633268 - Alert on startup: "Could not initialize security component"

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Mark Tezak]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_6; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.13 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/9.0.597.94 Safari/534.13
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13

This dialog pops up and suggest various sources of the problem, none of which, when remedied, solve the problem.  I also cannot find help on the Support forum, e.g., McAfee Security.  

I am using McAfee, version 1.0.0 patch 1 (915), with McAfee Anti-malware version 9.0.0 patch 1 (4156), DAT version 6251.0000.  This application doesn't offer the same preferences or configurations on the Mac (OS 10.6.6) as is shown on the Support site for Win OS.

Since the security component is unavailable, I cannot access my bank or investment sites, such as E*Trade, and so on.

I am speculating as to whether deleting the browsing history (cache, cookies, etc) may actually be deleting some critical components, but again, this is an uneducated shot in the dark.  I can't think of anything else I have done with the app that would have caused the problem.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. double-click app icon
2. get alert/error msg
3. app starts, runs normally, but unable to access any https:// sites
4. remove app, download, re-install
Actual Results:  
get the  alert dialog: "Alert <space> Could not initialize the applications security component. The most likely cause is problems with files in your application='s profile directory <<where is this EXACTLY?  A path and identifiers would be extremely helpful here>> Please check that this <??>> directory has no read/write restrictions and your hard disk is not full or close to it <<it isn't, not by a long shot>>>  It is recommended that you exit the application and fix the problem <<how?? some Steps here would be helpful.  The forum offers no help in my case>>  If you continue to use the session, you might see incorrect application behavior when accessing security features."

Reinstalling the application does nothing to change this.

Using the Beta build 4.0 doesn't work either by the way, bookmarks are all inactive.

Expected Results:  
I expect that:
1. the dialog offer more support and steps to take
2. that the problem on the support site is analyzed and remedied in a more thorough approach.

Mac OS X 10.6.6
CPU: 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
RAM: 6GB 1066 MHz DDR3
app is installed in the normal location on the home directory/disk

Comment 1

[Mark Tezak]

Attachment: Alert dialog

the alert dialog suggests a method to remedy the problem, but is vague on what files and their path. "...problems with files(??) in your application's profile directory (which is where??)"
Then the dialog suggests to exit the app and fix the problem.  How exactly?  The Support site offers three possible problem sources, but none are applicable here.

Comment 2

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Do you have an unusual char in your OS X username ?

Comment 3

[Mark Tezak]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Do you have an unusual char in your OS X username ?

No, my user name is <mtezak>, nothing out of the ordinary.  I am curious why you think there would be a relationship between this bug behavior and my user name however...?  

Do users with special characters in their names have problems starting Firefox?  As an aside, I have two other Macs and three other PC's on which I use Firefox, and I have never experienced this before.  I really do not know how to fix it, other than completely reformat the drive at this point - unless some Mozilla engineers begin to explain where the critical components are located, and how the corrupted ones may be replaced.  I will simply use either Chrome or Safari.

Comment 4

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

> I am curious why you think there would be a relationship between this bug 
> behavior and my user name however...? 

The meaning of the error message is that Gecko fails load the security database that is stored in your Firefox profile directory which itself is in your OS users directory. The file path is on all systems the same except the username part of the path.

>Do users with special characters in their names have problems starting Firefox?
yes but only if the username contains chars that are outside of the OS native codepage

>I really do not know how to fix it, other than completely reformat the drive at this point - unless some
>Mozilla engineers begin to explain where the critical components are located, and how the corrupted ones may be replaced.

We don't provide solutions here in bugzilla. bugzilla is basically only a tool for our developers. 
Step a) You can report a bug 
Step b) people like me try to narrow down the cause with the help of the reporter (you). This is done with question and answers and I have to guess and that's not always easy or possible. I hope that Mozilla will send a few crystal balls to the bug triagers in the future to make our work easier :-)
Step c) A developer may look at the bug if the reason is known or the bug contains enough information. The bug will be fixed minutes/months/years later or never by one developer. In many cases there are workarounds available for you as user if the reason is known.
For some problems we can only provide a workaround and never find the reason for a file corruption.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back to your issue:
Do you got the problem after the first installation of Firefox or did it appear someday without doing something ?
Please start the Firefox profile manager and create an additional test profile:
- http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Managing%20profiles

Comment 5

[Mark Tezak]

(In reply to comment #4)
> > I am curious why you think there would be a relationship between this bug 
> > behavior and my user name however...? 
> 
> The meaning of the error message is that Gecko fails load the security database
> that is stored in your Firefox profile directory which itself is in your OS
> users directory. The file path is on all systems the same except the username
> part of the path.

Well that is a starting point.  If the profile dictionary from Firefox is deleted, is it self-healing, i.e., rebuilt when I attempt to restart the app?  It would seem that this is the corrupt component, right?
> 
> >Do users with special characters in their names have problems starting Firefox?
> yes but only if the username contains chars that are outside of the OS native
> codepage

OK
> 
> >I really do not know how to fix it, other than completely reformat the drive at this point - unless some
> >Mozilla engineers begin to explain where the critical components are located, and how the corrupted ones may be replaced.
> 
> We don't provide solutions here in bugzilla. bugzilla is basically only a tool
> for our developers. 
> Step a) You can report a bug 
> Step b) people like me try to narrow down the cause with the help of the
> reporter (you). This is done with question and answers and I have to guess and
> that's not always easy or possible. I hope that Mozilla will send a few crystal
> balls to the bug triagers in the future to make our work easier :-)
> Step c) A developer may look at the bug if the reason is known or the bug
> contains enough information. The bug will be fixed minutes/months/years later
> or never by one developer. In many cases there are workarounds available for
> you as user if the reason is known.
> For some problems we can only provide a workaround and never find the reason
> for a file corruption.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Back to your issue:
> Do you got the problem after the first installation of Firefox or did it appear
> someday without doing something ?
> Please start the Firefox profile manager and create an additional test profile:
> - http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Managing%20profiles

That is great information, and I will do that, but cannot do that at this moment.  I'll log back in a little later today, we can exchange info on the weekend.

Comment 6

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

>If the profile dictionary from Firefox is deleted, is it self-healing, i.e., rebuilt when I attempt to restart the app? 

You can delete files inside the firefox profile (Firefox must be closed) and they will get rebuild but deleting the profile directory will cause a problem.
(you get a wrong error message in that case about a already running Firefox .... we have already a bug about that)
Deleting files is however a later step. I have a try&error route in my mind for this bug report but I usually don't throw everything at once at the reporters. Many don't answer and my time would be lost or they are confused if I write all the steps at once and some things depend on the previous steps.

Comment 7

[jh]

Same error upon upgrading from FF 8 to FF 9. With a new profile, there's no error. Returning to FF 8, there's no error. Troubleshooting info available if you want it.

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Do you still see this problem when using a current version?

Comment 9

[jh]

No...it's long gone.