On Thu 14 May 2026 at 07:13:47 (-0400), The Wanderer wrote: > On 2026-05-14 at 04:40, Anssi Saari wrote: > > The Wanderer <[email protected]> writes: > > > >> If you examine your filesystem itself, via e.g. 'ls -lh > >> /usr/bin/firefox.real', do you see a file by that name? > > > > Do you? > > No, but I also run an ancient version of Firefox from a self-compiled > package (with patches to make it actually build with more modern > libraries/tools), so there's no guarantee at all that that version uses > the same diversions as a more recent packaged version would.
But to make that information useful, wouldn't we need to be told where you installed this ancient verion, how you invoke it, and what messages you see when you upgrade the regular firefox-esr supplied by Debian. > > I checked two systems, on both /usr/bin/firefox is a short script to > > exec either firefox.real or firefox-esr, from firefox-esr package. > > And /usr/bin/firefox.real on one machine is a broken symlink, dated > > 2010 and pointing to ../lib/iceweasel/iceweasel. On the other, it > > doesn't exist. > > Interesting. I do know that I've seen firefox.real mentioned before, and > I think seen the actual file in some cases, but it *has* been a fair > number of years since I actually looked at it... > > I think Michel Verdier hit on the key piece of information here, > however, in his(?) post in this thread this morning. I spotted it > myself, while writing this mail, but only after having skimmed his(?) > message enough to be reminded of the /var/lib/dpkg/info/ directory as a > place to check. I looked at the five lines posted by the OP, and saw that they corresponded exactly with those on my trixie system: Log started: 2026-05-08 23:58:09 (Reading database ... [ … ] 100%^M(Reading database ... 368825 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack .../firefox-esr-l10n-en-gb_140.10.2esr-1~deb13u1_all.deb ... Unpacking firefox-esr-l10n-en-gb (140.10.2esr-1~deb13u1) over (140.10.1esr-1~deb13u1) ... Preparing to unpack .../firefox-esr_140.10.2esr-1~deb13u1_amd64.deb ... Leaving 'diversion of /usr/bin/firefox to /usr/bin/firefox.real by firefox-esr' Unpacking firefox-esr (140.10.2esr-1~deb13u1) over (140.10.1esr-1~deb13u1) ... Setting up firefox-esr (140.10.2esr-1~deb13u1) ... Setting up firefox-esr-l10n-en-gb (140.10.2esr-1~deb13u1) ... Processing triggers for man-db (2.13.1-1) ... Processing triggers for mailcap (3.74) ... Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.18-2) ... Log ended: 2026-05-08 23:58:13 None of my systems has had other versions of mozilla/firefox installed at any time—they're all installed afresh. That pattern of output has been issued countless times, with the sole exception of s/Leav/Add/ when firefox-esr is first installed. The earliest instance I have is from installing buster when everything was closing down for covid. So, in the absence of any other error messages from the OP, I think we can conclude that they just hadn't noticed the message before, and weren't sure whether it was significant. (After all, it's not prefixed by N(ote):, W(arning):, or E(rror):, which might be an idea, if dpkg-divert can figure out the level of importance itself.) Perhaps the OP should look around, but not prod. The three of you in this subthread are running systems with potential complications arising from having installed other versions of firefox at various times in the past. Cheers, David.
