458369 - Confusion about the true nature of -no-remote

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, defect)

Description

[Matěj Cepl]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; cs-CZ; rv:1.9.0.2) Gecko/2008092502 Fedora/3.0.2-1.fc10 Firefox/3.0.2
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; cs-CZ; rv:1.9.0.2) Gecko/2008092502 Fedora/3.0.2-1.fc10 Firefox/3.0.2

(originally filed as https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=465376)

When running LANG=C firefox -help, it says about -no-remote option:

	-no-remote Open new instance, not a new window in running instance.

However when I try to run firefox -no-remote while another instance of firefox is running, I get only a dialog box saying:

    Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window,
    you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system.

When I try to run a new instance of firefox from inside of ssh -Y session, then it works as it is supposed to and I get new separate and disctinct instance of firefox. However, no luck when it is all on one computer.

Also, when I was trying to investigate for this bug, I found that http://kb.mozillazine.org/Command_line_arguments claims that 

    Enables Firefox to run with multiple profiles; used with -P.
    Firefox 2 and later.

There is some serious confusion about this, I am afraid.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.while firefox is running
2.run in a terminal command firefox -no-remote
3.
Actual Results:  
error dialog box

Expected Results:  
new instance of firefox as promised by the -help output

Comment 1

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Separate instances must use separate profiles. Possibly we could improve the command line help to mention that but that is all there is to it.

Comment 2

[Mikel Ward]

Yes, the usage message is very misleading.

Comment 3

[cgriffiths]

This is very confusing and should be fixed. I had a script using -no-remote and also the -p option to specify a profile directory. At some stage the -p option was removed and I started getting this completely useless error.

My suggestion would be that -no-remote assumes the -ProfileManager option unless -P is also specified. Also you could consider preventing use of the default profile when -no-remote is used, or at least show a warning.

Comment 4

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Both no-remote and the profile manager are advanced options for people who understand them. I don't think it's worth putting extra in-product code in to try and explain them. Clarify the docs at developer.mozilla.org or support.mozilla.org if necessary.

Comment 5

[Vincent Lefevre]

Developers want end users to test with -safe-mode, but end users don't necessarily want to kill the running instance for various reasons, so that -no-remote is also needed by the end user and should not be regarded as an advanced option. Getting buggy error messages in this case is very nasty!