Firefox won't start (again!)

[cpghost]

On Mon, Jul 11, 2005 at 05:50:37PM -0500, Chris wrote:
> >On a RELENG_5 system from June 30th (source and ports),
> >firefox-1.0.4 won't start. It just hangs in the kserel state.
> >This is on a diskless system using NFS.
> >
> >Running truss(1) on the hanging firefox-bin process shows:
> >
> >kse_release(0x8065fa4) = 383 (0x17f)
> >kse_release(0x8065fa4) = 0 (0x0)
> >kse_release(0x8065fa4) = 383 (0x17f)
> >kse_release(0x8065fa4) = 383 (0x17f)
> >kse_release(0x8065fa4) = 0 (0x0)
> >kse_release(0x8065fa4) = 383 (0x17f)
> >kse_release(0x8065fa4) = 383 (0x17f)
> >kse_release(0x8065fa4) = 0 (0x0)
> >...
> >
> >When starting, firefox generates a GNOME Warning:
> >
> >Gdk-WARNING **: gdk_property_get(): length value has wrapped in
> >calculation (did you pass G_MAXLONG?)
> >
> 
> C'mon - we two can't be the only ones with this issue...

It's actually quite strange; and seems to be gconfd-2 related
somehow.

If the file system hosting /var/tmp is a nearly empty memory file
system (created by /etc/rc.d/var); everything runs just fine.

But if it is NFS mounted; gconfd-2 start before firefox-bin
reaches this kselrel state. This gconfd-2 then start polluting
/var/tmp with huge amounts of orbit-${USER}-* files.

In this case, killing gconfd-2, cleaning up the mess and disabling
gconfd-2 like this (I didn't yet find a more sensible way to do it;
this is just from memory):

  $ rm -rf ~/.gconf ~/.gconfd
  $ rm -rf /var/tmp/orbit-${USER}*
  $ rm -rf /var/tmp/gconfd-${USER}
  $ rm -rf /var/tmp/orbit-${USER}
  $ mkdir /var/tmp/gconfd-${USER}

results in firefox-bin starting. It complains that it can't connect
to gconfd-2 (which doesn't start), because some file is missing
(IIRC something like /var/tmp/gconfd-${USER}/lock/ior), but that
doesn't seem to prevent firefox from running without any further
problems. 

I've noticed this by chance, because gconfd-2 kept complaining
about permissions of orbit-${USER} files to syslog, generating
even more network traffic from the diskless workstation.

So, to sumarize: on a clean (memory) /var/tmp file system, gconfd-2
works as it should and firefox starts without problems. On an NFS
mounted /var/tmp file system that contains orbit-* files, gconfd-2
starts polluting the directory (and syslog) with huge amounts of
orbit-* files (and messages), thus prevening firefox from starting.
Preventing gconfd-2 from starting (somehow), lets firefox complaining
about it, but it enables firefox to start nonetheless.

Very strange indeed.

Regards,
-cpghost.

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