firefox deb not installed

Bug #1992688 reported by Brian Murray
16
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
firefox (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned
Jammy
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned
ubuntu-meta (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
High
Brian Murray
Jammy
Fix Released
High
Olivier Tilloy

Bug Description

Impact
------
Applications which use x-www-browser to launch a browser will not work on a freshly installed Ubuntu 22.04 system as the firefox deb (which provides x-www-browser) is not installed.

Test Plan
---------
1) Install Ubuntu 22.04.2 using an amd64 desktop iso image
2) Open a terminal
3) Run x-www-browser www.ubuntu.com
4) Observe a command not found message which recommends installing firefox

Installing of a daily build of Ubuntu 22.04 with -proposed enabled and ubuntu-desktop version 1.481.1 will not exhibit the above problem.

Where problems could occur
--------------------------

Other Info
----------
I tested an upgrade from Ubuntu 20.04 to Ubuntu 22.04 and the firefox deb was not removed during the upgrade process so upgrades are a non-issue.

Original Description
--------------------
Bug 1964036 leads me to believe that the firefox deb provides some important functionality (the firefox favourite icon in the gnome shell dock) but there is nothing that would require the deb to be installed (it is not seeded nor has an rdep) and the package description indicates that it can be safely removed. Is there some important functionality that it provides?

ProblemType: BugDistroRelease: Ubuntu 22.10
Package: ubuntu-release-upgrader-core 1:22.10.8
ProcVersionSignature: User Name 5.19.0-19.19-generic 5.19.7
Uname: Linux 5.19.0-19-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.23.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckMismatches: ./boot/grub/grub.cfg
CasperMD5CheckResult: fail
CrashDB: ubuntu
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed Oct 12 11:30:46 2022
InstallationDate: Installed on 2022-04-27 (167 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS "Jammy Jellyfish" - Release amd64 (20220419)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bashSourcePackage: ubuntu-release-upgrader
Symptom: ubuntu-release-upgrader
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to kinetic on 2022-10-12 (0 days ago)
VarLogDistupgradeTermlog:

Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote :
description: updated
summary: - firefox deb not installed after upgrade to kinetic
+ firefox deb not installed
description: updated
affects: ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu) → firefox (Ubuntu)
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote :

Additionally, the firefox deb is not in the manifest for Ubuntu 22.04.1.

Revision history for this message
Olivier Tilloy (osomon) wrote :

The favourite icon in the shell isn't part of the firefox package, but the /usr/bin/firefox wrapper script has some logic to rewrite the favourite entry from "firefox.desktop" (deb package) to "firefox_firefox.desktop" (snap). So for dist upgrades, this is important (if the deb is removed, the icon disappears because the shell cannot locate "firefox.desktop", so it hides the favourite entry).

The deb also sets up dpkg alternatives for x-www-browser and gnome-www-browser, which snaps currently cannot do (see https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/firefox-snap-cannot-be-set-as-default-browser/26636).

Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote :

From #ubuntu-devel on 2022-10-13

10:12 < bdmurray> oSoMoN: with regards to bug 1992688
                  isn't having the x-www-browser and
                  gnome-www-browser important
                  functionality?
10:12 -ubottu:#ubuntu-devel- Bug 1992688 in firefox
          (Ubuntu) "firefox deb not installed"
          [Undecided, New]
          https://launchpad.net/bugs/1992688
10:13 < oSoMoN> bdmurray, it is
10:14 < bdmurray> oSoMoN: Can you work with the desktop
                  team on getting it seeded then?
10:15 < oSoMoN> seb128, do we want to seed firefox again
                for this? ^
11:27 < seb128> oSoMoN, I think so, I though we had it
                installed by default on the iso for
                22.04 still no? if so how did it drop?
11:29 < bdmurray> I did not see it in the manifest for
                  22.04
11:34 < seb128> k, maybe I misremember and we just added
                it back so there was a way to accomodate
                those requirements
11:35 < seb128> but it would make sense to have it
                installed by default to have the
                alternative and the package provide
11:36 < bdmurray> I think the release upgrader would
                  install it on upgrades if it ends up
                  being seeded in kinetic
11:45 < seb128> ack
11:45 < seb128> oSoMoN, +1 from me for doing the change

Olivier Tilloy (osomon)
Changed in ubuntu-meta (Ubuntu):
assignee: nobody → Olivier Tilloy (osomon)
status: New → In Progress
importance: Undecided → High
Changed in ubuntu-meta (Ubuntu Jammy):
assignee: nobody → Olivier Tilloy (osomon)
importance: Undecided → High
Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote :

I'm going to do the ubuntu-meta upload so we can get this in ASAP.

