Firefox and Thunderbird doesn't start

[SteveRiley]

OK, so your kernel is 32-bit and your Firefox is 32-bit. No collision there.

What's the output of

sudo updatedb && locate libxpcom

[slamelov]

/usr/lib/firefox/libxpcom.so
/usr/lib/thunderbird/libxpcom.so

[SteveRiley]

Hm. I was going to have you embark upon an strace, then I found this bug at Mozilla:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=723487

There appears to be a packaging issue in multiple distros that's triggered only under a certain set of circumstances. Would you please file a Launchpad bug against Firefox? It's actually quite easy. Just run:

ubuntu-bug firefox

Apport will gather some information and then open a browser to finish. Be sure to copy/paste the error message you see into the bug report. Please do this on the machine having the problem. You will, of course, need another browser installed. Rekonq will work.

[Dutchman]

You can also "roll-back" Firefox and Thunderbird to the older, working versions for the time being. To do that, from a terminal type:

sudo apt-get purge firefox thunderbird && sudo apt-get autoremove

Once that completes, while still in the terminal type:

sudo apt-get install firefox=16.0.1+build1-0ubuntu1 thunderbird=16.0.1+build1-0ubuntu1

That will install the previous, working versions you had of Firefox and Thunderbird. Mozilla is usually pretty good about quickly fixing bugs, especially one like this that affects so many distros, and getting a patch out. So keep an eye on update announcements, it's sure to be soon. In the meantime this will give you back your earlier version of the two programs so you can work.

[slamelov]

I sent the bug report.

Dutchman, Thanks, Ill try that in a few days if Mozilla doesn't release a patch. I suppose I have to back up my email folders...

[Dutchman]

Never hurts to have backups. I even backup my backups!

[slamelov]

When I typed

sudo apt-get purge firefox thunderbird && sudo apt-get autoremove

A warning appears:

files list file for package 'libusbmuxd2' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed

So, may be something was wrong with that library.

Anyway, still doesn't work, same problem continues.

[Dutchman]

I'm a bit confused by the 'libusbmuxd2' warning. A search shows it's a library file for usb touch access with iPhone and iPad devices plugged into the system. I'm starting to think the problem is stemming from other software or libraries you may have installed. But, let's try something to see if we can get one or the other working before going much further.

I don't have Firefox or Thunderbird installed, so I'm not sure, you'll have to check before doing this to make sure I have the paths correct. I believe they install under '/opt', and if so, try issuing this from a terminal.

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/firefox/

Then try starting Firefox and let us know if it worked. What often happens is some programs keep a configuration list, a config file of dependencies they load, and another program or plug-in may add something to that list. Usually this isn't a problem, but if it changes the order the dependencies get loaded, that can lead to problems. Without an installed Firefox I can't look at the configuration files for it and give you a list of the dependencies in the right order, but perhaps someone that uses the programs will contribute to your cause? Anyway, I'm guessing that's what's happened to your setup, based on the 'libusbmuxd2' error. From what I've found about that library I can't see how it would have anything to do with either Mozilla program, but it may have changed the dependency order somehow. The command I wrote above should force Firefox to use it's 'default' library list. So let's see if that works.

[SteveRiley]

No, Firefox is in /usr/lib.

The other error is unrelated to Firefox. It's appearing because apt-get is detecting a problem: the local package database thinks the package is installed, but can't find reference to the package's contents in /var/lib/apt/lists. In examining the reverse dependencies, I learned that the file should be present on just about every Kubuntu installation:

* libusbmuxd2 required by libimobiledevice3
* libimobiledevice3 required by upower
* upower recommended by kubuntu-desktop
* libimobiledevice3 required by libgpod4
* libgpod4 required by amarok

You probably need to reinstall that package to fix the error:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall libusbmuxd2

[Dutchman]

I stand corrected, thank you Steve. I've done a bit of Google-ing about this, and it seems it's a constantly re-appearing problem with Mozilla apps when glibc is updated. From what I could make of it, when glibc gets updated it executes ldd, and sometimes the order of libraries gets changed, I imagine depending on what else is installed. There's an interesting thread on the Arch forums about it. Anyway, that's why I suggested trying to set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH to see if Firefox will then start. It's not a fix, but it should show if it's the problem. Seeing this all started after he updated the system, I'm thinking the updated glibc is what started it.

[SteveRiley]

Yeah, I saw some of those suggestions in Google searches, too. I would observe that Firefox appears to growing more and more brittle over time. I wonder whether they could simplify things somewhat if they gave up their ancient XUL widget library and compiled only against Gtk+ or, better, Qt

[Dutchman]

Yep, I'm sure they'd argue about portability, but then, Qt's portable.