284344 - On Quitting, Firefox vanished from "applications", then Mail, Itunes, Safari, Iphoto, etc. preferences coudn't be saved.

Status: VERIFIED INVALID

(Firefox :: Installer, defect)

Description

[Peter Normandin]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/85.8.5 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/85.8.1
Build Identifier: 

After playing with Firefox for a few minutes several times, it vanished. Only the .dmg could be 
found in the trash. Then, my preferences in many OS X 10.2.8 could not be 'remembered' by the 
computer. Took it to Apple's Genius Bar, they ran a BatChmod to verify/change permissions. 
Seemed to work. The Genius said that Firefox changes permissions to install itself, but then maybe 
didn't change them back. I spent at least 8 hours rebuilding my Mail accounts 2 times, before I 
gave up. I'm not going to reproduce the problem because it cost too much in wasted time. Please 
make this work, I want to use Firefox!! Thanks.

Reproducible: Didn't try

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Download Firefox for Mac with 10.2.8 G3 400Mhz
2.Run Firefox a few times, w/o adjusting prefs
3.Launch other Apple apps, like Itunes, Mail, Iphoto. That's what I recall doing.
Actual Results:  
Didn't try to reproduce, but if I did what I wrote above, it might. Who knows what the other 
variables were...

Expected Results:  
Repaired or recovered or 'reset to how they were' my permissions.

Email me for more clarification or system info, also a phone call might be worthy, but I know time 
is expensive. Email for phone number if necessary.

Comment 1

[Ben Fowler]

I am sorry that you are having difficulty with Firefox, even so, Please 
be aware that bugzilla is not a support forum and you will find
more people willing to help in the forums, exempli gratia:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=38 (linked from
the Firefox support page at http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/ )

You are not going to garner much attention anywhere with a phrase
like "it vanished" (See 
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html#clarity ).

Mac OS X sits on top of BSD, and provided you don't subvert this
set up, the moving parts - the heart of the enterprise - are sealed off
from you. Provided that you don't over-fill your disk, you need only
use the Apple supplied tools fsck which runs automatically as needed,
and repair permissions (infrequently, possibly after a major install
or system update). It doesn't, by design,  have user serviceable parts!

You should create a dummy user with a second set of preferences to
check up on things like this. Your preferences probably returned
after you logged out and logged back in again. (Possibly the Finder
had crashed)

It is true that a standard Installer can change permissions, see
http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/Technical/Packages/InstallerWoes.html .

Please bear in mind that Firefox is brought into use by dragging its icon
to an Applications folder. Administrator permissions are not required
and no "installation" is done. Let me put it another way and cast
doubt on the two statements "Firefox changes permissions" and "[Firefox] 
installs itself".

As an end user switching from Safari to Firefox gets you very little (as
a Web Devleoper you get the Gecko Engine and XUL). Aquafication of Firefox
is planned, but is unlikely to proceed rapidy and some who have faithfully
compared Safari and Firefox much prefer the former.

I would suggest that you save your phone number and make friends with
the regulars at your local Macintosh User Group. (If the West Riding is local
to you the YMUG meets on Saturday http://www.ymug.org/ ). It sounds as
though you need to make a backup using a simple safe tool like Carbon Copy
Cloner http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html ) and check the
permissions on your disk with the Apple Disk Utility.

When you next come to Firefox, follow the instructions to the letter:
Copy the icon to you hard disk, eject the disk image, and run the program
from your disk.

Comment 2

[L. H.]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Provided that you don't over-fill your disk [...]

That sounds by far most likely (or possibly filesystem corruption).  A Finder
crash could not have done that damage, and it is almost impossible Firefox could.

Any reason not to close this INVALID?

Comment 3

[Arthur Wiebe]

Can't be Firefox bug or other bug we must work around so marking as invalid.

Comment 4

[Ben Fowler]

(In reply to comment #0)
> .... Took it to Apple's Genius Bar, ... . The Genius said that Firefox ...

Does Firefox have an outreach program for the Apple Genius Bar? There must be
some Apple Geniuses who are interested on Open Source software.

There is an FAQ sheet at http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=131693 .