Firefox 3.0.3 – new folders, causing problems

[pteeter]

I’m guessing a bunch of us are repackaging Firefox.

I may have been ignoring some details but my system snapshot diff files for Firefox 3.0.0-2 differ with my diff file for 3.0.3.

Maybe it’s nothing but I just want to ask people to take a look.

Typically, I only have to pull this folder to repackage Firefox…

[b]/Applications/Firefox.app/[/b]

With 3.0.3, I’m also seeing these two…

[b]/Library/Application Support/Mozilla/Extensions/
/Library/Mozilla/[/b]

Again, I may have missed them before but I don’t think so.

I wouldn’t expect these two folders to cause any problems except that on 1/6 of my Leopard-type images, Firefox crashes on initial launch and won’t let itself be fixed easily.

For now I’m reverting to 3.0.2 but wanted to see if anyone else had insight about this apparent Firefox 3.0.3 peculiarity.

[knowmad]

I had noticed that firefox builds those extra files on first run….
that being said I have had some major issues with 3.0.3 even on non-instadmg boxes.
I am not using 3.0.3 for the time being.

[pteeter]

I’ve found a couple postings about Mac OS X 10.5.5 + Firefox 3.0.3 with the same complaints about not launching properly on the Firefox forum. I’m trying to document the issue a little more completely now.

It may have implications on this forum…it may not.

I’ll update the posting with whatever I find.

[Greg Neagle]

I’ve not seen any problems with Firefox 3.0.3 under 10.5.5, and I deliver only the app bundle itself…

[pteeter]

Good to know gneagle.

I’ve adjusted my 3.0.3 package to deliver just the app bundle. Still seeing bizarreness with 1 of my build-types.

Root can launch Firefox, any other user – local, local admin, network – gets a crash. Message to syslog is:
[code]Oct 28 12:12:16 MacBookPro15 com.apple.launchd[372] ([0x0-0xad0ad].org.mozilla.firefox[659]): Stray process with PGID equal to this dead job: PID 661 PPID 1 crashreporter
Oct 28 12:12:16 MacBookPro15 com.apple.launchd[372] ([0x0-0xad0ad].org.mozilla.firefox[659]): Exited with exit code: 1[/code]
Have been trying to remove Internet-Plugins, Firefox components, etc. to isolate the problem.

Couple threads over at the Firefox/Mozilla forum but nothing conclusive.

What permissions do you assign to the bundle when you drop it in /Applications (assuming that’s what you do)?

[pteeter]

Figured it out just yesterday.

One of my build trains ends up with a VERY limited set of local fonts. In the process, he Helvetica.dfont is removed from /System/Library/Fonts. Font replacement/auto-fixing is disabled too.

As soon as that dfont stops living in /System/Library/Fonts, Firefox crashes on launch.

I’m still researching but for some reason the removal of Helvetica.dfont from that folder does not effect the root account?

More to come.

[Patrick Fergus]

Are you not putting a PostScript version of Helvetica into /System/Library/Fonts? Following the advice of the now-years-old Apple Typography documentation?

– Patrick

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