[SOLVED] Firefox 6.0 - Back/Forward buttons not working...

[omelette]

I seem to have a knack for finding bugs, either real or imagined! Or breaking stuff, as may be the case here. The FF available on the Live-CD works perfectly. But since the last complete upgrade which included version 6 of Firefox, stuff just doesn't work, the Back/Forward buttons in this case. For instance, to post this email and after just replying to another, rather than the usual 'Back' button push to 'Basic Support', I had to click on the 'Basic Support' link - why? 'cos both directions buttons are greyed out! And it only occurs about half the time as well, making it more mysterious. The other thing that doesn't work is 'live-links', which is very obvious on Google searches - for instance, if I google something, when I move the mouse-pointer over the link it no longer automatically underlines to show you it's an active link, it just changes from a mouse-pointer to a text cursor! It's a case of click-and-hope!

I'm now wondering if this could be related to the fact that neither Compiz or Desktop Effects are working for me either...

Edit: is there anyway of downgrading to Firefox 4? I've checked the repositories and while there's lots of language-packs for FF4 available, the application itself isn't. Surfing the web without Back/Forward buttons is a real chore.

[doktor5000]

Some of these are no bugs, just usage problems.
If Back/Forward buttons are greyed out, then it simply means you haven't visited any other site before/after in that tab.
The missing underlined links are a security issues, and turned now off by default, AFAIR. You can re-enable this by
entering about:config in the adress bar, and changing the following setting to true (by double-clicking on the name of the key)

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browser.underline_anchors.

Buy maybe i mix that security issues up with the CSS display of visited links.

And Firefox 4 is still available, please show the output of

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urpmf -f --name -m firefox-4

[omelette]

Some of these are no bugs, just usage problems.
If Back/Forward buttons are greyed out, then it simply means you haven't visited any other site before/after in that tab.

Wow, you don't give me much credit do you! Not to worry though, no offence taken! Of course it's not that, I've been using browsers on a daily basis since at least 1995 and that is not the problem. A simple example; Enter "mageia" in Google's search-box top-right of page & hit Enter. Mageia's home-page naturally comes up first. Clicking the link (dodgy cursor excepted) and Mageia's page loads and on the same tab as the Google search Now I want to go back to the Google search results but unfortunately both Back/Forward arrows are still greyed out - and clicking them doesn't have any effect either! It's definitely a bug, and like I said, on some pages the arrows work but not in the example I've just given! And like I said, I have FF4 on the other pc and it works perfectly.

The missing underlined links are a security issues, and turned now off by default, AFAIR. You can re-enable this by
entering about:config in the adress bar, and changing the following setting to true (by double-clicking on the name of the key)

Code: Select all

browser.underline_anchors.

Buy maybe i mix that security issues up with the CSS display of visited links.

I've just done as you suggested. I found that the 'browser.underline.anchors' was set to true - that means that they should be turned on I would have presumed - I set it to false, closed & restarted FF - nothing has changed!

And Firefox 4 is still available, please show the output of

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urpmf -f --name -m firefox-4

Aha, I get a result!

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firefox-4.0.1-4.mga1.i586:Core Release (distrib1)

Is this in the cache somewhere on my pc, or online? I've just checked /var/cache/urpmi/rpms and it's empty. Which brings to mind another question - the default policy is to not clear the cache after an install - I've just checked and the 'Clear download cache after successful install' is unchecked - so how come the rpms folder is empty, considering I just recently installed over 400meg of updates?

I'll see if I can locate & reinstall FF4.

Edit: I've just tried doing a system-wide search for FF4 and was not impressed to find that KDE4.x search function lock up the entire desktop while the search proceeds - it barely even responds to a cancel on it's own window! That's just nasty...

[doktor5000]

Some of these are no bugs, just usage problems.
If Back/Forward buttons are greyed out, then it simply means you haven't visited any other site before/after in that tab.

