firefox 3 not starting RHEL ES 4

[Clark, Patti]

I opened a ticket with RH on this exact issue.  So far, it's going
nowhere since their viewpoint is my "non-standard umask" is my problem.
Fixing the /usr/evolution28 tree will not fix the entire problem.  I
take it that you have already addressed perms on /etc/gconf?  It's been
a while,  I think I found perm problems with /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.1 and
there are issues with the "old" local user .mozilla directory.  So far,
deleting it allows firefox to recreate it correctly.  Unfortunately,
there is the issue of recovering bookmarks and other custom settings.
This is a non-trivial exercise when the install count is beyond a small
number.  I use Satellite to push out my updates, so changing the umask
for updates is not a working solution either.  IMHO, my local umask
settings should not be a factor in RPM handling.  RH should not be
making default umask assumptions and in most cases they don't.

Patti Clark
DOE/OSTI

> -----Original Message-----
> From: redhat-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:redhat-list-
> bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Paul Whitney
> Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2008 10:17 AM
> To: General Red Hat Linux discussion list
> Subject: Re: firefox 3 not starting RHEL ES 4
> 
> Bill,
> 
> This might be a trivial check, but did you look at the permission
> to the
> directory where the shared library is? It maybe that the directory
> permissions are set to 700.


You are definitely on the right track. The directory (and its
subdirectory) where libpangocairo had permissions of 700. I had to
change them to 755 before I made any progress. Now I get this error:

(Gecko:31008): GdkPixbuf-WARNING **: Cannot open pixbuf loader module
file '/usr/evolution28/etc/gtk-2.0/gdk-pixbuf.loaders': Permission
denied

The problem here is, this file exists, but not in this location. It
exists at /usr/evolution28/etc/gtk-2.0/linux*/gdk-pixbuf.loaders

As a user, if I try to ls
/usr/evolution28/etc/gtk-2.0/gdk-pixbuf.loaders, I get a permission
denied. As root, if I do it, I get "file not found". 

Does this directory maybe need to have world write privileges?


> 
> I ran into a similar problem with my locked down box and forgot to
> open up
> the umask. So when I installed the updates, Firefox would not
> launch. A
> simple chmod fixed my problem.
> 
> Paul W
> WINS
> 
> 
> On 9/18/08 6:55 AM, "Tangren, Bill" <bill.tangren at usno.navy.mil>
> wrote:
> 
> > When I recently upgraded all my RHEL ES 4 servers to the latest
> minor
> > version (don't remember what the number is right now, but think
> it is
> > 6), firefox stopped working for users, but would still work for
> root. I
> > saw the thread about how it could be an NFS lock problem, but I
> don't
> > use NFS. This is the error I get when I try to start firefox from
> the
> > command line:
> >
> > /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.1/firefox-bin: error while loading shared
> > libraries: libpangocairo-1.0.so.0: cannot open shared object
> file: No
> > such file or directory
> >
> > But I have pango installed.
> >
> > This error is all over the internet for various OS's like Cent OS
> and
> > Debian, but I can't find a solution. See this link:
> >
> > http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-
> view_forum_thread.php?locale=fr&forumId=
> > 1&comments_parentId=73375
> >
> > as an example. The comments in the NFS thread indicated that it
> might be
> > a permissions problem on the ~/.firefox directory, but the
> permissions
> > are 775 in the example I give. Does anyone know what might be the
> > problem?
> >
> > ---
> > Bill Tangren
> > U.S. Naval Observatory