Firefox crashed (actually my power went out and the whole system went down in
an instant).  When I restarted it, it refused to use my default profile.
Naturally the lock file in ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/lock was still there;
removing this fixed the problem.  This lockfile pointed to 127.0.0.1:5371 but
there was no such process running.  (After I removed the lock and restarted,
the new lock pointed to 5543; `ps -p 5543` showed that this was indeed
firefox.)  I think I've seen this behavior before but I can't be certain.

If I kill firefox manually (killall -SEGV firefox-bin) there is no problem.
Only if there's a computer restart does the problem show up (I haven't
tried killing the process and then restarting the computer before bringing
firefox back up; that might show the same symptoms).

reassign 324791 firefox
thanks

* Jason Dorje Short (jdorje@users.sf.net) wrote:

I'm not sure what the bug is here. This is a common problem with lock
files.

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GCS d- s++: a-- C+++ UL+++ P++ L++ E++ W++ N+ o K- w+
O? M++ V-- PS+ PE Y+ PGP++ t++ 5++ X+ R tv++ b+++ DI+ D+
G e h! r- y+
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

Eric Dorland wrote:

Common but both solvable and poorly handled.

The common solution is for the lock to include the PID of the locking
process, so that when acquiring the lock it's possible to check for
stale locks.

The problem is handled poorly because there is no way to fix it!  Unless
you go in and delete the lock file by hand, it will never go away.  The
typical user will then see the "Pick profile" screen every time they log
in and will be unable to return to their default profile.

What is the expected (desired?) behaviour?  Check the indicated PID,
and if it is not a firefox process, remove the lock automatically?
(Could be implemented on linux by checking /proc/$pid/exe symlink).

Justin Pryzby wrote:

That would be ideal, although the current lock does not seem to hold the
pid anywhere (it's a broken symbolic link to a port number?).

A workaround would be to delete the lock on system startup; at least
then when you reboot it will be fixed (and the system crash case that I
mentioned would work properly).

forwarded 324791 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=307147
thanks

* Jason Dorje Short (jdorje@users.sf.net) wrote:

The link the lock file points to does contain the pid in it.

Forwarding this bug.

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GCS d- s++: a-- C+++ UL+++ P++ L++ E++ W++ N+ o K- w+
O? M++ V-- PS+ PE Y+ PGP++ t++ 5++ X+ R tv++ b+++ DI+ D+
G e h! r- y+
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

Dear Firefox/Iceweasel user,

Thanks for your interest in Firefox/Iceweasel and the bug report you have contributed.

Your bug report [0] was done for a version which isn't a part of debian anymore. Debian 4.0 (Etch) was released with version 2.0.0.3.

Please reproduce your bug on an updated version of Iceweasel and confirm it
still exists, or close it as irrelevant for recent versions.

If you don't know or are not sure how to update or close your bug report,
please contact me directly, and I'll help you.

IMPORTANT: In any case, please provide version info, as we use it to determine
the relevance of the bug.

As this bug is quite old, I intend to close it if you don't update your bug
report in the next 6 weeks.

This is the time line for the old bugs cleanup:
1. October 1st - first notice.
2. October 15th - Second notice.
3. October 29th - Third notice.
4. November 12th - Closing the bug.

Please help the Firefox/Iceweasel maintainer to help you (:

[0] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=324791

Dear Firefox/Iceweasel user,

Thanks for your interest in Firefox/Iceweasel and the bug report you have contributed.

Your bug report [0] was done for a version which isn't a part of debian anymore. Debian 4.0 (Etch) was released with version 2.0.0.3.

Please reproduce your bug on an updated version of Iceweasel and confirm it
still exists, or close it as irrelevant for recent versions.

If you don't know or are not sure how to update or close your bug report,
please contact me directly, and I'll help you.

IMPORTANT: In any case, please provide version info, as we use it to determine
the relevance of the bug.

As this bug is quite old, I intend to close it if you don't update your bug
report in the next 6 weeks.

This is the time line for the old bugs cleanup:
1. October 1st - first notice.
2. October 15th - Second notice.
3. October 29th - Third notice.
4. November 12th - Closing the bug.

Please help the Firefox/Iceweasel maintainer to help you (:

[0] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=324791