[Hardy 8.04 i386 alpha daily 20080131.2] apport does not open Firefox after collecting crash data

What is the output of this command?

  gconftool --get /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/command

(in other words: what did you set as default browser in System -> Settings -> prefered applications)

What happens if you try

  firefox -new-window http://www.ubuntu.com

?

gconftool says "firefox %s" and the firefox command launches Firefox to URL requested (www.ubuntu.com).
When I go into Evolution > Help > Report a Problem, apport comes up and collects information then uploads information then closes, but no launch of Firefox is made to let the user complete the report. This should be easy to try, without waiting for a bug to catch. The version of apport and of apport-gtk are both 0.101, which are the latest available versions. Firefox has been working normally on this system. I'm running the 1/31/08 daily build, updated a few hours ago with all available updates.

I tried another test case: While Firefox is open, I initiated a bug report within Firefox: Help > Report a Problem. Again, apport launched, said it was collecting information, then said it was uploading, but when the upload window closed, no new tab nor new window of Firefox opened to complete the bug report. I waited, but nothing.

Are you actually running Ubuntu (with GNOME), or Kubuntu (KDE) or Xubuntu (with XFCE)? Apport defaults to different browsers under KDE and XFCE.

If you try

  ubuntu-bug -p evolution

in a Terminal, do you get any output? Can you please cut&paste it?

The first time I ran the ubuntu-bug command, the apport window opened and it collected info, but it closed, and then nothing. I don't recall whether it also uploaded files. I ran it again and this time it collected, uploaded, and opened a Firefox window to report the bug in Launchpad. I went further along with the bug report, which seemed to work normally, but I closed Firefox before actually submitting a bogus report. Then I ran ubuntu-bug a third time. Here's the terminal output:

overbyte@Northgate-U804d131:~$ ubuntu-bug -p evolution
overbyte@Northgate-U804d131:~$ ubuntu-bug -p evolution
overbyte@Northgate-U804d131:~$ The program 'firefox-bin' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)'.
  (Details: serial 273 error_code 3 request_code 20 minor_code 0)
  (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
   that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
   To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
   option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
   backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)

Since the behavior was inconsistent and sine the X error message above explains that error reports are asynchronous, maybe this bug is a race condition.

I am running Ubuntu i386 with the default Gnome (not Xubuntu, not Kubuntu).

I added Firefox as an affected package, since the error report seems to be indicating that this was a bad window call to X from within Firefox.
"About Firefox" reports:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.10) Gecko/20071128 Ubuntu/8.04 (hardy) Firefox/2.0.0.10

Indeed. I got other reports which confirmed that it works with all browsers (epiphany, konqueror, text browsers, etc.) except firefox.

Let's hope that this is fixed in firefox-3.0 :)

Thanks for your checks.

I did another test. I previously had installed Mozilla Seamonkey. I now set Seamonkey as the preferred browser (System > Preferences > Preferred Applications) and re-booted. (Just logging out and in again didn't change the default behavior of Nautilus when I clicked on an html file; but after re-booting, Seamonkey launches for html files.) When I next did the same Evolution > Help > Report a Problem, apport then behaved correctly by opening Seamonkey's browser after apport finished uploading the files. So, this apparently confirms that the problem is in Firefox 2.0.0.10, not Evolution nor apport. I see that the Firefox web site now has a version 2.0.0.11 for Linux in tarball, but it's not in the Ubuntu repository yet. This may be a good time to get .11 into the repository as an update, unless it has its own show-stopper bugs. The Ubuntu repository does contain an alpha of Firefox 3.0 for Linux. I may try that version to see if the bug has been eliminated in 3.0 yet.

Until then, the workaround is Seamonkey. Setting Seamonkey as the default browser does not interfere with normal use of Firefox when launched manually.

The Firefox-3.0 preview release (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b3pre) Gecko/2008010221 Firefox/3.0b3pre) does not have the problem. After installing 3.0 and setting it as the default browser, I did the "Report a Problem" from Evolution, and Firefox-3.0 launched to complete the bug report after apport finished uploading the info files.

Firefox 3.0b3pre does not have this bug.