1555134 - Clicking on a link in an application running elevated will open a new Firefox window

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1555319

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, defect)

Description

[Rami]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:67.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/67.0

Steps to reproduce:

Windows 10 Version 1903 64-bit
Firefox 64.0 x64
"Open links in tabs instead of new windows" is checked

1. Launch Firefox as a standard user (not elevated).
2. Launch another application with elevated permissions.
3. In the elevated application, click on a hyperlink.

Actual results:

Two instances of Firefox are running.

Expected results:

A new tab in the existing instance should have opened.
This is how it worked in the previous version of Firefox.

Comment 1

[Rami]

*Firefox 67.0 x64

Comment 2

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

If you look in about:profiles on both Firefoxes, what is the full path for the profiles in use?

Can you attach a copy of C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles.ini

Comment 3

[Rami]

Firefox non-elevated about:profiles:
Profile: default
This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted.
Default Profile yes
Root Directory C:\Users\rami.abughazaleh\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\up6gxlc3.default
Local Directory C:\Users\rami.abughazaleh\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\up6gxlc3.default
Profile: default-release
Default Profile no
Root Directory C:\Users\rami.abughazaleh\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\vapjt0db.default-release
Local Directory C:\Users\rami.abughazaleh\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\vapjt0db.default-release

Firefox elevated about:profiles:
Profile: default
This profile is in use in another application and it cannot be deleted.
Default Profile no
Root Directory C:\Users\rami.abughazaleh\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\up6gxlc3.default
Local Directory C:\Users\rami.abughazaleh\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\up6gxlc3.default
Profile: default-release
This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted.
Default Profile yes
Root Directory C:\Users\rami.abughazaleh\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\vapjt0db.default-release
Local Directory C:\Users\rami.abughazaleh\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\vapjt0db.default-release

Comment 4

[Rami]

Attachment: profiles.ini

Comment 5

[Rami]

Comment on attachment 9068183 [details]
profiles.ini

Attached C:\Users\rami.abughazaleh\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles.ini

Comment 6

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

It looks to me like you have two different installations of Firefox on your computer, the browser you are starting manually is different from the one being launch by other applications.

Comment 7

[Rami]

Attachment: Programs and Features.png

I only have one instance of "firefox" in "Programs and Features".

Comment 8

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

If you have both Firefoxes open, launch the task manager (right click on taskbar), Make sure that you have clicked on more details. You should see two Firefoxes under apps at the top of the list. Expand each and right click on one of the processes below and choose properties. The location property should give the installation directory. What are they?

Comment 9

[Rami]

All instances of the running firefox.exe processes point to the same location:
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox

Comment 10

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Well this is very strange. The two different Firefox instances report having different default profiles. The profiles.ini shows two different installations both set to the two different default profile folders. That can only happen when Firefox is installed in two different places.

Comment 11

[Rami]

I can reproduce it more simply as follows:

1. Launch Firefox (not elevated)
2. Open a command prompt (not elevated)
3. Run the following command:
   "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" http://google.com
4. Run the following command:
   "c:\program files\mozilla firefox\firefox.exe" http://google.com

Notice that step 3 will open a new tab and step 4 will open a new window.

So it seems this is a case sensitivity issue.

Comment 12

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Oh boy. Ok I've filed bug 1555319 to figure this out. This is probably a straight dupe of that but wanted something clean to work from.

Comment 13

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Just going to dupe this across for now.