# Firefox, Epiphany and Flock do not show up



## SoniXAnT (Jan 1, 2010)

Hi there guys,
I have strange issue with all of the browsers listed above:
Firefox, Epiphany and Flock seems to have the same issue, they don't show up, the only one which runs fine is Seamonkey while Seamonkey2 does not show up either....just note that all of them do not crash, they simply do not show up.


When trying to run firefox or seamonkey from a terminal window, I can read this message:

```
GLib-WARNING **: g_set_prgname() called multiple times
```

but seamonkey just runs fine while firefox doesn't.

Tried installing from ports and/or pkg but always the same issue....


I'm running 8.0-RELEASE with LXDE/xorg-lite, glib-2.22.3 and gtk-2.16.6, no flash/plugins installed


PS: happy 2010 to all of you!!


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## aet (Jan 1, 2010)

*Browswes do not show up when launched*

The same problem developed for me sometime yesterday (Jan. 1, 2010) on my installation of 7.2 on virtualbox in XP. I only have Firefox and Epiphany browsers but, they both do not show up after being launched.  I don't think I did anything that would have caused this. When launched, Epiphany asks if it should recover previous windows and tabs, and that is the last I see of it.  A yes or no answer on the recover window produces the same results. Image viewer also dies after being launched.  However, I do not know if it ever worked because I have never tried to launch it from the pull down menu until now.  A sampling of other programs don't find any other programs that fail to launch.

I have two other stand alone computers running the same version (7.2) of freeBSD and the same browsers are working fine. 

To attempt to fix the problem, I have rebooted virtual box, rebooted the hardware computer, upgraded the virtualbox to a new release, uninstalled and reinstalled epiphany from a package.

I am new to freeBSD, a week ago, having just come from using Ubuntu 9.10.  Ubuntu started locking up about every 15 minutes because of an updated Intel graphics driver (so they say). I tried Fedora and that had the same lockup problem. FreeBSD and windows do not lock up on the same two stand alone computers.

I am trying to graduate from windows to Linux and or freeBSD for the long term but, I don't think it is going to happen yet.   the past week, I have had trouble at every step while trying to install the few programs I want on freeBSD.  And now the broken browsers are an ominous sign.  Thank goodness I had a windows machine to fall back on.  This open source software has a long way to go before the average Joe is going to be able to use it for dependable computing.  Seems to be OK if you install them and then don't install anything else.


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## chalbersma (Jan 2, 2010)

In the short term install Opera it should get you by.

What happens when you try to start ffox from the command line. And are you using www/firefox , www/firefox3 or www/firefox35 ?


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## aet (Jan 2, 2010)

Greetings,
I am using firefox-2.0.0.20_7,1 which was extracted from pkg_info since I cant see firefox anymore.

When started from an xterm there is a 1/2 second delay and then the prompt comes back. Nothing else. When started from a virtual terminal (alt-f2) I get this:

```
(firefox-bin:12242): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:
```
One of my standalone computers (#1) is now giving the same symptoms with Firefox. That is not surprising because I have been trying to install ports on it. However, Epiphany still works on it.

Epiphany on the virtualbox gives "Cannot open display" message when started from a virtual terminal.

Since my #1 stand alone computer started acting up I am beginning to sense that this is a port upgrade problem.  Right?


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## SoniXAnT (Jan 2, 2010)

hmmm another thing I noticed, when I try running seamonkey  from a terminal window with only display :0 :

```
seamonkey --display=:1

(seamonkey-bin:43819): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :1
```

while firefox gives up with a:


```
(firefox-bin:44065): GLib-WARNING **: g_set_prgname() called multiple times
```

and then cursor blinking, the window will never show up....I have to Ctrl-C to return to a prompt. 


@aet: you should issue the command from an xterm window to launch the browser properly. However if you want to launch it from an external terminal you should specify the display for X, that in the common case is :0, e.g.:

```
$ firefox3 -display=:0
```


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## SoniXAnT (Jan 2, 2010)

hmmmm tried pkg_adding opera....same problem:
`$ opera`
(cursor blinks, window doesn't show up)

from another term window:

```
$ ps auxc | grep opera
sonixant       45774  0.0  2.0 27568 20944   0  I+    1:19PM   0:00.15 opera
sonixant       45782  0.0  2.2 27664 22728   0  I+    1:19PM   0:00.05 opera
```

that is: opera is launched but I cannot see it, just as firefox, epiphany, etc...

