457572 - Firefox 3.0x will not open links from OS or other applications unless already running.

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Shell Integration, defect)

Description

[Shawn Stone]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092414 Firefox/3.0.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092414 Firefox/3.0.3

When Firefox 3 is not already running, clicking on a link from Finder or from another application launches Firefox but does NOT navigate to the specified URL.  This has been the case with versions 3.00-3.03 and on both Tiger (10.4) and Leopard (10.5) versions of the OS.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Set Firefox as default browser, either in Firefox itself or in Safari.
2. Quit Firefox, if running already.
3. Click a hyperlink from any non-browser application.
Actual Results:  
Firefox 3 will launch but open the default homepage instead of the desired link.

Expected Results:  
Firefox 3 should launch and open the desired link.

I have tried these steps using various configurations related to tabs and windows for new links.  No difference.

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

dupe of bug 420334, bug 423254 ?

Comment 2

[Gavin Stokes]

dupes:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=505298
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=501115
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=513424

Comment 5

[Gavin Stokes]

This may be unrelated, but at the same time this problem started, Firefox also stopped storing log-ins and other formerly persistent data.  Even on Web sites that offer a "remember me" option, Firefox doesn't.

This is repeatable across every system I own (four at the moment, all clean SnowLeopard installs).

Comment 6

[Scott Saylor]

This may be unrelated, but at the same time this problem started, Firefox also
stopped storing log-ins and other formerly persistent data.  Even on Web sites
that offer a "remember me" option, Firefox doesn't.

Yep, I second this too. All gone, like they were never there.

Comment 7

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Try a new profile :
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Managing+profiles
set Firefox to start with this new profile as default.
Test if link works, open the profilemanager again if you want to open the old profile again.

Comment 8

[Scott Saylor]

I had to copy import all bookmarks, reinstall the add-ons & re-log-in to all secure sites with stored username/passwords but building a new profile resolves everything - BUT - that's a pretty **** upgrade... I'll delete my old profile and take it from there. Thanks.

Comment 9

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

We don't want to resolve your issues, we want to find real bugs.
With the delete of the old profile we can not find the reason for this :-(
The new profile should be a test if it's depending on the profile that it doesn't work. The next step would be to remove some files and test again

Comment 10

[Gavin Stokes]

OK, Matthias.  I tested your profile suggestion, with mixed results.

Creating a new profile resolved the failure to open the linked page when Firefox wasn't already running.  However, when I switched back to the original profile, that problem was STILL FIXED.  So simply the act of switching profiles appears to have eliminated that problem permanently.

The problem of not saving form information is NOT fixed in the original profile.  "Remembered" info only persists in the new profile.

Another clue: I started with a clean SnowLeopard install and I downloaded the latest Firefox at the time; I think these problems existed from the beginning, and were not caused by a Firefox update.

Let me know if I can help by providing the profiles I've saved.

Comment 11

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

>The problem of not saving form information is NOT fixed in the original
>profile. 

You can export the bookmarks in your old profile to a html file and import them into the new one and you should have a working new profile except saved passwords, settings and installed addons.

But we can try to fix your old profile and we get the information which file in the profile seems to cause this issue.
Are the passwords the only thing that isn't saved ?

In that case be sure that Firefox is closed.
locate the profile folder on your hdd : http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles?s=profile location#How_to_find_your_profile

Please move this files to another folder, please do not delete them (!), they contain your passwords and the files are from different Firefox versions and not all files might be exist on your system, that depends on your first used Firefox version:
signons.txt, signons2.txt, signons3.txt, signons.sqlite

the .sqlite is the FF3.5+ version, what is the size of this file ?
Now start FF again, is the password saving working again ?

Comment 12

[Michal Kukuča]

Hi. I've got similar problems: a clean Snow Leopard installation + Firefox 3.5, upgraded to 3.6 (Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; sk; rv:1.9.2) Gecko/20100115 Firefox/3.6). If Firefox is not running, and I click a link, I also do get a start page BUT:
Firefox is actually open with TWO windows. One is visible: with the start page. Then there is another one: a tiny vertical line, always placed in the top left corner of the screen. I wouldn't otherwise noticed, but if you quit Firefox at this moment (and you have still only one start page open) it produces this dialog about multiple windows open and if you want to save this session and stuff. A simple way how to find if you have more windows open is using Expose, or taking a look in the Window menu: there are two windows: "Mozilla Firefox" — that's the tiny window in the corner, and "Úvodná stránka prehliadača Firefox" — that's the start page (I'm using slovak language localization).
BTW: It seems Expose does not always work for this, but the window is still in the menu and can't be selected… Strange…

Comment 13

[Jim Anderson]

Attachment: same problem

Thanks from tisivemes1973.