On 2/21/2012 3:24 AM, Yasha Karant wrote: > On 02/20/2012 04:07 PM, Mark Stodola wrote: >> On 2/20/2012 5:37 PM, Yasha Karant wrote: >>> On 02/20/2012 02:32 PM, Chris Pemberton wrote: >>>> On 02/20/12 13:29, Yasha Karant wrote: >>>>> Before someone states that this is not a Scientific Linux issue, as it >>>>> seems to be restricted to this distribution (perhaps other EL >>>>> distributions as well), this issue would seem to qualify. >>>>> >>>>> Rather than using the Mozilla packages that exist within the >>>>> distribution repository, I use the production (not testing or beta) >>>>> installations from Mozilla: firefox, thunderbird/lightning, and >>>>> seamonkey, currently 10.0.2 except SeaMonkey 2.7.2. >>>>> >>>>> My laptop and workstation are operating environment identical except >>>>> that my laptop is IA-32 SL6x and my workstation is X86-64 SL6x (and >>>>> there are some hardware differences reflected in driver differences). >>>>> On my workstation, as root, I can update any of the Mozilla >>>>> applications I have mentioned within a major release (e.g., 10.0.1 to >>>>> 10.0.2) from within the application. However, on my laptop, this >>>>> generally fails and I must download a new tar.bz2 file that I must >>>>> unpack into the appropriate directory. Does anyone have an idea on >>>>> what is the reason? Note that my mozilla configuration files between >>>>> the two platforms are the same in so far as I have any control over >>>>> these (e.g., visitation to different URLs from firefox or seamonkey >>>>> might have different cookies, etc., loaded -- but all URLs are either >>>>> mandated by my university or from "clean" sites). >>>>> >>>>> I have done a cursory check of the mozilla public lists but have found >>>>> nothing of relevance. >>>>> >>>>> Thanks for any insight. >>>>> >>>>> Yasha Karant >>>> Could you start firefox from a terminal, try the internal update >>>> process, and see if any usefull information is given in the terminal? >>>> Sure sounds like a permission problem; but you said you are using root? >>>> You should be able to destroy anything as root:) >>>> >>>> Chris >>> >>> There is no problem in downloading from Mozilla the entire update as a >>> tar.bz2 package followed by the manual installation ( tar -vxjf ) as >>> root into the appropriate directory. >>> >>> However, there is a mechanism, for minor release updates (e.g., 10.0.1 >>> to 10.0.2) within firefox, thunderbird/lightning, and seamonkey >>> without the manual unpacking -- the files are updated within the >>> running application and the updated instance is invoked at the next >>> initiation (restart) of the application. This mechanism needs to be as >>> root if the files are installed in a systems, as contrasted with an >>> ordinary end-user, directory. However, the mechanism fails on one SL6x >>> box but succeeds on another; when the mechanism fails, then I must >>> used the manual installation method from the tar.bz2 file as explained >>> above. >>> >>> Yasha Karant >> >> I believe Chris is well aware of that. He instructed you to start >> firefox from a terminal and attempt the update process from within >> firefox (meaning _not_ the tar.bz2) and see if it has any errors written >> to stdout or stderr in the terminal. It helps if you read the email you >> are replying to. >> >> -Mark > > I missed that -- sorry. But in fact, that is what I do. E.g., I start > a terminal as an end-user, su, and then /usr/lib/firefox/firefox . The > diagnostics I get are not related to the update process. Here is an > example: > > [root@localhost ykarant]# /usr/lib/firefox/firefox > failed to create drawable > > (firefox:3299): GnomeUI-WARNING **: While connecting to session manager: > None of the authentication protocols specified are supported. > > Nonetheless, despite these diagnostics, on one machine there is success > and another not. However, the next time I go to do this, I shall record > the specific diagnostics, but having read these in the past, there has > never been an obvious significant difference. Note that firefox invoked > as above appears to be fully functional as a web browser. > > Yasha Karant
Just a guess: Do you have DISPLAY environment variable exported? $ export DISPLAY=":0" Zoran Ovcin