when I ldd it:

```
$ ldd /usr/local/share/opera/bin/opera
>: ldd /usr/local/share/opera/bin/opera
/usr/local/share/opera/bin/opera:
	libqt-mt.so.3 => /usr/local/lib/libqt-mt.so.3 (0x28cd2000)
	libX11.so.6 => /usr/local/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x293a3000)
	libXext.so.6 => /usr/local/lib/libXext.so.6 (0x294b9000)
	libSM.so.6 => /usr/local/lib/libSM.so.6 (0x294c7000)
	libICE.so.6 => /usr/local/lib/libICE.so.6 (0x294cf000)
	libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6 (0x294e7000)
	libm.so.5 => /lib/libm.so.5 (0x295db000)
	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x295f5000)
	libthr.so.3 => /lib/libthr.so.3 (0x29600000)
	libc.so.7 => /lib/libc.so.7 (0x29615000)
	libaudio.so.2 => /usr/local/lib/libaudio.so.2 (0x2972d000)
	libXt.so.6 => /usr/local/lib/libXt.so.6 (0x29743000)
	libmng.so.1 => /usr/local/lib/libmng.so.1 (0x29792000)
	libjpeg.so.10 => /usr/local/lib/libjpeg.so.10 (0x297f4000)
	libpng.so.5 => /usr/local/lib/libpng.so.5 (0x29826000)
	libz.so.5 => /lib/libz.so.5 (0x2984b000)
	libXi.so.6 => /usr/local/lib/libXi.so.6 (0x29866000)
	libXrender.so.1 => /usr/local/lib/libXrender.so.1 (0x2986f000)
	libXinerama.so.1 => /usr/local/lib/libXinerama.so.1 (0x29877000)
	libXft.so.2 => /usr/local/lib/libXft.so.2 (0x2987a000)
	libfreetype.so.9 => /usr/local/lib/libfreetype.so.9 (0x2988c000)
	libfontconfig.so.1 => /usr/local/lib/libfontconfig.so.1 (0x298fd000)
	libxcb.so.2 => /usr/local/lib/libxcb.so.2 (0x29927000)
	libXau.so.6 => /usr/local/lib/libXau.so.6 (0x2993e000)
	libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/local/lib/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x29941000)
	librpcsvc.so.5 => /usr/lib/librpcsvc.so.5 (0x29946000)
	liblcms.so.1 => /usr/local/lib/liblcms.so.1 (0x2994f000)
	libexpat.so.6 => /usr/local/lib/libexpat.so.6 (0x2997f000)
```

so far, only seamonkey1 seems to work fine...


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## SoniXAnT (Jan 2, 2010)

LOLLLL ok guys I ask it, I solve it.

I realized iceauth was missing (I installed xorg-minimal to save space on my little eeepc), so `cd /usr/ports/x11/iceauth && make install clean` and now Firefox, Flock, Epiphany, Opera and even Seamonkey2 they all work fine!

So the lesson is: you can't browse the web if you don't install iceauth on xorg-minimal.


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## chalbersma (Jan 2, 2010)

Does that fix everyone else's problems too?


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## aet (Jan 2, 2010)

Mine is working now too.  With a different approach. After updating my ports. I did make deinstall firefox from the firefox port directory.  Then make install firefox3 from the firefox3 directory. It compiled for an hour before gave up watching and went to bed. Both the virtualbox intallation and the stand alone computer now have firefox3 running fine.  Initially I did not know there was such a thing as firefox3.  There is also one called firefox35 which would not compile for me.  Now I know where you got the names mentioned above.  

As far as iceauth, I'm not sure how you knew that was the missing part from what was included above but good for you for realizing it. 

I find this whole process to be outrageous. Installing a program is taking 5 and 6 hours each, to find and repair the damage to other programs.  I thought the package dependency mechanism prevented stuff like this. But apparently if dependency trees overlap, unrelated programs just break without warning.   Isn't there a program that will tell you what other packages will be affected without having to get involved with filenames of libs?  Why doesn't windows seem to have this problem?

Thank you all for your help on this. I'm sure I will keep playing with freeBSD but it will probably be a long time before I begin to depend on it for important stuff.


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## SoniXAnT (Jan 3, 2010)

aet said:
			
		

> Mine is working now too.  With a different approach. After updating my ports. I did make deinstall firefox from the firefox port directory.  Then make install firefox3 from the firefox3 directory. It compiled for an hour before gave up watching and went to bed.



This is ok, but I suggest using pkg_add for installation tries, in this case a simple pkg_add -r firefox35 takes up to 3 minutes to install everything you need, no need to stress the cpu in compilations. Use pkg for tries, ports for optimizations.



			
				aet said:
			
		

> the virtualbox intallation and the stand alone computer now have firefox3 running fine.  Initially I did not know there was such a thing as firefox3.  There is also one called firefox35 which would not compile for me.  Now I know where you got the names mentioned above.



