# Problem running Firefox on FreeBSD 7.2



## lungten (May 11, 2009)

After FreeBSD 7.2 was released, I made a fresh install of it. I have used Firefox (both 2 and 3) on FreeBSD 7.0 and 7.1. Now, Ff (both 2 and 3) does not run on my FreeBSD 7.2 box. There is no indication of error(s) either.
Anyone with some idea on this behaviour of Ff?


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## SirDice (May 11, 2009)

Works fine for me...

Open an xterm and start firefox from there. Any errors then?


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## lungten (May 11, 2009)

Yes, I run firefox from xterm. I get back the prompt after 1 or 2 seconds. No indication of errors at all. I tried forefox 2, 3 and 3 devel, all with the same behaviour.
BTW, I am running Fluxbox.


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## lungten (May 11, 2009)

Now, I am experiencing something strange. I didn't try this before.
When I run Firefox with super user privileges, it works. 
What does this mean?


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## DutchDaemon (May 11, 2009)

Check the permissions of the .mozilla directory under your home directory (`% ls -ld ~/.mozilla`). It should be something like:


```
drwx------  5 you  you  512 Aug 23  2008 .mozilla
```

All its subdirectories should belong to you as well.


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## lungten (May 11, 2009)

@DutchDaemon, thank you. ~/.mozilla was owned by root. I know why but I don't understand why this should have happened in the first place.
After changing the ownership of the ~/.mozilla directory, it worked but... it should have worked without me having to run Ff as root for the first time.


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## DutchDaemon (May 11, 2009)

If you run firefox as root, it will use/create /root/.mozilla, if it starts at all. It should actually produce an error like this:


```
# /usr/local/bin/firefox3 
Error: no display specified
```

unless you were running the desktop as root in the first place. Which you shouldn't do, of course.

Running FF as root won't create ~you/.mozilla or change its ownerships. 

In other words: ~you/.mozilla was probably already root-owned for some reason or other, like running your desktop or doing some file operations as root at one point.


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## lungten (May 11, 2009)

I am running my desktop as a normal user. The time when firefox worked with super user privileges, I had my privileges escalated using sudo (same home directory with super user privileges).

I didn't check whether the ~/.mozilla directory existed or not before that. I guess I have been careless somewhere.

Thank for sharing the info. It is good to have people helping out each other.


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