Thanks for all the above. I’ve got a working firefox back again.
Except now google drive is minus lots of options, and AFAIK unusable.
If I understand, now firefox is telling google drive (the online thing) that I’m on a mobile, so all the menus & options I had (image 1) are missing (image 2). I understand there’s an installable app for android that does all that, but not for RPi.
If I remember correctly, the old (or newer but faulty) firefox presented google drive OK.
It may well be more appropriate to start a new thread, but the problem is a spinoff from this one, so unless I’m advised otherwise…
Any ideas how to tell the google servers that the firefox is not on a mobile?
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByOoBxsh1lLPdXJ0WlU2ZEpvVFU
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByOoBxsh1lLPTkNjYmx1R09zNWM
It’s somewhat reassuring that others have these problems - I rolled back 2 installations which had the FF55 rubbish, and while using one of them it has frozen twice (cannot get anywhere either by monitor or SSH). I haven’t looked yet to see if it has now updated to FF55 - but fear it has.
I was finding the software and updates to be rather well concealed - it’s been a while since I needed to get at things, and memory is failing.
Derek
This’ll be a messy report, covers a lot.
I booted RPi Mate today and started ffubuntu0.12.04.1. It instantly crashed. I purged ffubuntu0.12.04.1. I reinstalled the official ffubuntu0.16.04.1, that crashed. I purged it, & reinstalled ffubuntu0.12.04.1 again, it works again. But FF still tells google servers that it’s a mobile.
Chromium instantly crashes, says ‘aw, snap’ for both internal & external pages. That seems to be a memory error, see
Tried midori, that shows google drive ok, but the right click activates midori menus, not google drive menus.
So, I’m on a quest for a browser that works on RPi Mate and uses google drive like a desktop.
Hmm…, hint: useragents
Well I’ve put a user agent switcher onto firefox, and firefox is telling google drive that it’s a desktop. So my page works properly.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-switcher-firefox/
(there are a few, the one by “Linder” does work)
And I’ve re-booted and ff still works.
I had the same problem on Kubuntu 14.04 (Me and the other 4 Linux PCs in the office). I found the crash was caused by something in the profile (It worked with a new profile) but opted by downgrading to version 54, keep my profile and keep waiting for a fix from Mozilla.
But today I upgraded again to 55 in my PC, and after some testing I got it running with my profile just deleting cookies.sqlite database file:
julio@marte:~/.mozilla/firefox/kn5ilk3u.default$ rm cookies.sqlite*
I can’t guarantee it works for anybody, your mileage may vary.
I also tried to determine if I could avoid deleting the entire cookie repository by deleting certain cookies but I was unsuccessful. Anyway having to log again in certain site or something is a minor issue.
Update to the tutorial.
While this issue still plagues us, we all still need to be able to
update our pi boxes for security patches and software updates.
There is a way to block firefox from being updated.
Run the following command: sudo apt-mark hold firefox or sudo aptitude hold firefox
This will block firefox from upgrades.
Note:
When a new working release becomes available you can unblock package updating with:
sudo apt-mark unhold firefox or sudo aptitude unhold firefox
Let’s hope a new working update becomes available soon.
Someone reported the bug on launchpad:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mate/+bug/1714616
Please mark yourselves as affected.
The true question is why in the hell are updates installed without prompting the user?
Feel free to complain about this by marking yourself as affected on the bug report I raised about this issue:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unattended-upgrades/+bug/1700930
Absolutely right! I read your bug description. It was clear and precise. Thank you. I am not familiar with that forum or its personalities.
I have 25 years as a network security consultant and my feeling was less technical and more angry. As you will see in my comment under yours. In my never humble opinion, our Ubuntu over lords have clearly made a policy decision to protect us from our selves. In doing so, they have violated our trust and introduced a vulnerability - though unintended.
Has anyone noticed in Software & Updates that “Security Updates” has been greyed out. They have disabled our ability to turn them off from this interface. On a windows system, when you turn off Automatic Updates - they are in fact, turned off.
I have experienced the same under many prior versions of FF. I think they have a memory leak which eventually will crash FF and often take the whole system down.
Thanks, this helped a bunch!
Perhaps this helps? I ran:
sudo apt-get install firefox=45.0.2+build1-0ubuntu1
this had ‘apt’ downgrade the firefox install – sadly to 45 which is just slightly past the dark ages…
It gets around any of the warning/incompatability messaging as it is actually in the armhf repo.
The error has been reported to Mozilla:
but it doesn’t sound like it will be fixed anytime soon. From the link above:
Wow! That is sad. And, Ubuntu is still pushing 55.0.2 on all updates to RPI users. Why don’t they just back it off until a fix arrives?
Thank you for your post, there’s an easier way to get this .deb file:
wget -c https://launchpadlibrarian.net/313439025/firefox_52.0.2+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.1_armhf.deb
but I do like that clarity and honesty, don’t expect google to fix it, use the various workarounds
good morning
sudo apt-mark hold firefox fixed it for me
great. lets wait a supported newer version in between…
Hans
Hi,
Firefox problems still existed with the same issues because it cannot start.
This problem occurs with Firefox version 55, version 56, version 57.
I have submitted the issues to Launchpad…
I wonder why they have not solve the problem.
It is now December and we have been seeing this issue for several months. 5 major versions of FF have been pushed out since 52.0.2 (the last working version). If Mozilla is not fixing this, does that mean No One is?
I reckon, there are about 9000 variations of FF for different hardware, OS’s, versions, not all are going to be catered for. I’m going to ask for my money back.
@garrytre Understood and agreed. My question though was based on the fact that when the RPI3 was first introduced FF had already been rolled and delivered as a default install with Ubuntu Mate for the platform. That means that some one went to some trouble working out the kinks. Now, it appears that RPI is a forgotten concern - just 1 of 9000.
When I got the RPI3 in April of 2016, just months after it was available, FF worked. Chrome on the other hand did not work and it took more then a year for “some one” to fix it. And, it works now… sort of.
I did not pay much for the RPI3 and of course nothing for the OS or the browser. My experience with the RPI3 has led me to invest in a different direction. I don’t have time for this crap though I do love the idea.