262994 - Invoking firefox with options -remote "ping()" has no effect on return code

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Yosef Meller]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041002 Firefox/0.10.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041002 Firefox/0.10.1

invoking firefox like so:

$ firefox -remote "ping()"

and then checking the return status through $? or use of the || and && operators
in bash, reveals that the outcome is 0 regardless of the existwence (or
non-existence) of an open firefox window.

No other mozilla products were open during the test

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. run this: 

$ firefox -remote "ping()"

When no firefox window is open. Check $?

2. Repeat, this time with an open firefox window


Actual Results:  
The return value on both invocations is 0

Expected Results:  
give a non-zero if a window exists.

doing some other thing with -remote works:

$ firefox -remode "openURL(..., new-tab)"

opens the URL in a new tab when a window is present.

There's a workaround:
$ ps auxc | grep $USER | grep firefox
does the same thing.

Comment 1

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 2

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.