FFox page rendering issue after IW ->FF (permanently)
justaguy
Status: Curious
Joined: 09 Sep 2008
Posts: 5
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I successfully made the "permanent" change from IW to FF by following the how to, and must say was very happy with it. However, I have run across an issue as of late. The installed version of FF is 3.6 (the version installed at the time/ no updates or changes). IW was not "locked" and remained installed due to the opinion it was necessary to pull in updates to its dependent packages. The version of IW may have been upgraded via a dist-update in sidux using your smxi script, as I am uncertain on how to verify when / if it was upgraded.
Page rendering in FF and IW are degraded significantly. So, I need to correct this.
[link]

Cheers
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techAdmin
Status: Site Admin
Joined: 26 Sep 2003
Posts: 4124
Location: East Coast, West Coast? I know it's one of them.
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If rendering is degraded in both, then it's not an issue related I would guess, it's something to do with Xorg or your video driver.

In other words, a coincidence, that's my guess.

Also make sure that it's actually firefox running, it says in the top bar, Mozilla Firefox... instead of Iceweasel...

the help menu also shows which browser is actually showing, in the about thing.
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justaguy
Status: Curious
Joined: 09 Sep 2008
Posts: 5
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I find it odd that a xorg/video driver issue would result in poor rendering in only a mozilla-based web browser. The poor rendering issue is not verified in the Konqueror browser. Each time either IW or FF is initiated, I get the tab announcing "your browser has been updated." The FF Error Console, found under Tools, I find many instances of parsing errors, am uncertain if they existed previously though.

It's as though, in the case that IW was upgraded upon a smxi dist-upgrade, something of FF was overwritten. I guess I will start from the beginning, purge FF by working through the IW to FF (permanently) how to and reinstall? Their was an indication that xulrunner may be involved as initiating FF from the command line briefly indicated "xulrunner-stub" (?). I happened to have reinstalled xorg + base kde in the smxi display manager option, as well as have re-installed my nvidia driver, and thought to even re-install xulrunner, no change.

Should you think of something, I will hold off on purging FF for the near term. Thanks for your input h2.

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techAdmin
Status: Site Admin
Joined: 26 Sep 2003
Posts: 4124
Location: East Coast, West Coast? I know it's one of them.
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Oh, i see. Yes, an update could have broken your profile, that's why you PUT ICEWEASEL ON HOLD, or remove it after installing firefox and switching!!!

You made a mistake thinking you should let iceweasel update, that's incorrect, it's not the browser that is broken it's your profile data, or some of it.

Updates overwrite your /usr/bin/firefox to point back to iceweasel, then if you use session restore in kde iceweasel will start, and may destroy your newer profile settings from firefox.

:: Code ::
apt-cache policy iceweasel
iceweasel:
  Installed: 3.5.5-1
  Candidate: 3.5.8-1
  Version table:
     3.5.8-1 0
        500 http://debian-main-proxy unstable/main Packages
        200 http://debian-main-proxy testing/main Packages
 *** 3.5.5-1 0
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

See? it's not 3.6, and it could break the profile, which would account for the parse errors and so on.

Ideally someone will make a firefox package that handles all paths, links, and provides alternate data to apt and so on, to avoid such issues. Remember, firefox, iceweasel, and swiftfox all use the same profile information, and the same profile.
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techAdmin
Status: Site Admin
Joined: 26 Sep 2003
Posts: 4124
Location: East Coast, West Coast? I know it's one of them.
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It looks like I neglected to note the importance of putting iceweasel on hold in my how to, sorry about that, or I can't find it if I did put that in there somewhere.

Really in a way you want to just remove it, for this very reason, if you let the profile get updated to 3.6, and the update history sees, this, then things see 3.5.8 suddenly, that's a problem.
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justaguy
Status: Curious
Joined: 09 Sep 2008
Posts: 5
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Thanks for your prompt response!

What would be the simplest way of making the proper changes to /usr/bin/firefox? I briefing reviewed your IW to FF post and nothing jumped out at me. Should I purge FF and re-install? It doesn't look as though the profile could be modified ....... ?

I know you're a busy guy.................
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craigevil
Status: Interested
Joined: 05 Jul 2009
Posts: 12
Location: OZ
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Just make sure Firefox is starting and not iceweasel. I have started firefox and accidentally used the iceweasel profile and vice-versa dozens of times without any issues.

I keep 4 profiles:
iceweasel
firefox
firefoxbeta
kids

All but the iceweasel profile use firefox.

Open firefox and check Help>About Firefox it should say:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2) Gecko/20100115 Firefox/3.6 if instead it says About Iceweasel its not Firefox.
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1.8) Gecko/20100225 Iceweasel/3.5.8 (like Firefox/3.5.8)
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