Changed in ubuntu-meta (Ubuntu):
assignee: Olivier Tilloy (osomon) → Brian Murray (brian-murray)
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-meta - 1.497

---------------
ubuntu-meta (1.497) kinetic; urgency=medium

  * Refreshed dependencies
  * Added firefox to desktop-minimal-recommends [amd64 arm64 armhf],
    desktop-recommends [amd64 arm64 armhf] as it provides dpkg alternatives
    for x-www-browser and gnome-www-browser. (LP: #1992688)

 -- Brian Murray <email address hidden> Thu, 13 Oct 2022 14:37:15 -0700

Changed in ubuntu-meta (Ubuntu):
status: In Progress → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote :

I tested an upgrade from Jammy to Kinetic today (after the ubuntu-meta change) and I saw that firefox was in the list of packages to be installed during the upgrade.

Remove (was auto installed) gir1.2-mutter-10 gnome-bluetooth
  gnome-todo-common libevent-2.1-7 libfwupdplugin5 libgnome-bg-4-1
  libgnome-desktop-3-19 libgnome-desktop-4-1 libmutter-10-0
  pipewire-media-session

Install: at-spi2-common attr cpp-12 dbus-bin dbus-daemon
  dbus-session-bus-common dbus-system-bus-common endeavour
  endeavour-common firefox g++-12 gcc-12 gir1.2-gnomedesktop-4.0
  gir1.2-gweather-4.0 gir1.2-javascriptcoregtk-4.1 gir1.2-mutter-11

So no changes in ubuntu-release-upgrader are necessary to make this work.

Changed in ubuntu-meta (Ubuntu Jammy):
status: New → Triaged
milestone: none → ubuntu-22.04.2
Revision history for this message
Michael Hudson-Doyle (mwhudson) wrote :

This just needs to be backported to Jammy now?

Olivier Tilloy (osomon)
Changed in ubuntu-meta (Ubuntu Jammy):
status: Triaged → In Progress
Changed in firefox (Ubuntu):
status: New → Invalid
Changed in firefox (Ubuntu Jammy):
status: New → Invalid
Olivier Tilloy (osomon)
Changed in ubuntu-meta (Ubuntu Jammy):
status: In Progress → Fix Committed
Revision history for this message
oscar (osquii) wrote :

tor browser no installed error 404

Revision history for this message
Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100) wrote : Please test proposed package

Hello Brian, or anyone else affected,

Accepted ubuntu-meta into jammy-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-meta/1.481.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-jammy to verification-done-jammy. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-jammy. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

tags: added: verification-needed verification-needed-jammy
Revision history for this message
Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100) wrote :

Brian promised to update the description with the required SRU information. On this note I have accepted the upload into jammy-proposed.

description: updated
description: updated
description: updated
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote :

I tested an Ubuntu 22.04 daily build today and can confirm that firefox deb is installed and `x-www-browser www.ubuntu.com` works.

bdmurray@bdmurray-Standard-PC-Q35-ICH9-2009:~$ cat /var/log/installer/media-info
Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS "Jammy Jellyfish" - Release amd64 (20230621)bdmurray@bdmurray-Standard-PC-Q35-ICH9-2009:~$ apt-cache policy ubuntu-desktop
ubuntu-desktop:
  Installed: 1.481.1
  Candidate: 1.481.1
  Version table:
 *** 1.481.1 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-proposed/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1.481 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 Packages
bdmurray@bdmurray-Standard-PC-Q35-ICH9-2009:~$ which x-www-browser
/usr/bin/x-www-browser
bdmurray@bdmurray-Standard-PC-Q35-ICH9-2009:~$ apt-cache policy firefox
firefox:
  Installed: 1:1snap1-0ubuntu2
  Candidate: 1:1snap1-0ubuntu2
  Version table:
 *** 1:1snap1-0ubuntu2 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

tags: added: verification-done verification-done-jammy
removed: verification-needed verification-needed-jammy
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-meta - 1.481.1

---------------
ubuntu-meta (1.481.1) jammy; urgency=medium

  * Refreshed dependencies
  * Added firefox to desktop-minimal-recommends [amd64 arm64 armhf],
    desktop-recommends [amd64 arm64 armhf] as it provides dpkg alternatives
    for x-www-browser and gnome-www-browser. (LP: #1992688)

 -- Brian Murray <email address hidden> Thu, 27 Apr 2023 01:17:57 -0700

Changed in ubuntu-meta (Ubuntu Jammy):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Chris Halse Rogers (raof) wrote : Update Released

The verification of the Stable Release Update for ubuntu-meta has completed successfully and the package is now being released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

Revision history for this message
Robert C Jennings (rcj) wrote :

FYI, if a user has a 22.04 install where they have explicitly removed snapd/firefox this will add them back. Not sure if this was a consideration in the fix/testing.

Also, the apt resolver is pulling in snapd while holding ubuntu-desktop back during staging which made finding the cause of the snapd/firefox installation a bit hard to track down since no packages upgraded in the same unattended-upgrades operation had dependencies on them.

(thread: https://hachyderm.io/@rcj4747/110667685702206834)

To post a comment you must log in.
This report contains Public information  
Everyone can see this information.

Other bug subscribers

Remote bug watches

Bug watches keep track of this bug in other bug trackers.