Applications (and other things) won't open...?

[hans030390]

I recently installed Linux Mint 4.0 on my computer, and it's giving me problems. This is what I've done with the OS...installed it and updated it. That is all.

When I try to open Firefox (icon I created on my Desktop), it simply does nothing. No indication that it's working or anything. Ok, so I try opening it through the Applications menu. This time, it comes up with a "Starting Firefox" thing in the taskbar, but that eventually disappears...and nothing happens.

Ok, so I try it in the terminal. "Firefox"...nothing. No additional info given. "Sudo Firefox"...give my password, and it starts up. WTF?

Strange, because Opera works flawlessly.

The same thing happened with Avant WM...but eventually it opened for me, but Firefox still gives me crap.

Then I tried to restart my computer. I went to "quit" in the apps menu...nothing. OK. "shutdown now" in the terminal. It starts killing everything, takes me to an all text screen. Stops. It just never shutdown. I can still enter commands and everything. What's going on?

This is a clean install, with only updates applied. This happened before and after the updates.

However, this is my second time trying this distro (same version, 4.0) on this computer. It worked flawlessly the first time. So, what's up this time? I did nothing different...

Any help?

 

[silverpig]

Print the outputs of these commands as your regular user:

which firefox

ls -lah <whatever the output of the which command was>

 

[Nothinman]

Ok, so I try it in the terminal. "Firefox"...nothing. No additional info given. "Sudo Firefox"...give my password, and it starts up. WTF?

That starts firefox as root so there's either a permissions problem on your machine or something in your user's preferences is causing firefox to not run.

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Ok, so I try it in the terminal. "Firefox"...nothing. No additional info given. "Sudo Firefox"...give my password, and it starts up. WTF?

That starts firefox as root so there's either a permissions problem on your machine or something in your user's preferences is causing firefox to not run.

I assumed, based on "sudo" fixing it, that it was permissions related. Would that explain my other similar/related problems, though? Also, where should I look and what should I do to try to find the exact cause of the problem and fix it?

 

[Nothinman]

Are you sure running 'firefox' as your user returns absolutely nothing? After it fails to start, what does 'echo $?' say?

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Are you sure running 'firefox' as your user returns absolutely nothing? After it fails to start, what does 'echo $?' say?

Not sure, I'll have to test it later today.

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: silverpig
Print the outputs of these commands as your regular user:

which firefox

ls -lah <whatever the output of the which command was>

"which firefox" gave me "/usr/bin/firefox"

and "ls -lah /usr/bin/firefox" gave me this:

"lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 22 2008-02-03 11:50 /usr/bin/firefox -> ../lib/firefox/firefox"

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Are you sure running 'firefox' as your user returns absolutely nothing? After it fails to start, what does 'echo $?' say?

"echo $" just gives me "$"

 

[Nothinman]

echo $?, the question mark is important. $? holds the return value from the last command run.

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
echo $?, the question mark is important. $? holds the return value from the last command run.

Oh! Sorry. All that gives me is "1".

 

[silverpig]

and what about

ls -lah /usr/lib/firefox/firefox

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: silverpig
and what about

ls -lah /usr/lib/firefox/firefox

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 5.2K 2007-12-03 18:30 /usr/lib/firefox/firefox

 

[silverpig]

The permissions seem fine then.

Try something else: Create a new user, log in with the new account and see if it still happens. I had some random issue with ubuntu a few weeks ago where some of my programs stopped working after an update like yours (compiz mainly). I created a new user and had no issues with that account, and then magically, after a few reboots the old account started working fine again.

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: silverpig
The permissions seem fine then.

Try something else: Create a new user, log in with the new account and see if it still happens. I had some random issue with ubuntu a few weeks ago where some of my programs stopped working after an update like yours (compiz mainly). I created a new user and had no issues with that account, and then magically, after a few reboots the old account started working fine again.

Oh, great. The last thing I need is Linux and magic I have no control over.

I'll try that out and see how it goes.

 

[Nothinman]

Oh! Sorry. All that gives me is "1".

Errno 1 is EPERM, operation not permitted.

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Oh! Sorry. All that gives me is "1".

Errno 1 is EPERM, operation not permitted.

Ah, ok...so, what should I do? Why is it giving me this? Like I said, this is the second time I've installed it...I did nothing different except updates. Why is it not working this time?

 

[Nothinman]

You really get no error at all when you try to run firefox?

This might be a little more low level than you want, but you can run 'strace firefox 2>/tmp/blah' and it'll put all of the syscall results into /tmp/blah and then you can open that up in a text editor and see if you can tell which call is failing. It's usually best to start at the end and work your way back since the last thing to fail is usually the problem.

Like I said, this is the second time I've installed it...I did nothing different except updates. Why is it not working this time?

It's impossible to say right now but it has to either be a packaging bug or something you've done. One thing you have to realize is that package updates don't just replace files they also run scripts before and after replacing files so they can do anything.

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
You really get no error at all when you try to run firefox?

This might be a little more low level than you want, but you can run 'strace firefox 2>/tmp/blah' and it'll put all of the syscall results into /tmp/blah and then you can open that up in a text editor and see if you can tell which call is failing. It's usually best to start at the end and work your way back since the last thing to fail is usually the problem.

Like I said, this is the second time I've installed it...I did nothing different except updates. Why is it not working this time?

It's impossible to say right now but it has to either be a packaging bug or something you've done. One thing you have to realize is that package updates don't just replace files they also run scripts before and after replacing files so they can do anything.

Ok, thanks. I have the "blah" file here. Honestly, I'm a newbie when it comes to Linux. This "blah" file doesn't help me at all, because I haven't the slightest idea of what it's saying. If I were to send it to you somehow, would you be able/willing to figure it out for me? I think it's too much to post here.

 

[hans030390]

Nevermind about fixing it...I'm just sticking with XP for now (plus my parents are bugging me to put it back on).

 

[Nothinman]

Ok, thanks. I have the "blah" file here. Honestly, I'm a newbie when it comes to Linux. This "blah" file doesn't help me at all, because I haven't the slightest idea of what it's saying. If I were to send it to you somehow, would you be able/willing to figure it out for me? I think it's too much to post here.

It's a fairly simple format, each line is just a syscall that the app made with the parameters and return value, failure return values are negative and are usually interpreted in parenthesis. For example:

access("/etc/ld.so.nohwcap", F_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)

is a failure that returned -1 because the file doesn't exist.