Firefox installation problem: loading the extensions datasource

[Benjamin Scott]

On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, at 10:36am, pdussault at verizon.net wrote:
>  I get the message: "loading the extensions datasource" in the terminal
> window I execute the program from if I am not the root user.

  It is very common to see Weird Things(TM) happen if an old plugin,
extension, or config file gets loaded into a newer version of
Mozilla/Netscape/Firefox/etc.

  I would suggest you check for Mozilla family extensions and plugins in the
various directories in which they live.  Finding all the various directories
can be an adventure in and of itself.  Some examples:

	/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/
	/usr/lib/firefox/plugins/
	/usr/lib/mozilla-1.2/plugins/
	/usr/lib/firefox-1.0/plugins/
	/usr/lib/netscape/plugins/
	/usr/local/lib/netscape/
	/usr/local/netscape/
	/usr/local/lib/firefox/
	$HOME/.mozilla/plugins/
	$HOME/.firefox/plugins/
	$HOME/.phoneix/plugins/
	$HOME/.mozilla/firefox/$RANDOM/plugins/

You get the idea.  Also look for "extensions" and "registry" files in those
directories (and variations on this theme).

  Also, try renaming all your user $HOME/.{mozilla,firefox,phoneix}
directories and then running Firefox.  If that works, you know where to
start looking.

  If all else fails, "ltrace" and "strace" can show you what the program was
doing when it stopped doing it, but be warned that the output is cryptic and
rather low-level.

-- 
Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
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