Bug 178604 – www-client/mozilla-firefox: freezes while trying to connect to gentoo.org if there is a firewall

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE

[Description Bruce Merry 2007-05-15 07:57:39 UTC]

The ebuild for www-client/mozilla-firefox-2.0.0.3 installs /usr/lib64/mozilla-firefox/defaults/pref/all-gentoo.js, which sets www.gentoo.org as the home page. However, even though I've set firefox to use a blank page on startup, firefox tries to open an HTTP connection to gentoo.org on startup. At university this connection is blocked by the firewall, causing firefox to simple freeze on startup (if I have the proxy set then things are fine, but I turn off the proxy on my laptop when I use it at home).

Removing the "browser.startup.homepage" line from that configuration file fixed the freeze.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. emerge =www-client/mozilla-firefox-2.0.0.3
2. Firewall outgoing connections on port 80 somehow
3. rm -rf ~/.mozilla
4. Start firefox
Actual Results:  
Firefox opens a window, but does not fill it in (background shows through), and is unresponsive. netstat shows SYN_SENT for wren.gentoo.org:http.

Expected Results:  
- Firefox should start up fully before trying to load this home page
- If the user has specified "start with blank page", firefox should not try to open any connections.

[Comment 1 Jakub Moc (RETIRED) 2007-05-15 08:13:34 UTC]

This is not a Gentoo issue at all. FF behaves horribly when it cannot connect to network (network down, proxy down, whatever). Lots of bugs in upstream bugzilla about this. You'll see the exact same issue if it tries to check updates for extensions or do whatever else that needs a working network connection.

[Comment 2 Bruce Merry 2007-05-15 08:48:43 UTC]

Well, I guess I should be more specific about what I wanted fixed, since I don't really expect Gentoo devs to fix everything that's broken in FF: my personal and totally selfish opinion is that all-gentoo.js shouldn't force a homepage setting because I care a lot more about being able to start my browser than about Gentoo's branding.

Perhaps it can just install a bookmark instead?

[Comment 3 Jakub Moc (RETIRED) 2007-05-15 08:56:00 UTC]

(In reply to comment #2)
> personal and totally selfish opinion is that all-gentoo.js shouldn't force a
> homepage setting because I care a lot more about being able to start my browser
> than about Gentoo's branding.

Well, any user settings (incl. 'start with blank page') should override it; so, that really doesn't solve the real problem.

(SwitchProxy Tool extension makes live w/ proxies a little more bearable, if you are not using it yet: https://addons.mozilla.org/cs/firefox/addon/125)

[Comment 4 Raúl Porcel (RETIRED) 2007-09-19 10:59:21 UTC]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Well, I guess I should be more specific about what I wanted fixed, since I
> don't really expect Gentoo devs to fix everything that's broken in FF: my
> personal and totally selfish opinion is that all-gentoo.js shouldn't force a
> homepage setting because I care a lot more about being able to start my browser
> than about Gentoo's branding.
> 
> Perhaps it can just install a bookmark instead?
> 

Then it's a dupe of 165958


*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 165958 ***