firefox wrapper script breaks sensible-browser, gnome-www-browser, and firefox-3.0

this is known about and will mark as a dup as soon as i get the master bug for it

no, this is not the same bug; unduping.

This is caused by a bug in the /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.3/firefox.sh wrapper script; it assumes that 'basename $0' is always a valid binary name under /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.3, which is not at all guaranteed to be the case; e.g., firefox-3.0, abrowser-3.0, gnome-www-browser, and x-www-browser all are (or can be) symlinks to this wrapper script, but none of these appear as program names in /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.3.

I think the best solution here is to use readlink on $0 recursively until a matching name is found; this avoids having to hard-code any lists of known alternatives, or lists of known brandings.

Its a major bug in Xubuntu, and x-www-browser is also affected, this causes our help system which calls x-www-browser to crash and burn miserably. Also breaks links in X-Chat and probably a few other things.

Here are my comments from the xubuntu-meta bug. Steve already came to the same conclusion why the script is broken so here are my remaining notes:

This is a bug in firefox that manifested when we removed midori as the default browser.

mcasadevall@blacksteel:~/src/linux-ports-2.6.25/debian$ update-alternatives --list x-www-browser
/usr/bin/firefox-3.0
/usr/bin/midori

mcasadevall@blacksteel:~/src/linux-ports-2.6.25/debian$ firefox-3.0
exec: 118: /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.3/firefox-3.0: not found

From the rules:
    update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/x-www-browser \
        x-www-browser /usr/bin/$APPNAME 40
    touch $LIBDIR/.autoreg

This is what cases the alternative to point to firefox-3.0 instead of firefox, and thus breaks x-www-browser.

I concur with Steve's solution that the best way to fix this bug is have the script check for a matching name, and fall back on $LIBDIR/firefox if no other things are found.

The suggestion to follow links recursively until a valid name is found will fail for 'abrowser-3.0', which points directly to firefox-3.0. So an additional check of NAME=${NAME%%-3.0}} may be warranted.

Attached is a debdiff with a patch that I believe fixes this issue.

I test built the fix, it seems to work fine. x-www-browser and sensible-browser work for me with both abrowser and regular firefox.

What command should I execute to apply the patch?

committed to packaging head (rev 359). Thanks.

This bug was fixed in the package firefox-3.0 - 3.0.3+nobinonly-0ubuntu1

---------------
firefox-3.0 (3.0.3+nobinonly-0ubuntu1) intrepid; urgency=low

  [ Steve Langasek <email address hidden> ]
  * Fix the wrapper script to handle all possible invocations.
    LP: #275410.

  [ Fabien Tassin <email address hidden> ]
  * Remove some hardcoded 3.0 to make the merge in the 3.1 branch smoother
    - update debian/rules
    - update debian/firefox.sh.in
  * Fix abrowser symlink in libdir which must be versioned unless control
    ships a meta package. Add versioned symlinks in libdir for firefox and
    abrowser now that the launcher script uses $0
    - update debian/rules
  * Fix the desktop file for abrowser to call it abrowser-3.0 instead
    of firefox-3.0, and move the desktop icons to the branding packages
    - update debian/rules
  * Add a ubuntu-abrowser.js file dedicated to abrowser and set useragent
    to Firefox/version
    - add debian/ubuntu-abrowser.js.tmpl
    - update debian/rules
  * Fix typo in branding patch for unofficial branding
    - update debian/patches/browser_branding.patch

  [ Alexander Sack <email address hidden> ]
  * add ubuntu code to preferences for yahoo searchplugin
    - update debian/firefox.js
  * fix gnome integration systempath patch in such a way that it properly
    refers to "abrowser" and not awesome-browser
    - update debian/patches/lp185622_system_path_default_browser.patch
  * update aboutRights.xhtml to v1
    - update debian/patches/lp269656_know_your_rights.patch
  * resurrecting ubuntu default bookmarks
    - update debian/patches/browser_branding.patch
    - update debian/patches/series
  * add explicit minimum version to firefox-3.0 depend on firefox-3.0-branding
    and abrowser-3.0-branding (>= 3.0.3+nobinonly-0ubuntu1), to reflect
    that the desktop launcher icon has been moved from firefox-3.0 to
    -branding
    - update debian/control

 -- Fabien Tassin <email address hidden> Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:05:14 +0200

I'm using: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.4) Gecko/2008111318 Ubuntu/8.10 (intrepid) Firefox/3.0.4
And when I click on a link in Gnome Terminal or aMSN, nothing happens. In Hardy it used to launch Firefox, but since I upgraded to Intrepid, I have to copy/paste the links. Do I suffer from this bug?

Marcel, just update using UpdateManager or simular and you shouldn't suffer from bug 275410 anymore. In case the Gnome Terminal and aMSN bug still persist, I'd advise you to create a new bugreport in Launchpad. Before you do so:

In Gnome Terminal: Right click on the link and click "Open link" to see what happens
In aMSN: In the userlist, press Ctrl-P and go to the "Other"-tab to see what "Browser" is set to. In my case it was set to "firefox"