490597 - can't launch firefox when ~/.mozilla permissions are incorrect

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 237128

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[emily chen]

1. Login to desktop, the user can be allowed to root role. let's called
this user as 'test'
2. cd to the test's directory : 
   #cd /export/home/test 
3. Make sure you haven't run Firefox before or #rm -rf .mozilla to ensure no
profile exist under /export/home/test 
4. The launch Firefox in below three ways: 
   a) $gksu firefox
   b) $pfexec firefox 
   c) $su then #firefox 
5. Firefox will be launched 
6. Then under /export/home/test, run: 
   #ls -al 
   you will see: 
   drwx------ root .mozilla 
7. Quit Firefox 
8. Click Firefox icon from desktop or from launch menu 
9. Firefox can not be launched. The reason is the profile under
/export/home/test can be only accessed by root. So when normal user can not
access to this profile and can not launch firefox. 

The expected result: 
When run    
   a) $gksu firefox
   b) $pfexec firefox 
   c) $su then #firefox 

It should create the profile under /root, not the current $HOME directory.

An expected result for firefox in this case could also be pop out a dialog to say something like "Firefox can not be  "

Comment 1

[emily chen]

This bug also happen on Linux, so change the platform to Linux.

Comment 2

[Ginn Chen]

The description is incorrect.
gksu/su would not change $HOME. So what Firefox is doing is expected.

But we might want to give user some notice that .mozilla directory is not readable/writable.

Comment 3

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

see also bug 237128