341435 - start first instance of Firefox by clicking Internet Shortcut (.url file) or external application like Thunderbird - a process opens, but no window is visible

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 395891

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, defect)

Description

[mmortal03]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1a3) Gecko/20060610 BonEcho/2.0a3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1a3) Gecko/20060610 BonEcho/2.0a3

This bug usually happens after installing a new version of Firefox, or after installing an extension, but also happens at other times.

Basically, if you use a .url file to open the first instance of Firefox, it will open a firefox.exe process in the background, but no visible window will exist.  If you click on another .url file, or you wait a little while, it will given you a message stating that the address could not be found or the program could not be found at the address specified (sorry, I cannot remember which it is at the moment, but I have deja vu when I see it related to Bug 246078, if that is any help).

You have to then manually go and end the process by going into the Task Manager.  After you do that, the next .url that you click on WILL open Firefox properly.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

please give a specific example with specific URL(s), with steps 1, 2, 3, 4, ec.

Comment 2

[mmortal03]

The .url file usually goes to http://www.google.com, but it really doesn't matter the url that it goes to. I have seen this happen with many different .url files.  All that matters is that when you start up the browser with a .url file, which are associated in the system with Firefox, being the default browser, a firefox.exe process loads and can be seen on the task manager, but the firefox window never loads.  I haven't seen this lately, though, so it could be fixed.  However, I do still get the prompt saying that the url cannot be found when a previous instance of firefox crashed, and it is loading the previous instance.

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

afaik there is no such thing as a .url file. Do you mean a shortcut with http://... as the target?

do you have "don't ask at startup" unchecked in profile manager, i.e. does profile manager normally appear when you start firefox?

Comment 4

[mmortal03]

(In reply to comment #3)
> afaik there is no such thing as a .url file. Do you mean a shortcut with
> http://... as the target?
> 


Actually, there are .URL files, and they act different from shortcuts.  They are actually just text files with a .URL extension.  Go into the command prompt and open up a directory where you have dragged an address from Mozilla, or where you have IE Favorites stored, and you will see that they have the extension .URL.  Windows just hides the extension otherwise, no matter if you have it set to show extensions for known file types.

> do you have "don't ask at startup" unchecked in profile manager, i.e. does
> profile manager normally appear when you start firefox?
> 

No.  The profile manager does not normally appear when I start firefox.

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> (In reply to comment #3)
> > afaik there is no such thing as a .url file. Do you mean a shortcut with
> > http://... as the target?
> 
> Actually, there are .URL files, and they act different from shortcuts.  

ah, quite correct


> > do you have "don't ask at startup" unchecked in profile manager, i.e. does
> > profile manager normally appear when you start firefox? 
> 
> No.  The profile manager does not normally appear when I start firefox.

start firefox in profile manager and uncheck the box, I think you will find you that you don't see the problem - the shortcut starts up fine.

There should be another open bug on this but I'm not finding it - so confirming. I would expect this to be a regression. Perhaps it's OS=ALL, but I can't tell.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a5pre) Gecko/20070527 Minefield/3.0a5pre

steps to reproduce:
1. start firefox in profile manager
2. uncheck "don't ask at startup"
3. make sure firefox is the default web browser
4. exit firefox
5. click link in external application or click link URL/shortcut

actual result:
firefox appears in task manager with a small amount of memory, but no firefox window is found

expected results:
firefox window started at URL

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

similar but not same symptoms: Bug 340698, Bug 354981

Comment 7

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

works for me in  Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9a5pre) Gecko/2007052909 Minefield/3.0a5pre - Firefox has all defaults in Vista and starts as expected with the steps to reproduce from comment #5

Comment 8

[mmortal03]

(In reply to comment #5)
> (In reply to comment #4)
> > (In reply to comment #3)
> > > afaik there is no such thing as a .url file. Do you mean a shortcut with
> > > http://... as the target?
> > 
> > Actually, there are .URL files, and they act different from shortcuts.  
> 
> ah, quite correct
> 
> 
> > > do you have "don't ask at startup" unchecked in profile manager, i.e. does
> > > profile manager normally appear when you start firefox? 
> > 
> > No.  The profile manager does not normally appear when I start firefox.
> 
> start firefox in profile manager and uncheck the box, I think you will find you
> that you don't see the problem - the shortcut starts up fine.
> 
> There should be another open bug on this but I'm not finding it - so
> confirming. I would expect this to be a regression. Perhaps it's OS=ALL, but I
> can't tell.
> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a5pre) Gecko/20070527
> Minefield/3.0a5pre
> 
> steps to reproduce:
> 1. start firefox in profile manager
> 2. uncheck "don't ask at startup"
> 3. make sure firefox is the default web browser
> 4. exit firefox
> 5. click link in external application or click link URL/shortcut
> 
> actual result:
> firefox appears in task manager with a small amount of memory, but no firefox
> window is found
> 
> expected results:
> firefox window started at URL
> 

I noticed that the option "don't ask at startup" is ineffectual in at least the my experiences on the latest nightly. (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a5pre) Gecko/20070529 Minefield/3.0a5pre ID:2007052909 [cairo])

I found no bug report regarding this.  For example, if the option "don't ask at startup" is NOT checked, the profile manager does NOT appear when firefox.exe is run.  This may not be helpful in fixing this bug, but because you mentioned it, I thought it might possibly be relevant.

Either way, your steps to reproduce did not therefore work for me.  I did, however, force the profile manager to open along with a URL, as follows: "firefox.exe -p http://www.hotmail.com/" to see what that would do.

When I did that, the profile manager appeared, I then clicked Start Minefield, and firefox opened, going to hotmail.com, as it should have.

Therefore, I do not think this bug has been a profile manager problem in my case, though whatever you ARE reproducing on your system to get that empty firefox.exe process, is definitely a bug (but possibly a different one).

Comment 9

[Bruce Casner]

Since the change to Firefox 2.0.0.6 from 2.0.0.5, I cannot open URLs from Thunderbird or from KeePass, though from GroupWise it still works, but with a very long delay.  In the release notes for 2.0.0.6, URL exchange filtering is a new security feature, so it seems a likely cause of the change.

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

original report is a dup of 395891

Comment 11

[mmortal03]

I wasn't using the profile manager in this bug report, so unless the bug fix for bug 395891 fixes situations where the profile manager is not loading on startup, then it isn't a duplicate.