On a fresh installation of Gentoo, emerging firefox-bin succeeds and shows the message: QA Notice: Symbolic link /opt/firefox/browser/plugins points to /usr/lib64/nsbrowser/plugins which does not exist Effectively there aren't plugins installed at the time. After emerging www-plugins/adobe-flash, both the symlink and the destination appear to be correct: ls -l /opt/firefox/browser/plugins lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 May 15 11:55 /opt/firefox/browser/plugins -> /usr/lib64/nsbrowser/plugins ls -l /opt/firefox/browser/plugins/* -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 19294272 May 15 12:58 /opt/firefox/browser/plugins/libflashplayer.so Reporting as advised in #gentoo and #gentoo-dev-help at freenode. emerge --info www-client/firefox-bin Portage 2.2.28 (python 3.4.3-final-0, default/linux/amd64/13.0, gcc-4.9.3, glibc-2.22-r4, 3.16.0-28-generic x86_64) ================================================================= System Settings ================================================================= System uname: Linux-3.16.0-28-generic-x86_64-AMD_Phenom-tm-_II_X4_965_Processor-with-gentoo-2.2 KiB Mem: 32862532 total, 25639412 free KiB Swap: 25380860 total, 25380860 free Timestamp of repository gentoo: Sat, 14 May 2016 16:23:51 +0000 sh bash 4.3_p42-r1 ld GNU ld (Gentoo 2.25.1 p1.1) 2.25.1 app-shells/bash: 4.3_p42-r1::gentoo dev-lang/perl: 5.20.2::gentoo dev-lang/python: 2.7.10-r1::gentoo, 3.4.3-r1::gentoo dev-util/cmake: 3.3.1-r1::gentoo dev-util/pkgconfig: 0.28-r2::gentoo sys-apps/baselayout: 2.2::gentoo sys-apps/openrc: 0.19.1::gentoo sys-apps/sandbox: 2.10-r1::gentoo sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13::gentoo, 2.69::gentoo sys-devel/automake: 1.12.6::gentoo, 1.14.1::gentoo, 1.15::gentoo sys-devel/binutils: 2.25.1-r1::gentoo sys-devel/gcc: 4.9.3::gentoo sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.7.3::gentoo sys-devel/libtool: 2.4.6::gentoo sys-devel/make: 4.1-r1::gentoo sys-kernel/linux-headers: 4.3::gentoo (virtual/os-headers) sys-libs/glibc: 2.22-r4::gentoo Repositories: gentoo location: /usr/portage sync-type: git sync-uri: https://github.com/gentoo-mirror/gentoo.git priority: -1000 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64" ACCEPT_LICENSE="* -@EULA" CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -march=native" CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/share/gnupg/qualified.txt" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/dconf /etc/env.d /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/splash /etc/terminfo" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -march=native" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FCFLAGS="-O2 -pipe" FEATURES="assume-digests binpkg-logs candy cgroup config-protect-if-modified distlocks ebuild-locks fixlafiles merge-sync news parallel-fetch parallel-install preserve-libs protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unknown-features-warn unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans userfetch userpriv usersandbox usersync webrsync-gpg xattr" FFLAGS="-O2 -pipe" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org" LANG="en_US.utf8" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed" MAKEOPTS="-j5" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --omit-dir-times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --human-readable --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages --exclude=/.git" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" USE="X acl alsa amd64 bash-completion berkdb bindist branding bzip2 cairo caps cddb cli cracklib crypt cxx dbus device-mapper dri fortran fuse gdbm gif git gnome-keyring gpg gtk iconv icu idn imlib introspection jbig jpeg jpeg2k libkms lz4 lzma lzo mmx mmxext modules multilib ncurses nls nptl ogg openmp openssl pam pcre png pulseaudio readline rle samba seccomp session sse sse2 ssl startup-notification svg tcpd tiff udev udisks unicode upower vim-syntax xattr xcb xdg zlib" ABI_X86="64" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" APACHE2_MODULES="authn_core authz_core socache_shmcb unixd actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache cgi cgid dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" CALLIGRA_FEATURES="kexi words flow plan sheets stage tables krita karbon braindump author" CAMERAS="ptp2" COLLECTD_PLUGINS="df interface irq load memory rrdtool swap syslog" CPU_FLAGS_X86="mmx mmxext sse sse2" ELIBC="glibc" GPSD_PROTOCOLS="ashtech aivdm earthmate evermore fv18 garmin garmintxt gpsclock itrax mtk3301 nmea ntrip navcom oceanserver oldstyle oncore rtcm104v2 rtcm104v3 sirf superstar2 timing tsip tripmate tnt ublox ubx" GRUB_PLATFORMS="efi-64 emu multiboot pc qemu uboot" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse evdev" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LIBREOFFICE_EXTENSIONS="presenter-console presenter-minimizer" LINGUAS="en en_GB en_US es es_AR es_ES" OFFICE_IMPLEMENTATION="libreoffice" PHP_TARGETS="php5-5" PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python2_7" PYTHON_TARGETS="python2_7 python3_4" RUBY_TARGETS="ruby20 ruby21" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="amdgpu fbdev intel nouveau radeon radeonsi vesa dummy v4l" XTABLES_ADDONS="quota2 psd pknock lscan length2 ipv4options ipset ipp2p iface geoip fuzzy condition tee tarpit sysrq steal rawnat logmark ipmark dhcpmac delude chaos account" Unset: CC, CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, CXX, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, PORTAGE_BUNZIP2_COMMAND, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, USE_PYTHON ================================================================= Package Settings ================================================================= www-client/firefox-bin-38.8.0::gentoo was built with the following: USE="startup-notification (-selinux)" ABI_X86="64" LINGUAS="en_GB es_AR es_ES -af -ar -as -ast -be -bg -bn_BD -bn_IN -br -bs -ca -cs -cy -da -de -el -en_ZA -eo -es_CL -es_MX -et -eu -fa -fi -fr -fy_NL -ga_IE -gd -gl -gu_IN -he -hi_IN -hr -hu -hy_AM -id -is -it -ja -kk -kn -ko -lt -lv -mai -mk -ml -mr -nb_NO -nl -nn_NO -or -pa_IN -pl -pt_BR -pt_PT -rm -ro -ru -si -sk -sl -son -sq -sr -sv_SE -ta -te -tr -uk -vi -zh_CN -zh_TW"
The firefox-bin and thunderbird-bin packages cannot be patched to use the nsbrowser/plugins path, and so their plugins path must be symlinked over. If that directory doesn't exist then it simply means there are no plugins installed. I'd rather not create an empty directory just to eliminate this particular QA notice since the behaviour of a dangling symlink in this case is expected and operationally fine.
*** Bug 732198 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
