upgrade. (There was an old, reportedly fixed,
> problem with mozilla and E-Bay, but it looks different from yours.)

Ok. Thanks for checking that for me.

> You might consider, in circumstances like this, filing bug reports at the
> Debian site.

I looked into doing that using the reportbug program. Though they
obviously try to make it as easy as possible for new users, having to look
through 576 bug reports (the number of reports for mozilla-browser) to see
if any match my problem exceeds the level of engagement I can offer to the
Debian project at the moment (I'll look into more active involvement when
I retire from my main work in a few decades though). Unless there's some
simpler, less involved way of submitting bug reports, I'm afraid I'll have
to let them discover and fix the problem without my input. I'll just hope
that's soon. Maybe meantime I guess I could always boot Knoppix when I
need to do some graphical browsing (yes, sort of a sad jest).

> PS - the current version of firefox-mozilla is 0.9.1-4, not (as you write
> it) 9.1-4. The leading 0. part indicates, as is customary, that it is an
> alpha package, not yet version 1.0. So its being buggy should be no
> surprise, and is at least partly an upstream issue, not a Debian one.

Yeah. I guess I was assuming everyone knew that Firefox was still in
beta, so I left off the 0. Prior to 0.8, I had few stability problems
with Firefox/Firebird/Phoenix. Some keyboard input problems in 0.6 IIRC,
but I think that's about as bad as it got.

James
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Re: no working Mozilla after Sid dist-upgrade: suggestions?

At 11:20 AM 7/16/2004 -0500, James Miller wrote:
>Thanks for your reply, Ray. So, I guess my assumption that these
>problems are products of the beta-nature of Sid is correct in your view?
[...]

Yes with respect to the mozilla segfault. That has the look of a simple
recompile. to restore consistency between mozilla and the shared library
that was involved.

I don't have a strong opinion with respect to the assertion failure in
firefox, but it has more the look of an upstream problem.

These are just guesses, though, in both cases.



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Re: no working Mozilla after Sid dist-upgrade: suggestions?

For close to 2 weeks I've been trying to get Mozilla working by apt-get
update(ing) and then dist-upgrade(ing), but to no avail. Several updates
for both Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox have been made to these packages
during that time, but I was still getting the segmentation fault when
trying to start Mozilla. Mozilla Firefox worked, but was constantly
crashing (just suddenly vanishing from the screen). Today, I decided to
have another go at some troubleshooting. I discovered that I was able to
start Mozilla as root. Guessing from this that some of the user settings
I had in place were interfering, I tried renaming some relevant-looking
files - e.g., prefs.js - in hopes that it would auto-create some new prefs
files it would be happy with and thereafter run. That didn't work, so I
simply renamed the whole dir in my user's home dir. After that, the
browser started working more normally. I don't recall confronting such a
situation previously, but I think I've only upgraded Mozilla once on this
machine previously. Can anyone tell me if I should be expecting this sort
of problem when I upgrade the browser? Also, I've recently read that
Debian no longer considers Mozilla free software. Could my recent
problems with it be related to this change in the way the
developers/maintainers are viewing it?

Thanks, James
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Re: no working Mozilla after Sid dist-upgrade: suggestions?

On Mon, 26 Jul 2004, James Miller wrote:

> simply renamed the whole dir in my user's home dir. After that, the
> browser started working more normally. I don't recall confronting such a

Turns out I need to qualify this. The browser does, indeed, at least
start, whereas it wouldn't before (would segfault). But it's not running
anywhere near normally. It crashes unexpectedly and frequently - much
like Mozilla Firefox. For example, if I try to go to Google, it crashes
(disappears from the screen). Frustrating. I've gone ahead and loaded
Opera, which will have to serve my graphical browser needs until they
finally get these Mozilla problems straightened out.

James
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Re: no working Mozilla after Sid dist-upgrade: suggestions? RESOLVED

I think I've finally straightened out this problem. I posted to the
Debian users' list about it, and someone (privately) indicated to me that
they'd had such a problem, and that it was traceable to a font permissions
problem. He had discovered this by using strace. I didn't even know
about strace, so I read up about it and also used it to start Mozilla.
Sure enough, the browser segfaulted right at a font permissions error. I
chmod'ed that font (600 to 644), and afterward accessed the page in
question with Mozilla with no segfault/crash. I think I know why the
problem exists: I'm still a bit hazy on permissions for various
files/dirs, and copied over a bunch of truetype fonts from Windows to
Linux. I probably screwed up permissions in so doing.

So, my (hopefully) final question in all this is: what permissions are
fonts supposed to have? These are in /usr/share/fonts/truetype. I'd like
to just change them all en masse (in case some of them are wrong) to the
right permissions. Any tips on doing this?

Thanks, James

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Re: no working Mozilla after Sid dist-upgrade: suggestions? RESOLVED

At 06:50 PM 7/29/2004 -0500, James Miller wrote:
>I think I've finally straightened out this problem. I posted to the
>Debian users' list about it, and someone (privately) indicated to me that
>they'd had such a problem, and that it was traceable to a font permissions
>problem. He had discovered this by using strace. I didn't even know
>about strace, so I read up about it and also used it to start Mozilla.
>Sure enough, the browser segfaulted right at a font permissions error. I
>chmod'ed that font (600 to 644), and afterward accessed the page in
>question with Mozilla with no segfault/crash. I think I know why the
>problem exists: I'm still a bit hazy on permissions for various
>files/dirs, and copied over a bunch of truetype fonts from Windows to
>Linux. I probably screwed up permissions in so doing.
>
>So, my (hopefully) final question in all this is: what permissions are
>fonts supposed to have? These are in /usr/share/fonts/truetype. I'd like
>to just change them all en masse (in case some of them are wrong) to the
>right permissions. Any tips on doing this?


Based on a quick look at my working fonts directory, it appears that the
fonts themselves should be mode 644, and font directories within
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ should be mode 755. This is what I would expect
them to be absent any specific information.

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