115102 - Mozilla fails to start with "Could not initialize the browser's security component"

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core Graveyard :: Security: UI, defect, P3)

Description

[Addison Laurent]

Installed Ximian GNOME for Sparc, including Mozilla .9.5

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; SunOS sun4u; en-US; rv:0.9.5) Gecko/20011014, build 2001101421

Attempted to start Mozilla, received:
"Could not initialize the browser's security component. The most likely cause is problems with files in your browser's profile directory. Please check that this directory has no read/write restrictions and your hard disk is not full or close to full."

Disk space was plentiful, no read/write restrictions.

Deleting the .mozilla directory did nothing.

After I ran Netscape 4.7 for the first time, trying to run Mozilla did get the profile manager to convert, and then the same error as above.

> pwd
~alaurent/.mozilla/alaurent/7yphjs56.slt
> ls -l
total 748
drwxr-xr-x   3 alaurent staff        512 Dec 13 15:06 Mail
drwxr-xr-x   3 alaurent staff        512 Dec 13 15:06 News
-rw-------   1 alaurent staff       7791 Dec 13 15:06 bookmarks.html
-rw-------   1 alaurent staff     229376 Dec 13 15:06 cert7.db
drwxr-xr-x   2 alaurent staff        512 Dec 13 15:06 chrome
-rw-------   1 alaurent staff        923 Dec 13 15:06 cookies.txt
-rw-r--r--   1 alaurent staff        295 Dec 13 15:06 history.list
-rw-------   1 alaurent staff      32768 Dec 13 15:06 key3.db
-rw-r--r--   1 alaurent staff       1196 Dec 13 15:06 liprefs.js
-rw-------   1 alaurent staff      53248 Dec 13 15:06 old history.dat
-rw-r--r--   1 alaurent staff        685 Dec 13 15:06 plugin-list
-rw-r--r--   1 alaurent staff        685 Dec 13 15:06 plugin-list.BAK
-rw-r--r--   1 alaurent staff       3532 Dec 13 15:06 preferences.js
-rw-r--r--   1 alaurent staff       3588 Dec 13 15:06 prefs.js
-rw-r--r--   1 alaurent staff        741 Dec 13 15:06 registry
-rw-------   1 alaurent staff      32768 Dec 13 15:06 secmodule.db

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=105512  was fixed with blowing away the Mac equivilant of .mozilla, but that didn't fix this.  Creating new profiles after the whole .mozilla is removed has no effect.

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=105167 is for RO directories/files. The user running mozilla has RW to all files, and even marking everything under .mozilla 777 has no benefit.

Comment 1

[R.K.Aa.]

1: Did you install the PSM component? (Don't know ximians moz, but often comes
in a separate rpm)

2: Can you try running mozilla once as root before you run as own user, and also
start mailnews from it (without creating an account unless you wish to)

0.9.5 is old now - this may be a dup.
If "2:" works - dup of bug 79520

Comment 2

[Addison Laurent]

1) PSM - that's not shown as anything seperate.  What I have installed:

Mozilla Chatzilla	2:0.9.5-ximian.1	101 KB
Mozilla HTTPS Support	2:0.9.5-ximian.1	1.42 MB
Mozilla Mailer	2:0.9.5-ximian.1	5.32 MB
Mozilla Web Browser	2:0.9.5-ximian.1	25.23 MB
Mozilla XML Terminal	2:0.9.5-ximian.1	295 KB
Mozilla SDK	2:0.9.5-ximian.1	15.66 MB

How else can I install/confirm/deny the existance of PSM component?

2) root receives the same error, converts the netscape profile, and then fails with the same error.

Trying to start mail/news gets the same error. (as root or the main user)

Comment 3

[R.K.Aa.]

found bug 105167.
Is your .mozilla directory or dir's below set to read-only?

Comment 4

[Addison Laurent]

> Is your .mozilla directory or dir's below set to read-only?

No.  In fact, I've chmodded -R 777 .mozilla without any change in the problem.

Comment 5

[Addison Laurent]

Also note that root is having the same problem that the other users are 1) so that the permissions should work, and 2) /.mozilla is on a different mount point (in case there was any issue there).

(All directories are local to this box, none are NFS mounted).

Comment 6

[Addison Laurent]

(one more note on .mozilla - removing it gets it created each time, so subdirs under it aren't at issue)

Comment 7

[R.K.Aa.]

changing component.

Comment 8

[Stephane Saux]

Changes have been made recently to the way PSM/NSS is initialized. Please try a
newer build.

-> Kai to follow up if necessary.

Comment 9

[Kai Engert [:KaiE:]]

It is interesting that this kind of problem is usually reported from non-primary
platforms, i.e. not Linux, Mac, or Win32.

Tell me, after you have erased your .mozilla dir, started Mozilla and seen the
error message, does your .mozilla/default/bla/ directory contain anything?

Does it contain a prefs.js file? If not, then Mozilla is completely unable to
write contents into ti.

Does it contain files the files cert7.db, key3.db, secmod.db? If they exist,
what size do they have?

Comment 10

[Addison Laurent]

> Does it contain files the files cert7.db, key3.db, secmod.db? If they exist,
> what size do they have?

Please see the directory listing above, that is after wiping out the .mozilla directory. It has all of those files, and their sizes are listed.

Comment 11

[Kai Engert [:KaiE:]]

> Please see the directory listing above, that is after wiping out the .mozilla
> directory. It has all of those files, and their sizes are listed.

Ok, sorry. Maybe the files get created, but some corruption occurs during the
startup phase. If you were able to use a current version of Mozilla (preferably
wait for the 097 milestone which comes out in a few days), and the problem still
shows up, you could attach the *.db files to this bug, maybe we can confirm that
it is database corruption.

Comment 12

[D. Grimaldo]

I don't know why this is "unconfirmed" I am experienced the
same problem with Mozilla 0.9.9 Build 2002031115 running
on Red Hat Linux 7.2. To reproduce it you only need
to access an HTTPS type of URL, it is that simple.

Comment 13

[Duncan.Foster]

I've started seeing this problem in 1.0RC3 on Solaris. I've made sure that all
files under ~/.mozilla are user-writable. The prefs.js, and .dbs mentioned
previously are all present. 

Comment 14

[Boris 'pi' Piwinger]

NEW by last comment.

pi

Comment 15

[Kai Engert [:KaiE:]]

I wish I had access to a SUN machine to reproduce and debug myself.

If I create a patch, to enable a lot of tracing output, would you be able to
build a build with that patch?

Maybe we could ask the people who usually produce the build you are downloading?

Comment 16

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Is this still happening ?

Comment 17

[Kai Engert [:KaiE:]]

I propose to declare this 6.5 years old bug as expired.
Nobody had reacted to my proposal from comment 15.