Bug#634721: xulrunner-5.0: xulrunner-stub throws "Could not find the Mozilla runtime" error

July 19th, 2011 - 01:40 pm ET by Axel Beckert | Report spam
Package: xulrunner-5.0
Version: 5.0-3
Severity: normal

I'm trying to use again the Debian-specific feature of being able to
symlink xulrunner-stub from the directory which includes the
application.ini of a xulrunner application (conkeror FWIW), but since
xulrunner-5.0 calling /usr/share/conkeror/xulrunner-stub (which is a
symlink to /usr/bin/xulrunner-stub) fails as follows:

$ sh -x /usr/bin/conkeror
+ XULRUNNER+ [ -L /usr/bin/xulrunner-stub ]
+ XULRUNNER=/usr/share/conkeror/xulrunner-stub
+ [ -z /usr/share/conkeror/xulrunner-stub ]
+ [ = --help ]
+ exec /usr/share/conkeror/xulrunner-stub
Could not find the Mozilla runtime.

(Note: The above is not yet in the Debian package in Sid, but from a
feature branch in git:
http://repo.or.cz/w/conkeror.git/sh...ub-symlink)

This happens with xulrunner-5.0 from Unstable and xulrunner-6.0 from
mozilla.debian.net, but works fine with xulrunner-1.9.1 from Unstable,
xulrunner-1.9.2 and xulrunner-2.0 as available previously in either
Experimental or on mozilla.debian.net.

Calling e.g. "xulrunner-$version /usr/share/conkeror/application.ini"
still works fine with all of the above mentioned versions.

Debian Release: wheezy/sid
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (990, 'unstable'), (600, 'stable'), (500, 'testing'), (400, 'oldstable'), (110, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.0.0-rc6-686-pae (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages xulrunner-5.0 depends on:
ii libasound2 1.0.23-4 shared library for ALSA applicatio
ii libatk1.0-0 2.0.1-2 ATK accessibility toolkit
ii libbz2-1.0 1.0.5-6 high-quality block-sorting file co
ii libc6 2.13-10 Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii libcairo2 1.10.2-6 The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra
ii libdbus-1-3 1.4.12-5 simple interprocess messaging syst
ii libevent-1.4-2 1.4.13-stable-1 An asynchronous event notification
ii libfontconfig1 2.8.0-3 generic font configuration library
ii libfreetype6 2.4.4-2 FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii libgcc1 1:4.6.1-4 GCC support library
ii libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 2.23.5-2 GDK Pixbuf library
ii libglib2.0-0 2.28.6-1 The GLib library of C routines
ii libgtk2.0-0 2.24.5-2 GTK+ graphical user interface libr
ii libhunspell-1.2-0 1.2.14-4 spell checker and morphological an
ii libjpeg62 6b1-2 Independent JPEG Group's JPEG runt
ii libmozjs5d 5.0-3 The Mozilla SpiderMonkey JavaScrip
ii libnspr4-0d 4.8.8-2 NetScape Portable Runtime Library
ii libnss3-1d 3.12.10-2 Network Security Service libraries
ii libpango1.0-0 1.28.4-1 Layout and rendering of internatio
ii libpixman-1-0 0.22.2-1 pixel-manipulation library for X a
ii libreadline6 6.2-2 GNU readline and history libraries
ii libsqlite3-0 3.7.7-2 SQLite 3 shared library
ii libstartup-notification 0.12-1 library for program launch feedbac
ii libstdc++6 4.6.1-4 GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii libvpx0 0.9.6-1 VP8 video codec (shared library)
ii libx11-6 2:1.4.3-2 X11 client-side library
ii libxext6 2:1.3.0-3 X11 miscellaneous extension librar
ii libxrender1 1:0.9.6-2 X Rendering Extension client libra
ii libxt6 1:1.1.1-2 X11 toolkit intrinsics library
ii zlib1g 1:1.2.3.4.dfsg-3 compression library - runtime

xulrunner-5.0 recommends no packages.

Versions of packages xulrunner-5.0 suggests:
ii libcanberra0 0.28-1 a simple abstract interface for pl
ii libdbus-glib-1-2 0.94-4 simple interprocess messaging syst
ii libgconf2-4 2.32.4-1 GNOME configuration database syste
pn libgnomeui-0 <none> (no description available)
pn libgnomevfs2-0 <none> (no description available)
ii libnotify1 [libnotify1-gtk2.1 0.5.0-2 sends desktop notifications to a n




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#1 Mike Hommey
July 19th, 2011 - 02:00 pm ET | Report spam
reassign 634721 conkeror
thanks

On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 07:31:20PM +0200, Axel Beckert wrote:
Package: xulrunner-5.0
Version: 5.0-3
Severity: normal

I'm trying to use again the Debian-specific feature of being able to
symlink xulrunner-stub from the directory which includes the
application.ini of a xulrunner application (conkeror FWIW), but since
xulrunner-5.0 calling /usr/share/conkeror/xulrunner-stub (which is a
symlink to /usr/bin/xulrunner-stub) fails as follows:

$ sh -x /usr/bin/conkeror
+ XULRUNNER> + [ -L /usr/bin/xulrunner-stub ]
+ XULRUNNER=/usr/share/conkeror/xulrunner-stub
+ [ -z /usr/share/conkeror/xulrunner-stub ]
+ [ = --help ]
+ exec /usr/share/conkeror/xulrunner-stub
Could not find the Mozilla runtime.

