502485 - Opening URL from command line fails if installation directory not in $PATH

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Mark Tiefenbruck]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1) Gecko/20090624 Firefox/3.5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1) Gecko/20090624 Firefox/3.5

I installed Mozilla's firefox package into /usr/src/firefox, then made a symlink from /usr/bin/firefox to /usr/src/firefox/firefox. However, I then found that running something like "firefox http://google.com/" (with firefox already running; haven't tested otherwise) opened an empty firefox window instead of opening the URL in a new tab. I tried making symlinks for firefox-bin and run-mozilla.sh as well with no change. Removing the symlinks and adding /usr/src/firefox to my $PATH variable fixed the problem. However, I would prefer not to have random non-executable files in my path, so I believe this should be addressed. If there is a more sensible method of installing firefox, I didn't find any instructions that contradict my approach. I'm using Mozilla's package instead of gentoo's because I've heard it's compiled with profile-guided optimization.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Reporter, are you still seeing this issue with Firefox 3.6.12 or later in safe mode? If not, please close. These links can help you in your testing.
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+Mode
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles
Also, please consider using the most recent Firefox 4 beta build, your bug may be resolved there.

Comment 2

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.13 or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). If you continue to see this issue with the newest firefox and a new profile, then please comment on this bug.