[CentOS] [OT SOLVED... sort of] Firefox loses plugins, anyone else? Bug? Known?

[William L. Maltby]

I figured I better post a SOLVED for this. In the main thread it is
still open as to whether a new bug should be posted.

Short form: don't have FF check and set itself as default browser,
rather run

   gnome-default-applications-properties

and select the firefox icon rather than "Custom" command.


On Tue, 2008-12-23 at 10:58 -0500, William L. Maltby wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-12-22 at 18:49 -0500, William L. Maltby wrote:
> > SYNOPSIS: Bug between Firefox and
> > 
> >    gnome-default-applications-properties
> > 
> > somewhere.
> > 
> > When FF is set to check to see if it is the default browser and it is
> > not and the user selects "Yes" to make it the default, FF writes the
> > full path to the /usr/lib instance in the command and sets the preferred
> > browser to "Custom".
> > 
> > This causes the symptoms that have been seen, including the truncation
> > of pluginreg.dat.
> > 
> > If the user responds "No" when FF asks if it should be the default
> > browser, the settings that were selected in 
> > 
> >   gnome-default-applications-properties
> > 
> > hold and the adverse symptoms are not seen.
> > 
> > WORKAROUND: tell firefox "No" or to _not_ check to see if it is the
> > default browser after running gnome-default-applications-properties and
> > selecting it there.
> > 
> > CONCLUSION: The gnome-default-applications-properties apparently gets
> > the binary in /usr/bin while FF itself bypasses this binary and goes
> > directly to the /usr/lib/ firefox instance. In this case the adverse
> > symptoms are seen.
> > 
> > Bug somewhere, I presume FF since the
> > 
> >    gnome-default-applications-properties
> > 
> > settings work OK and it accesses the binary in /usr/bin.
> > 
> > More detail that you ever wanted to know follows.
> > <snip>
> 
> BTW, I forgot to pull a basic check, so here it is.
> 
> $ rpm -qf /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.5/firefox /usr/bin/firefox
> firefox-3.0.5-1.el5.centos.i386
> firefox-3.0.5-1.el5.centos.i386
>