567980 - Cannot run Firefox on multiple machines with in a network (parent.lock)

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 135137

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[freddy]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729)

Hello,

considere the following scenario: A network with one server providing the user home directories. Multiple client machines where users can work on. The user home is mounted at each client when the user logs in.

Firefox stores the parent.lock within the user's home folder. When the user logs into a different machine and tries to start firefox it complains that it is already running, because there is already a parent.lock (created by the first machine). This is very uncomfortable because you have to close Firefox on the first machine to start it on the second one.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Start Firefox on one machine
2.Start Firefox on a second one which uses the same home folder as the first one.
Actual Results:  
Firefox cannot be started on the second machine.

Expected Results:  
FireFox starts on the second machine too.

Comment 1

[Jo Hermans]

The parent.lock files exists to *prevent* this situation - a profile can't be shared at the moment, as this would cause profile corruption.

There's somewhere a bug report that wants to change this - the use of sqlite databases instead of text-files make it bit easier

Comment 2

[freddy]

> the use of sqlite databases instead of text-files make it bit easier
Is this currently possible or just a suggestion?

Comment 3

[Jo Hermans]

No it's not currently possible - there are plenty of other textfiles in your profile. But the bookmarks isn't a textfile anymore for instance, or the cookies.

Comment 4

[Jo Hermans]

Note this will never be a simple fix - consider the cookies for instance. You definitely don't want to share your cookies with another user. Sharing bookmarks etc is a different issue.

Comment 5

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

marking as dupe of bug 135137

A shared profile isn't supported as Jo already wrote.
2 independent running instances writing at the same file would cause corrupt files.
You could try to use for example the X-Marks Addon to sync your bookmarks.

Comment 6

[freddy]

I'm not quite shure if you understood my suggestion. I do not want to share or sync something between users. The only thing I want to do is:
1. Login to my primary workstation and run Firefox
2. Sometimes it is necessary to login to another workstation too (at the same time). Than I also want to use Firefox.

Because of the Fact that both machines mount my home directory they see the same files. This is quite useful because you always have the same scenario (Apps, Config, etc.). The Problem with Firefox is that it complains about another instance is running which in fact runs on a different machine.

Comment 7

[Jo Hermans]

That is not possible - only a single application can access a profile at the same time. Otherwise you risk profile corruption (when 2 apps write a file at the same time), or widespread confusion among the different users (there would be only a single history and a cookie file for instance). For example, it would only be possible to access a single gmail account at the same time (if you leave the account open across sessions), since google remember in a cookie which one you're using. And the cookie would be visible on both computers.

That's both the advantage of using a shared home directory among different computers (data is shared), and also the disadvantage (you are effectively the *same* user on both computers, so it's not possible to save data privately).

If you want to run multiple browsers from the same user, use different profiles. Your can start the browser with the -P flag to indicate which one you want to use ("firefox -P profile1").

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles

Comment 8

[freddy]

Ok I under stand the problem of sharing profiles.

What do you think about this suggestion:
When you start another instance of Firefox and it detects that one is already running it asks whether to use a temporary profile which is a copy of the default one. If more then one profile is available the it can asks which one to use.

Comment 9

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

How about using two Firefox profile folders, along with two shortcuts called "Main" and "Second Copy" etc and then just set up Firefox Sync (http://mozillalabs.com/sync) to sync tabs, history and passwords etc between them?

Comment 10

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

Sorry for comment spam, forgot to include...

You could always implement it such that your Firefox shortcut pointed to a script that checked for the presence of "\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\Main\parent.lock" and if it existed runs: firefox.exe -P "Profile2"; and if it didn't, runs firefox.exe -P "Main".

That way only one shortcut for users to worry about and if they ever needed the second profile, it would automatically sync back with Firefox Sync.