147241 - If ~/.mozilla is not owned by user, Mozilla exits without warning

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 103157

(SeaMonkey :: General, defect)

Description

[Chris Halsall]

From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.0rc3) Gecko/20020523
BuildID:    2002052309

Took a while to figure this out -- simple once I realized, but could cause major
frustration for new users.

I'm installing a new machine for home use, and installed RH7.3.  Then updated to
Ximian desktop.  Clicked on Mozilla icon afterwards, and no browser.  Entered
"mozilla" from the command line, and it simply exited a couple of seconds later.

Downloaded and installed RC3 -- same thing.  What the heck.

Finially figured out that somehow my ~/.mozilla directory was owned by root. 
Not sure how that happened, but chmod'ing to proper user fixed the problem.

Any chance the mozilla startup script could detect this, and warn the user
before exiting?  I don't know how often this happens, but pretty frustrating.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. (As root) chmod root:root /home/[someuser]/.mozilla
2. Try to launch mozilla.

Actual Results:  Mozilla won't launch.

Expected Results:  A warning message saying a lock wasn't successful, and a
suggestion for correcting would be good.

Love your work -- this is coming along NICELY!  It's the only browser I use now.

Comment 1

[R.K.Aa.]

vague resemblance to bug 103157

Comment 2

[Kai Lahmann (is there, where MNG is)]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 103157 ***