Cannot link to Firefox for external browsing from Netbean 6.1

Bug #307103 reported by Hanen Ben Rhouma
2
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
netbeans (Fedora)
Fix Released
Medium
netbeans (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: netbeans

Cannot execute /usr/bin/firefox for external browsing from Netbeans6.1 despite the sufficient privileges given to such process (I can even launch it from a terminal) but from netbeans (for tutorials and latest news following) it generates a warning message (attached below).

Related branches

Revision history for this message
In , sangu (sangu-redhat-bugs) wrote :

Description of problem:
Clicking link in Start Page -> Warning Cannt execute /usr/bin/firefox. Check external browser configuration.

$ ls -al /usr/bin/firefox
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4609 2008-09-24 10:18 /usr/bin/firefox

$ rpm -qf /usr/bin/firefox
firefox-3.0.2-1.fc10.i386

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
6.1-8.fc10

How reproducible:
always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Launch netbeans
2. Click Quick Start Tutorial in Start Page.
3.

Actual results:

Expected results:

Additional info:

Revision history for this message
In , Victor (victor-redhat-bugs) wrote :

WORKAROUND

Please, change command line arguments for the Firefox Web Browser:
1. Start NetBeans
2. Open the "Options" dialog via the menu item [Main Menu]/Tools/Options
3. Select the "General" tab
4. Open the dialog "Web Browsers" by pressing the button "Web Browser: Edit..."
5. Select the "Firefox" item in the list "Web Browsers"
6. Change a value of the text box "Arguments" from
-remote "openURL({URL})"
to
{URL}
7. Close all the opened dialogs by pressing the "OK" buttons.

Note, these changes will affect a current user only.

Revision history for this message
In , Victor (victor-redhat-bugs) wrote :
Revision history for this message
In , Victor (victor-redhat-bugs) wrote :

The release 9 has been committed into CVS repo.
Successful koji build:
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=895756

Changes:
- The DESKTOP_STARTUP_ID environment variable is unset in the IDE launcher.

Details about the issue:

To start the Firefox browser the following command is used by the NetBeans:
/usr/bin/firefox -remote "openURL({URL})"
where {URL} is a URL of the Web resource that need to be open.
Such command involves the remote control feature of the browser( http://www.mozilla.org/unix/remote.html ) that is based on the X Window System protocols.

The NetBeans installed on the Fedora can be started via a click on the menu item provided by a desktop environment (e.g. GNOME). In this case, the X Window System protocols are also used to provide communication with the netbeans process that is a launchee process from viewpoint of the desktop environment.

According to the Startup Notification Protocol Specification ( http://standards.freedesktop.org/startup-notification-spec/startup-notification-latest.txt ) the desktop environment will use the DESKTOP_STARTUP_ID environment variable to communicate the startup sequence information.

Also, the specification says:
"It is suggested to unset this environment variable in the launchee
as soon as it's read, to avoid possible reuse by some process started
later by launchee."

The previous release didn't take into account this suggestion, and the DESKTOP_STARTUP_ID environment variable with an inapplicable value was to pass to all processes started later by the NetBeans, including the Firefox browser. Now, it is fixed.

Revision history for this message
Hanen Ben Rhouma (hanen105) wrote :
Revision history for this message
proteus (tabularasa79) wrote :

I too have the same problem. I edited the setting to point instead to /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.5/firefox.sh.
That got rid of all error messages but nothing happens. I suspect that I have not given it the permissions yet so I am going to do that right after I log off here.

Proteus

Revision history for this message
Yulia Novozhilova (yulia-novozhilova) wrote :

Hi,
I can't reproduce the problem.
But hope these will help:

http://wiki.netbeans.org/FirefoxAndNetBeans

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=467546
----------------------
WORKAROUND

Please, change command line arguments for the Firefox Web Browser:
1. Start NetBeans
2. Open the "Options" dialog via the menu item [Main Menu]/Tools/Options
3. Select the "General" tab
4. Open the dialog "Web Browsers" by pressing the button "Web Browser: Edit..."
5. Select the "Firefox" item in the list "Web Browsers"
6. Change a value of the text box "Arguments" from
-remote "openURL({URL})" to {URL}
(there are also other options like -new-window {URL} and -new-tab {URL})

7. Close all the opened dialogs by pressing the "OK" buttons.

Note, these changes will affect a current user only.
----------------------

Jorge Castro (jorge)
Changed in netbeans (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Changed in netbeans:
status: Unknown → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package netbeans - 6.5-0ubuntu2

---------------
netbeans (6.5-0ubuntu2) jaunty; urgency=low

  * Added bugfix patches from 6.5.1 for NetBeans IDE (LP: #345562)
  * 40-ide-launcher.patch is updated (LP: #307103)
  * debian/rules: commons-logging jar's version changed from 1.0.4 to 1.1.

 -- Yulia Novozhilova <email address hidden> Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:34:02 +0400

Changed in netbeans (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Fix Released
Changed in netbeans (Fedora):
importance: Unknown → Medium
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