Wow, you don't give me much credit do you! Not to worry though, no offence taken! Of course it's not that, I've been using browsers on a daily basis since at least 1995 and that is not the problem. A simple example; Enter "mageia" in Google's search-box top-right of page & hit Enter. Mageia's home-page naturally comes up first. Clicking the link (dodgy cursor excepted) and Mageia's page loads and on the same tab as the Google search Now I want to go back to the Google search results but unfortunately both Back/Forward arrows are still greyed out - and clicking them doesn't have any effect either! It's definitely a bug, and like I said, on some pages the arrows work but not in the example I've just given! And like I said, I have FF4 on the other pc and it works perfectly.

Works here, and this beahvior did never change since i use Firefox.
Something is clearly wrong on your side, did you check with a fresh Firefox profile (rename ~/.mozilla/ to f.ex. ~/.mozilla-old/ ) and check again.

Maybe you should check the following links:
http://support.mozilla.com/de/questions/784951
http://support.mozilla.com/de/questions/732184
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Locked_or_dam ... ces.sqlite

Is this in the cache somewhere on my pc, or online? I've just checked /var/cache/urpmi/rpms and it's empty. Which brings to mind another question - the default policy is to not clear the cache after an install - I've just checked and the 'Clear download cache after successful install' is unchecked - so how come the rpms folder is empty, considering I just recently installed over 400meg of updates?

I'll see if I can locate & reinstall FF4.

Edit: I've just tried doing a system-wide search for FF4 and was not impressed to find that KDE4.x search function lock up the entire desktop while the search proceeds - it barely even responds to a cancel on it's own window! That's just nasty...

The cache for downloaded packages can be found under /var/cache/urpmi/.
urpmi's default policy is to remove packages after successful installation.
Also 'Clear download cache after successful install' option, where do you see this?

Why do you want to search your whole system for FF4, when it's not installed any more?
Also KDE's search function is not the best thing to do that, because that search would be quite huge without an index.
For such purposes, you should use locate in a terminal.

The result you got for Firefox 4 is from the online package repositories.

[omelette]

The cache for downloaded packages can be found under /var/cache/urpmi/.
urpmi's default policy is to remove packages after successful installation.
Also 'Clear download cache after successful install' option, where do you see this?

That is found in 'Options' of "Install & Remove Software" - I take it so that this switch isn't even considered.

Why do you want to search your whole system for FF4, when it's not installed any more?
Also KDE's search function is not the best thing to do that, because that search would be quite huge without an index.
For such purposes, you should use locate in a terminal.

The result you got for Firefox 4 is from the online package repositories.

I was searching system-wide for the simple reason that I thought that switch in options was used - it wasn't in /var/cache/urpmi/ so I hoped it had been stashed elsewhere!

It turns out that it is not possible to reinstall FF4, at least according to the messages I get - I removed FF6, whereupon FF4 magically reappeared in the repository. Clicking to reinstall it, I am given warnings about 3 other packages that also need to be removed. When I click 'Yes' to continue, I am just shown a dialog saying that FF4 cannot be installed...

One other thing that bugs me, when I removed FF6, it warns of dependencies that also will be removed - fair enough. However after the uninstall has taken place I am then shown a massive list of 'orphaned' installs and a suggestion that if I want to remove them to execute a certain command - doing so would almost certainly gut Mageia as many of them are core libraries, at least according to my uneducated eye! These cannot really be orphaned programs, so why is it stated that they are? But it is definitely disconcerting, that's for sure!

Finally, just to show you I am not completely bonkers, below is a link to a little 'RecordmyDesktop' video showing the problem in action. (2.3meg)
http://ubuntuone.com/p/1FcC/

[doktor5000]

Have you checked the links i posted? Have you tried with a fresh profile?

Also if you get error messages, just copy&paste them, otherwise i can't help you properly.
The orphans-function is only for advanced users, and should not be used. And yes it is not good
that this is displayed in software management, it should only be shown on the command line.

Btw: The cursor you get when hovering over links looks strange, for me it turns into small hand pointing a finger at the link.

[omelette]

I have now, and I'm back in business - deleting all the 'places.sqlite' resumed normal functioning!

Thanks for your help!