287732 - unable to open new windows

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Shell Integration, defect)

Description

[Krzysztof Gajos]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050317 Firefox/1.0.2
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050317 Firefox/1.0.2

I am unable to open new Firefox windows by any means (choosing new window from
the menu, right clicking on a link and asking it to open in a new window,
clicking on links that are supposed to open new windows).

This problem now happens on two of my Macs (both running the latest version of
OS X 10.3).  On my Powerbook it started when I upgraded from the latest
0.9something to 1.0.  On my brand new dual G5 desktop, it just happened today
when I upgraded from 1.0 to 1.0.2.  I first update by simply copying new Firefox
over the old one.  Interestingly, firefox 1.0.2 works fine if I start another
copy (with a brand new profile) directly from the installation disk image and
not copy it to the Applications directory.

In both cases, this bug manifested itself immediatelly after an upgrade.  In the
case of my Powerbook, successive upgrades (to 1.0.1 and 1.0.2) did not fix anything.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Upgrade to new version of firefox
2. start firefox, and try to open a second window by any means

Actual Results:  
Firefox "thinks" for a while (CPU usage goes up) but a new window never appears

Expected Results:  
New window appears

Comment 1

[FarmerBob]

Unable to do anything since installing 1.0.2. Suggest a different browser.

Comment 2

[riscky]

You should never directly copy over an over version of a mozilla.org app. The
documented/preferred method for upgrading
Firefox/Thunderbird/Mozilla/Sunfire/Camino is to move the old over application
to the trash then move then copy the new version
Firefox/Thunderbird/Mozilla/Sunfire/Camino where you want the app installed.

I would suggest doing a "clean Firefox install" move firefox from your apps
folder to the trash then copy 1.0.2 to your apps folder.

If that doesn't work you might have some profile corruption.

Comment 3

[Krzysztof Gajos]

Doing a clean install does not fix things.  But trashing the profile data does.

By the way, yesterday the same thing happened on a third mac (also doing the
"dirty" install where I copied 1.0.2 over 1.0.1).  Somehow the profile does get
messed up.  Firefox only misbehaves for the user who did the install but works
fine for everybody else...

Comment 4

[riscky]

Don't just trash the bad profiles... make replacement profiles and move the your
bookmarks and the like over to the new profile... you can even use the old
password files...

Comment 5

[Josh Aas]

Unlikely that we'll ever repro. Probably some fluke issue with your profile.