FF-Quantum 'portable' 69.01 not starting [SOLVED]

[Mike Walsh]

Evening all.

I haven't been into Quantum for a few weeks; been using my FF68esr package, and Palemoon & Iron for a while.

Fired up Quantum, earlier on (this is Fred's 'portable' - been running without issue for several months); it was at v69.0. It was working OK. I allowed it to update.....and now it won't even start. Running it from the terminal gives no clues at all. A small window flashes up after a few seconds, way too fast to even see it.....and in the terminal, the task simply closes, with a cryptic message about the 'channel closing', and 'error messages will be lost'?

Huh? Like this:-

https://i.postimg.cc/bwYkj0rZ/FF-Q69-error.gif

Does anybody have any ideas what's going on? This is in DPup 'Stretch', this evening.....so I don't think it's anything to do with being too old.

Or is it? If so, why doesn't even the terminal tell me anything, hmm?

[EDIT:-] I do notice a new directory that's never been there before; "META-INF". Appears to be full of various documents and binaries to do with SHA-256 sums for every single individual item in the tarball, yet since everything seems to have downloaded OK, I wouldn't like to say...

[EDIT2:-] Okay. It'll fire up in 'safe mode':-

Code: Select all

/opt/firefox32/firefox -safe-mode

That's without the profile. Let's try it with....

Code: Select all

/opt/firefox32/ff -safe-mode

Uh-huh. That also runs.....yet as soon as you try running it normally, no cigar. Odd. Nothing's been added, nothing's been changed, or altered.....yet she refuses to fire up, giving that cryptic message as shown above. Very strange.

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I'm at a loss, boys & girls. Whaddya reckon?


A perplexed Mike.

[tallboy]

Is there a .mozilla or FF file in /root/.cache/? I don't really know what that directory contains, but maybe there is a lock file somewhere in there? I regularly flush the palemoon in my .cache.

[B.K. Johnson]

No problem here Mike.
Quantum 69.0.1 from /opt

[Mike Walsh]

@ Olaf:-

Hmm. No idea, mate.....but I shall investigate tomorrow as soon as I get a chance. Thanks for the suggestion.

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@ BKJ:-

Strange. Mind you, from what I've read in some of your other posts, you always use a normal, regularly-installed Firefox, don't you?

I can't help wondering whether this is a manifestation of the recent Mozilla decision to make all 'fresh' installs use a brand-new profile. The only trouble with that is that it entails quite a bit of pissing-about, re-importing bookmarks, re-adding extensions (and setting them up), etc., etc. It's just aggravation I can do without.

Hmmm. Let's see.....


Mike.

[B.K. Johnson]

@Mike Walsh

Mind you, from what I've read in some of your other posts, you always use a normal, regularly-installed Firefox, don't you?

That's correct. And only the default profile.

[watchdog]

My firefox 69.0.1 portable (by fredx181) is working with his dedicated profile. Have you a backup of your profile? I always backup my profile: it can get corrupted...

[Mike Walsh]

Problem sorted, boys & girls.

It's my own fault, TBH. Over the years, I've performed so many 'temporary' installs of various Mozilla-based browsers, then deleted them, it simply never occurred to me to clear their associated profiles/caches out of the way. Especially since they're traditionally 'hidden' entries. "Out of sight, out of mind", y'know?

I had a really good look round the kennels last night. Gawd, there's bits & pieces of half-removed profiles & cache entries all over the place! So, I spent an hour or two this morning tracking down, and removing, these 'ghosts from the past'.

@ tallboy:-

Olaf, you were right 'on the nail' about /root/.cache. I've had to remove 'dead' sym-links, and old cache profiles from there before; I'd forgotten about those, so thanks for the reminder. I removed a 'mozilla' cache sym-link from there this morning, and bingo!.....Quantum's behaving itself once again. I would guess the reason why a cache entry in one Puppy was affecting Quantum in all of 'em is down to my practice of sym-linking to, and 'sharing' apps from, a remote data partition between multiple Puppies. Thankfully, with the 'portables' this now keeps everything self-contained in one location. All that's needed is a launcher pointing to that remote location.....

I've noticed that certain Firefox releases just seem to be more sensitive to this 'zombie cache interference' (as I call it) than others, for some unfathomable reason.

Anyways; everything's 'on the green', once again.....and I've learnt a house-keeping lesson into the bargain. Thanks for the input, people!

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@ watchdog:-

Good idea, man. I backup everything else, so.....why not browser profiles, too? I think I'll do that; I've got enough of them as it is!


Mike.