Have a look at freshports.org before installing ports/packages.

for instance
http://www.freshports.org/www/firefox/

www/firefox (that is your firefox 2.0) is tagged as deprecated and forbidden, in other terms firefox 2 is no more supported and should be avoided, you can read at the top of that page:
"Please consider using www/seamonkey or www/firefox35 instead."



			
				aet said:
			
		

> As far as iceauth, I'm not sure how you knew that was the missing part from what was included above but good for you for realizing it.



Simply switched to the console from which I launched startx:
iceauth not found

even this is not a real dependency issue since ldd have not warned me about that and no browser crashed, they simply didn't show up 



			
				aet said:
			
		

> I find this whole process to be outrageous. Installing a program is taking 5 and 6 hours each, to find and repair the damage to other programs.  I thought the package dependency mechanism prevented stuff like this. But apparently if dependency trees overlap, unrelated programs just break without warning.   Isn't there a program that will tell you what other packages will be affected without having to get involved with filenames of libs?  Why doesn't windows seem to have this problem?



Windows can be affected by these problems too, this is called "DLL hell".
If you don't like the way FreeBSD manages ports/packages, have a look at PC-BSD, it is FreeBSD with a very simple Windows-like installer.


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## aet (Jan 4, 2010)

The reason I was using ports was because of my earlier experience with pkgs. I was initially trying to install wxMaxima from packages and ran into a problem where wxMaxima was looking for an older version of pdflib-....  The new pdflib- was on the computer but wxMaxima was not happy with it. I also read somewhere that pkgs can break things.  My first and second attempt at using packages confirmed this.  But, maybe this is actually a rare thing. I will continue to try to use packages on your advice and see if more of them work out OK.  

I have also discovered the upgrade tools since this thread started.  I have picked "portmaster" as the one to use. Not sure how one decides which one is the best. At least these programs upgrade the dependencies.  But, I dont think they will tell you which programs are likely to break. 

Programs configure and compile for hours and stop every 30 minutes or so to ask you a question. If youre not present to answer, it just sits there.  I started compiling a program this morning and there has been a firehose of compiler output crap whizzing past on the screen all day.  I know there are switches to prevent this but todays compile session started  early this morning and I am not about to take a chance on messing it up and having to start over.  

Regarding which firefox to use:  I found that the port called "firefox" refused to compile in accordance with your information about being full of security holes.  firefox35 gave some kind of compiler error. So I went with 3, the one that worked.  I will be migrating to seamonkey or something else for my permanent installation, as you suggest. 

This free software is really cool and seems to work well once it is installed and working.  If someone could figure out how to make freeBSD easier than windows it would take over the computing world.  I guess Ubuntu is trying this concept but, has dropped a "BabyRuth" into the swimming pool with the Intel graphics lockup problem.   

Once again, thank you all for the advice. I'll be sticking with freeBSD for the time being, since I have so much time invested in it at this point.  Things are beginning to smooth out. Albeit a very slow process.


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## SoniXAnT (Jan 18, 2010)

aet said:
			
		

> The reason I was using ports was because of my earlier experience with pkgs. I was initially trying to install wxMaxima from packages and ran into a problem where wxMaxima was looking for an older version of pdflib-....  The new pdflib- was on the computer but wxMaxima was not happy with it. I also read somewhere that pkgs can break things.  My first and second attempt at using packages confirmed this.



hmmm this is not exact, ports and packages acts the same way, packages are created from ports (try `make package`) and the repository is the same (/var/db/pkg)



			
				aet said:
			
		

> Programs configure and compile for hours and stop every 30 minutes or so to ask you a question. If youre not present to answer, it just sits there. I started compiling a program this morning and there has been a firehose of compiler output crap whizzing past on the screen all day.  I know there are switches to prevent this but todays compile session started  early this morning and I am not about to take a chance on messing it up and having to start over.



`make config-recursive`



			
				aet said:
			
		

> Regarding which firefox to use:  I found that the port called "firefox" refused to compile in accordance with your information about being full of security holes.  firefox35 gave some kind of compiler error. So I went with 3, the one that worked.  I will be migrating to seamonkey or something else for my permanent installation, as you suggest.



I'm loving Opera, lightweight well featured and pretty fast 



			
				aet said:
			
		

> This free software is really cool and seems to work well once it is installed and working.  If someone could figure out how to make freeBSD easier than windows it would take over the computing world.



I love FreeBSD the way it is, but what you are talking about is called PC-BSD, based on FreeBSD but really easy to use, it installs in 3 minutes or so on modern PCs, graphic installer, graphic tools, NO INSTALLATION/UPGRADE ISSUES ( thanks to PBIs  ) and very eye-candy.

http://www.pcbsd.org
The latest version (actually 8.0-BETA) has a live system in the DVD installer. Give it a try, you won't be disappointed!


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