292237 - cannot have local and remote (via ssh) firefox run simultaneously on a single display

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 289383

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, defect)

Description

[wayne lydecker]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

If I ssh over the internet to another computer and launch firefox, it appears on
my local display fine.  If I then attempt to launch firefox locally, I get
another instance of the remote firefox instead of a local version of firefox.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. ssh to a remote machine
2. run firefox
3. open window on local machine and run firefox
4. After a considerable amount of time, a remote version of firefox runs instead
of the local version.

Actual Results:  
I had two instances of firefox running from the remote machine instead of one
remote and one local.

Expected Results:  
I should have had one instance of firefox running on the remote machine and
another instance of firefox running locally.

I tried to launch firefox remotely after starting it from home
and I got the following before it crashed:

X Error of failed request:  BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)
  Major opcode of failed request:  20 (X_GetProperty)
  Resource id in failed request:  0x613027
  Serial number of failed request:  824
  Current serial number in output stream:  824

Comment 1

[Peter van der Woude [:Peter6]]

duplicate of bug 264181 ?

Comment 2

[wayne lydecker]

This appears to be completely different than bug 264181.  I think this is an
X-Windows related issue, but 264181 is on Windows Server 2003.  Also, the bug
I'm reporting cannot run firefox on two separate machines, where 264181 cannot run
firefox twice on the same machine.

Comment 3

[wayne lydecker]

Additional comments from Harry fearnley:

   Linux, Firefox and X -- local or remote browser?
   ================================================

Linux-to-linux, I experience some weirdness when using a remote firefox
client (Firefox v 1.0.4, 20050511) when I have one already running
locally (and vice-versa).  Why?


Details
=======

A) I am logged on to machine "local" (Fedora Core 2), and do not have
   a browser open.  Logged in as root, I connect (to SuSE 9.2):

      local% ssh -X remote

      remote% firefox &

   and see the browser which is clearly running on the remote machine
   (do File/Open File, whatever ...).

   If (on local) I now do:

      local% firefox &

   I open another firefox window, but it is running on the remote machine.


B) I can reverse this process: i.e. Run a local firefox; invoke firefox
   on remote, and it will run locally!


N.B. If I ssh as a different user --

   local% ssh -X otheruser@remote

then I do not see this behaviour.


This behaviour _seems_ to be caused by the use of "firefox -remote" -- see
http://www.mozilla.org/unix/remote.html

When I type "firefox" I expected it to run firefox locally, and simply to
display remotely.  However, it looks as if it does a "firefox -remote ping()"
first, and if it gets a positive response, simply runs it all remotely,
without even asking, or telling, me!

I did not expect this -- should I have done so?  Is there a simple
explanation for this behaviour?

Is there a way to stop it?!


Harry

+-+-+-+-+.+-+-+-+-+.+-+-+-+-+.+-+-+-+-+.+-+-+-+-+.+-+-+-+-+.+-+-+-+-+.+-+-+-+-+-
http://www.eng.ox.ac.uk/people/Harry.Fearnley
Dept Engineering Science, Parks Rd, Oxford, OX1 3PJ, UK
Tel: [phone]  --  Fax: [phone]

Comment 4

[Christopher Neufeld]

I have experienced the same thing with a Deer Park Alpha 2 build from a CVS
checkout on July 28, 2005.  This is a serious annoyance for me.  I have two
machines, I use one only for work-related web browsing, and it connects through
a VPN to web sites in the remote office.  The other machine I use for everyday
activities, it knows my various passwords and bookmarks, etc.  Now, I cannot run
firefox on both machines at the same time on my desktop, only one machine will
be running it, whichever one started first.

Comment 5

[Christopher Neufeld]

OK, a quick look through the source code, and I found a work-around.  I start my
firefox on my local machine first, then in a terminal on the remote machine, I
set the environment variable MOZ_NO_REMOTE.  After that, starting firefox on the
remote box causes the binary to execute there, and not merely spawn a new window
from my local machine.

Comment 6

[Benjamin Smedberg]

This is the same basic problem as bug 289383, and MOZ_NO_REMOTE is the correct
workaround.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 289383 ***