721289 - Aurora 11.0a2 reported ReferenceError gBrowser is not defined

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[gcsrss]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:9.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/9.0.1
Build ID: 20111220165912

Steps to reproduce:

Installed Aurora 11.0a2; allowed start at end of install.


Actual results:

Aurora first reported:
ReferenceError: gBrowser not defined
in an alert dialog.

Clicking on OK caused a text dialog with:
XML Parsing Error: undefined entity
Location: chrome://browser/content/browser.xul
Line Number 35, Column 1:<window id="main-window"

Closing that dialog ended Aurora. So much for testing the newest version.


Expected results:

Aurora should have started cleanly and I would notice the improved performance, plus several new features that would make by web development life easier. In addition, all of favorite past AddOns would start working again because Aurora would emulate the last Firefox version that allowed them to work. It would be like ordering a Rum and Coke, and getting both instead of a newer improved Run but without the Coke (nowhere near what I ordered).

Comment 1

[gcsrss]

I captured a screenshot of the ReferenceError dialog but the actual text is probably more important.

Comment 2

[Ioana (away)]

I haven't seen this issue on any of the recent Firefox builds. Can you still reproduce it?

Comment 3

[gcsrss]

It appears that the versions of Firefox/Aurora/UX around that time somehow corrupted the user profile during an install, and could not fix itself. The only solution I was able to arrive at was to start from scratch, however I never actually go to that (found a different way). Those were the days when you downloaded a new version, then did the install manually. Since Firefox can update itself from the Help About dialog, I have not done a manual update. I learned from a Google search that there are lots of incidents of user profile getting corrupted, which is what lead me to the start from scratch idea to resolve the issue. Firefox installed into several different folder names under Program Files depending on whether it was a beta version or some other reason. I currently have these folders:
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox 4.0 Beta 12
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox 4.0 Beta 2
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox10
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox4
C:\Program Files\Mozilla FirefoxBeta

I currently am using Mozilla Firefox10 but at Firefox 25.0.1 (and updating now).

I finally decided that if I changed my icon to point to one of the previous versions, it would have a different profile, but would update itself to the latest version. That worked for me.  I expect if I were to go back to the one that was used previous to that, it would still have the issue, and therefore would not be able to update itself. I am not interested in taking the chance to see if that would happen though. When I have the chance to build another computer, I might then see what happens if I do that.

It is entirely possible this could happen with any future update again. Without knowing what exactly got corrupted, there is no easy way to say either way.

Comment 4

[Ioana (away)]

> I finally decided that if I changed my icon to point to one of the previous
> versions, it would have a different profile, but would update itself to the
> latest version. That worked for me.  I expect if I were to go back to the
> one that was used previous to that, it would still have the issue, and
> therefore would not be able to update itself. I am not interested in taking
> the chance to see if that would happen though. When I have the chance to
> build another computer, I might then see what happens if I do that.
> 
> It is entirely possible this could happen with any future update again.
> Without knowing what exactly got corrupted, there is no easy way to say
> either way.

Actually, opening a different installation won't change the profile that it's used (unless you set that up yourself). Opening a profile with a very old versions, such as 4.0, might mess up your profile though.

Either way, there is no point in trying to reproduce the issue with the build you reproduced it initially. That is an old build that can't be fixed anymore. My question was if you reproduced the issue with current builds (e.g. Firefox 24, 25, 26 etc).

If this bug happens to you in the future (with current builds), please reopen this report.