260305 - Firefox would only start for root. if it can't open ttf files

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 180309

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Brenda EM]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040808 Firefox/0.9.3
Build Identifier: Firefox Pre?? Please redirect as I have no option but to use another browser.

When I installed Firefox Pre as root in /usr/share/firefox
It would not run as a standard user.

This is on Fedora Core 2.
1.0-Pre is the only version of FF, I couldn't get running.
I removed the old FF directories before installation and renamed all the
Phoenix/Mozilla/Firefox directories in my home folder I could before starting,
so the chrome wouldn't be broken. (I only wanted my bookmarks.)


Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install the browser
2. Log Out
3. Try to launch it as another user.


Actual Results:  
The installer is neat, but something is very wrong with it.
Does it really want to install Firefox in my home directory as default?
When it's installed, the only way I can run it as root.


Expected Results:  
I expected to be able to launch it from a command line or copy create an icon
and run it that way.

Additionally, the "Build Identifier" in this form above can be problematic
because I could not log on this website with the 1.0-pre Firefox browser!

This is indefencebly bad UI! How would we log in with a browser that doesn't work?

Comment 1

[Götz Lohmann]

mozilla/firefox will crash as non-root user on my Linux system too

after using strace I got the following:

open("/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/arial.ttf", O_RDONLY) = -1 EACCES (Permission
denied)
open("/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/arial.ttf", O_RDONLY) = -1 EACCES (Permission
denied)
--- SIGSEGV (Segmentation fault) @ 0 (0) ---
rt_sigaction(SIGSEGV, NULL, {0x267e14, [], SA_RESTORER, 0x537458}, 8) = 0
times({tms_utime=245, tms_stime=34, tms_cutime=0, tms_cstime=0}) = 432866032
rt_sigaction(SIGSEGV, {0x877cbb8, ~[KILL STOP RTMIN], SA_RESTORER, 0x537458},
NULL, 8) = 0
tgkill(24114, 24114, SIGSEGV)           = 0
sigreturn()                             = ? (mask now [])
--- SIGSEGV (Segmentation fault) @ 0 (0) ---
unlink("/home/goetz/.mozilla/firefox/default.ubm/lock") = 0
rt_sigaction(SIGSEGV, {SIG_DFL}, NULL, 8) = 0
rt_sigprocmask(SIG_UNBLOCK, [SEGV], NULL, 8) = 0
tgkill(24114, 24114, SIGSEGV)           = 0
--- SIGSEGV (Segmentation fault) @ 0 (0) ---
+++ killed by SIGSEGV +++

checking /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/arial.ttf I found several fonts only
readable by root !!!
after making a chmod to all True Type fonts the browser don't crash anymore if I
start it as non-root user !

seems that the browser don't try to load an other font if it can't read but
found a Font :-(

Comment 2

[Götz Lohmann]

chmod any used font in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/ to 700 will make this error
reproducable. This in fact will not only crash firefox but also mozilla builds.
The browser closes imedatly without warning or error message!

Comment 3

[Juhani Tomasson]

Firefox 1.0pr doesnt crash as nonroot for me, it just displays a window with
title="&mainWindow.title;" something.

And before installing 1.0pr before I could run 0.9.3 and now it doesnt run
unless as a root. (it displays the same message)

Comment 4

[Adam Guthrie]

bug 230239 -> bug 183729 -> bug 180309

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 180309 ***