300696 - New Window command fails - new window will not open

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[pcbjrmail]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4

I upgraded from 1.0.4 to 1.0.5.  I cannot go to File in the menu bar and open a
new window after closing the one that opened on start up, nor can I open a new
tab - even when Foxfire is the only open application on the desktop; same thing
with Command-N.  I reverted back to 1.0.4 and it works perfectly; re-downloaded
1.0.5 and reinstalled and the same problem happens (this problem also happened
in 1.0.3, so until 1.0.4 I stayed at 1.0.2).  This may be Mac related.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Open a new window.
2.Close the window withthe red button on top left.
3.Go to File>New Window

Actual Results:  
No new window; have to quit the application and restart to get a new window.

Expected Results:  
Opened a new window.

I'm using OS 10.3.7; I've had this same problem qith Firefox 1.0.5 on 3
different computers; 1.0.4 does not present this problem and never has!

Comment 1

[Jaime Mitchell (use [e-mail] for email)]

Does this occur if you start firefox in safe mode:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_mode

Comment 2

[Patrick McCormick]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716 
Firefox/1.0.6

I observed this behavior just today.  Yesterday, I upgraded the Web Developer 
(WD) and User Agent Switcher (UAS) extensions.  Current versions:
WD 0.9.3
UAS 0.6.6

New Tab works, but New Window, or right-click-menu "Open Link In New Window" do 
not open a new window.  Instead, nothing happens.  Moreover, once I choose File-
>Exit, I cannot restart Firefox because there is a Firefox.exe process hanging 
around which I have to kill manually.

Running with -safe-mode, everything works fine.  I disabled all other 
extensions besides WD and UAS, and continued to see the problem.

Disabling UAS fixes the problem for me.

If I disable WD and leave UAS active, I get some very strange behavior. 
Restarting Firefox leads to a very unresponsive browser -- it doesn't load the 
home page (but it does show the title), doesn't show the search icon, and all 
menus do not work.  The Refresh and Update buttons do work.  See upcoming 
screenshot.

I had to do the following to get Firefox working again:

1. edit Extensions.rdf directly to re-enable WD (since Tools menu was 
nonresponsive)
2. started Firefox, still "broken" as above, exited.
4. started Firefox a second time, now everything works.

I'm really not sure what is up with the above behavior but I replicated it 
three times.  I'm pretty certain all of this bad behavior can be traced to some 
extension issues within UAS or WD.  I also may have dirt in my profile, but I 
don't have time right now to build a new profile and install these extensions.

Confirming new, since I saw it.  Downgrading to Normal since disabling some 
extensions will address the issue.  This might be invalid if it's just an 
extension bug -- should extensions be allowed to disable New Window in this 
manner?

a suggested plan for someone with time on their hands:
1. create new profile, install UAS, check for issue; install WD, check for issue

Comment 3

[Patrick McCormick]

Attachment: screenshot of my broken firefox after I disabled WD while leaving UAS enabled

Comment 4

[Patrick McCormick]

Ugh.  After a half hour of reproducing the problem without trouble, I tried
using Firefox with WD and UAS, and New Window works fine.

I reenabled all extensions.  I got the "broken firefox" twice, but after two
restarts Firefox worked perfectly.  I am now running with UAS and WD enabled and
can spawn new windows without trouble.

It could be a profile issue (mine has been a few Firefox versions by now).  I am
annoyed by the broken firefox behavior, perhaps I should log that as a separate
bug.  It could deter less-sophisticated users from using Firefox extensions.  I
will update if I figure anything else out.

Comment 5

[Shiva Mantri]

Version: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.12)
Gecko/20050915 Firefox/1.0.7

I am also having the same problem. Exact same behaviour.

1. I cannot open new window with File->new window or ctrl+N
2. In safe-mode firefox is working as expected.

I dont have a UAS extension, but I do have WebDeveloper 0.9.4. I disabled WD, it
still does not work.

right now, I am restricted to single window in firefox.

Comment 6

[Shiva Mantri]

guess what.....

i put my brain to work..and tried to recollect the updates/extensions I
installed earlier today.... i remembered that I updated GMail Notifier and some
other extension. Well, removed GMail Notifier... bingo... everything works fine.
can open new window with ctrl+N

Comment 7

[Ron]

The severity of this bug is CRITICAL. Not being able to open an external link
renders the browser useless. Isn't this what browsers are for?

Comment 8

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

This bug is part of a query for Firefox bugs that have Status set to NEW, but have version field set to 2.0 or older and have not changed in over 800 days.

http://tiny.cc/forgottennewbugs

If you still see this bug, or if it is still valid with Firefox 3.6.10 or a firefox 4 nightly build, please update the version field and steps to reproduce.

Comment 9

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Really old version, works for me. Please feel free to reopen if you still see this problem on a recent version of Firefox.