Xubuntu 24.04.1: Firefox fails to start

[Robert Heller]

At Fri, 18 Oct 2024 11:09:24 -0700 jeff at cjsa.com, "Ubuntu user technical support,? not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:

> 
> Firefox was working fine on Xubuntu 22.04. The OS upgrade completely failed
> and I am now rebuilding a new Xubuntu 24.04.1 system. I uninstalled the
> snap package and installed the latest version of Firefox from the *mozillateam
> ppa* (131.0.2+build1-0ubuntu0.24.04.1~mt1). Any attempt to start
> /usr/bin/firefox results in the pop-up message:
> 
> "Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible."
> 
> This is not true. The same profiles exist in ~/.mozilla/firefox and even
> attempting to specify a specific profile with -P fails. This problem seems
> commonly reported on other versions of Linux but not Ubuntu. I tried
> removing the entire ~/.mozilla directory but that did nothing. I tried
> starting in safe mode, but same results. However, there are also other
> start-up messages:
> 
> 17-> /usr/bin/firefox
> > [Parent 29355, Main Thread] WARNING: Failed to parse
> > /u/jeff/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini: Permission denied: 'glib warning',
> > file
> > /build/firefox-E8vObn/firefox-131.0.2+build1/toolkit/xre/nsSigHandlers.cpp:187
> >
> > (firefox:29355): Gtk-WARNING **: 09:37:42.425: Failed to parse
> > /u/jeff/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini: Permission denied
> > [Parent 29355, Main Thread] WARNING: Theme parsing error: gtk.css:1:0:
> > Failed to import: Error opening file /u/jeff/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css:
> > Permission denied: 'glib warning', file
> > /build/firefox-E8vObn/firefox-131.0.2+build1/toolkit/xre/nsSigHandlers.cpp:187
> >
> > (firefox:29355): Gtk-WARNING **: 09:37:42.426: Theme parsing error:
> > gtk.css:1:0: Failed to import: Error opening file
> > /u/jeff/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css: Permission denied
> > [Parent 29355, Unnamed thread 74eea8386ca0] WARNING: Failed to get cache
> > content /u/jeff/.cache/gtk-3.0/compose/8bedc2de.cache: Failed to open file
> > “/u/jeff/.cache/gtk-3.0/compose/8bedc2de.cache”: Permission denied: 'glib
> > warning', file
> > /build/firefox-E8vObn/firefox-131.0.2+build1/toolkit/xre/nsSigHandlers.cpp:187
> >
> > (firefox:29355): Gtk-WARNING **: 09:37:42.732: Failed to get cache content
> > /u/jeff/.cache/gtk-3.0/compose/8bedc2de.cache: Failed to open file
> > “/u/jeff/.cache/gtk-3.0/compose/8bedc2de.cache”: Permission denied
> > [Parent 29355, Unnamed thread 74eea8386ca0] WARNING: Failed to open file
> > “/u/jeff/.XCompose”: Permission denied: 'glib warning', file
> > /build/firefox-E8vObn/firefox-131.0.2+build1/toolkit/xre/nsSigHandlers.cpp:187
> >
> 
> firefox:29355): Gtk-WARNING **: 09:37:42.732: Failed to open file
> > “/u/jeff/.XCompose”: Permission denied
> 
> 

What is $HOME?  Is it /home/jeff or /u/jeff?  What is your UID? What UID owns 
/u/jeff? 

> None of this makes sense as all these files exist and are readable.  This
> may be an underlying gtk problem.
> 

The files might be readable, but are the directories?  Do the directories have 
execute perms (x)?  And double check your UID against the UID of the owner of 
the files and/or directories.

> Has anyone else run across this and any suggestions as to what needs to be
> done.
> 
> Thanks.
> 

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