1690412 - if browser is open and I click a link elsewhere FF says close FF first

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Widget: Gtk, defect, P3)

Description

[Nick Levinson]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Fedora; Linux x86_64; rv:85.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/85.0

Steps to reproduce:

1. Have FF open with whatever loaded tab or tabs you wish.

2. Be somewhere other than in FF. This happened with a LibreOffice Writer document in which a URL was hyperlinked; per the instruction in a tooltip ("Ctrl-click to open hyperlink: . . . [URL]"), I had ctrl-clicked the link. It also happened with Gnome's Files (Nautilus) app's About Files dialog, which has a hyperlinked "Website" link; I had clicked the link. It also happened with the Firefox menu in Gnome's top panel, with either the New Window menu item or the New Private Window menu item.

3. Click a link that should open a Firefox tab or window.

Actual results:

This gets a dialog that says "Close Firefox"/"Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To use Firefox, you must first close the existing Firefox process, restart your device, or use a different profile."/"OK".

This problem started only recently.

At least versions 84 and 85 have the problem.

Expected results:

Open the page in a new tab without exiting FF, restarting the device, or having another profile.

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

Bugbug thinks this bug should belong to this component, but please revert this change in case of error.

Comment 2

[Nick Levinson]

I removed FF and then reinstalled it using dnf and then the problem in this thread was solved, although kludgily. dnf installed firefox-86.0-7.fc33.x86_64; I think that's a later minor version than I had through Fedora. But "Flatpak is installed by default on Fedora Workstation." Https://flatpak.org/setup/Fedora/ (as accessed 3-14-21). That suggests that the default way I'll get FF into Fedora is via Flatpak. And what Flatpak installs seems more secure than what dnf installs. People commenting at Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/g56m8n/whats_the_difference_between_firefox_from_dnf_and/) say there's a security difference favoring the Flatpak FF over the dnf FF.

dnf is not a good solution, since the FF we get through the Software app should work and may be more secure. Only a geek would install through dnf instead, and most people are not geeks. I removed FF via dnf and reinstalled it (version 86.0 (second decimal group not found), build 20210304154255) using the Software app and set FF to safe mode. It appears that I have no extensions and that the only add-on I have is disabled and not uninstallable. This reinstallation via the Software app was thus through Flatpak, and the problem came back.

Since Flatpak is not something I explicitly use, but use only implicitly as part of the Fedora/Gnome installation, then the bug is somewhere in the FF that Flatpak supplies for Fedora or is in Fedora, Gnome, Flatpak, or the Software app. Perhaps someone can help narrow down the suspects.

This likely contributes to many bugs experienced by users as FF bugs.

Comment 3

[Nick Levinson]

Exception: Identical profiles work to open multiple windows.

STR:

1. In a Firefox browser instance, go to about:profiles .
2. Set up a new profile.
3. In the list of profiles, under the new profile, click Launch Profile in New Browser.

Actual result:

It opens a new Firefox window.

Nonetheless, even after that, the Gnome desktop's top panel's Firefox menu's New Window command still gets only the alert about having to quit and restart FF or the device or use another profile. (I probably thought that meant having to have profiles with different content, which I didn't want.)

Also, I couldn't open a third window if there were only two profiles. So, I created a third profile that was identical to the second except for the profile's name. Thus, there's a limit of one window per profile, although profiles can be identical apart from names.

Expected result: A new window but without having to create or use another profile.

Comment 4

[Nick Levinson]

A collateral effect is that when I have FF and Thunderbird open and I want to access Tbird Help, Tbird Help requires opening FF (even if Chromium is already open) and therefore FF refusing to open will deny me Tbird Help. The same happened with GIMP 2.10.24 Help > GIMP Online > Main Web Site. This likely applies to many apps' Help files, which users might not realize are online and not in localhost.

Clarifying comment 3: The exception is only for a number of windows less than or equal to the number of profiles. I'm not sure it's okay to have a lot of identical profiles.

Comment 5

[Jan Horak [:jhorak]]

Okay, there seems to be more things to clarify.

1. Do you use Fedora Silverblue or regular Fedora %version?
2. Please run flatpak info org.mozilla.firefox and flatpak info org.mozilla.Firefox and look for the Origin to determine from what source the flatpak package is installed (you can paste whole output).
3. The "Flatpak is installed by default on Fedora Workstation." means that the flatpak - the tool for running applications in containers - is installed on the Fedora system by default. Not the Firefox flatpak. In fact is the opposite, on Fedora fresh install you'll get Firefox package from rpm (installed by dnf). The Software app is somehow confusing regarding what will be or is installed. Please check the Source: to determine which firefox you have. The fedoraproject.org is the rpm one, the flathub is third party repository you could have enabled. Also note that there's a dropdown menu on the top of the Software app which allows you to pick the source for the package (totally confusing IMO), see: https://pasteboard.co/K2W3oRx.png

Anyway it's a bug we have to address. My guess is that the dbus interface regarding remote control is not exported in the flatpak.

Comment 6

[Nick Levinson]

I don't have Silverblue unless it's meant to go unnoticed. I looked at it at getfedora.org and I don't think I have that. The Settings app > About says "Fedora 34 (Workstation Edition)".

Origin is "fedora". Here's the full output of both:

flatpak info org.mozilla.firefox

got

error: org.mozilla.firefox/unspecified/unspecified not installed

and

flatpak info org.mozilla.Firefox

got (leading spacing may not be preserved, at leadt without monopitch)

Firefox - Web Browser

      ID: org.mozilla.Firefox
     Ref: app/org.mozilla.Firefox/x86_64/stable
    Arch: x86_64
  Branch: stable
 Version: 88.0.1
 License: GPL-3.0+
  Origin: fedora

Collection:
Installation: system
Installed: 279.7 MB
Runtime: org.fedoraproject.Platform/x86_64/f34
Sdk: org.fedoraproject.Sdk/x86_64/f34

  Commit: b783af4d92a2ae7c09ee460734f7988a6672e7a936158b1f0e57b71621a93cd0
 Subject: Export org.mozilla.Firefox
    Date: 2021-05-13 08:11:26 +0000
  Alt-id: 70b89a509ca8cf37f2b6d2d67b39170b4d398e50c9fc476223c1f9333e64f781

I opened the Software app > Explore > . . . > Firefox and found the Source drop-down menu. I don't remember seeing that menu before. I hope it's new and that I didn't miss seeing it for a long time. It lists Fedora (Flatpak) with a checkmark and Fedora (RPM) without one. I wonder if it would have listed another source if I had used another or if the menu is limited to those already known to the Software app or to Fedora, but I'm not willing to test that (I have enough problems from residual effects of uninstalling and reinstalling FF a couple of times already).

Comment 7

[Jan Horak [:jhorak]]

Okay, seems to be clear to me now. You're using the fedora flatpak version of Firefox (which is fine). The package miss the right permission to export current running session to the dbus for allowing opening links from third party apps. This also affect the Firefox in the flathub, so we need to add --own-name=org.mozilla.firefox.* to the manifest. See: https://src.fedoraproject.org/flatpaks/firefox/pull-request/2

Comment 8

[Jan Horak [:jhorak]]

Attachment: Bug 1690412 Allow opening links from other apps in the running Firefox; r=mtabara

Without exporting org.mozilla.firefox.<profile_name> interface to the session bus
the Firefox cannot use the remote to open the links in the browser which
leads to running another instance showing the app is already running.

Comment 9

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/eb4f537d8fa5
Allow opening links from other apps in the running Firefox; r=mtabara,stransky

Comment 10

[Dorel Luca [:dluca]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/eb4f537d8fa5

Comment 11

[Nick Levinson]

Fixed. (I tested v90.0 (64-bit) per the STR in the Description.) Meanwhile, since opening this report, I did a clean installation of Fedora 34 and, with it, FF. Thank you.