(Note: The above is not yet in the Debian package in Sid, but from a
feature branch in git:
http://repo.or.cz/w/conkeror.git/sh...ub-symlink)

This happens with xulrunner-5.0 from Unstable and xulrunner-6.0 from
mozilla.debian.net, but works fine with xulrunner-1.9.1 from Unstable,
xulrunner-1.9.2 and xulrunner-2.0 as available previously in either
Experimental or on mozilla.debian.net.

Calling e.g. "xulrunner-$version /usr/share/conkeror/application.ini"
still works fine with all of the above mentioned versions.



You need to add a /usr/share/conkeror/xulrunner symbolic link to
/usr/lib/xulrunner-5.0.

Mike



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#2 Axel Beckert
July 19th, 2011 - 03:10 pm ET | Report spam
reassign 634721 xulrunner-5.0
retitle 634721 xulrunner-5.0: Please add /usr/bin/xulrunner as slave alternative to xulrunner-stub
kthxbye

Hi Mike,

thanks for the prompt reply!

Mike Hommey wrote:
> I'm trying to use again the Debian-specific feature of being able to
> symlink xulrunner-stub from the directory which includes the
> application.ini of a xulrunner application (conkeror FWIW), but since
> xulrunner-5.0 calling /usr/share/conkeror/xulrunner-stub (which is a
> symlink to /usr/bin/xulrunner-stub) fails as follows:
> [...]

You need to add a /usr/share/conkeror/xulrunner symbolic link to
/usr/lib/xulrunner-5.0.



Thanks for that information! I was skimming through the changelogs for
relevant changes, but haven't found anything on a first glance.

I'm though sorry, but making a /usr/share/conkeror/xulrunner symbolic
link won't work cleanly with more than one xulrunner installation
until the xulrunner-* packages provide some /usr/bin/xulrunner (as
symlink to /etc/alternatives/xulrunner, probably as slave alternative)
in addition to /usr/bin/xulrunner-stub aka
/etc/alternatives/xulrunner-stub.

I thought I once saw a bug report about that before, but I haven't
found any, neither for xulrunner-5.0 nor for xulrunner-1.9.1. I just the
related http://bugs.debian.org/567169, so maybe it was just a
discussion on pkg-moz-maintainers. So I'm reassigning that bug back to
xulrunner-5.0 with retitling it appropriately.

Regards, Axel
,''`. | Axel Beckert , http://people.debian.org/~abe/
: :' : | Debian Developer, ftp.ch.debian.org Admin
`. `' | 1024D: F067 EA27 26B9 C3FC 1486 202E C09E 1D89 9593 0EDE
`- | 4096R: 2517 B724 C5F6 CA99 5329 6E61 2FF9 CD59 6126 16B5



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#3 Mike Hommey
July 19th, 2011 - 05:40 pm ET | Report spam
reassign 634721 conkeror
thanks

On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 09:02:35PM +0200, Axel Beckert wrote:
reassign 634721 xulrunner-5.0
retitle 634721 xulrunner-5.0: Please add /usr/bin/xulrunner as slave alternative to xulrunner-stub
kthxbye

Hi Mike,

thanks for the prompt reply!

Mike Hommey wrote:
> > I'm trying to use again the Debian-specific feature of being able to
> > symlink xulrunner-stub from the directory which includes the
> > application.ini of a xulrunner application (conkeror FWIW), but since
> > xulrunner-5.0 calling /usr/share/conkeror/xulrunner-stub (which is a
> > symlink to /usr/bin/xulrunner-stub) fails as follows:
> > [...]
>
> You need to add a /usr/share/conkeror/xulrunner symbolic link to
> /usr/lib/xulrunner-5.0.

Thanks for that information! I was skimming through the changelogs for
relevant changes, but haven't found anything on a first glance.

I'm though sorry, but making a /usr/share/conkeror/xulrunner symbolic
link won't work cleanly with more than one xulrunner installation
until the xulrunner-* packages provide some /usr/bin/xulrunner (as
symlink to /etc/alternatives/xulrunner, probably as slave alternative)
in addition to /usr/bin/xulrunner-stub aka
/etc/alternatives/xulrunner-stub.



Unfortunately, that can't work anymore, especially since version 5.0. The
unfortunate only solution is to have that symbolic link.

Mike



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#4 Mike Hommey
July 22nd, 2011 - 02:40 am ET | Report spam
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 09:45:08PM +0000, Debian Bug Tracking System wrote:
Hi Mike,



(You should have CCed me, you're lucky that i looked back at this bug)

Mike Hommey wrote:
> > I'm though sorry, but making a /usr/share/conkeror/xulrunner symbolic
> > link won't work cleanly with more than one xulrunner installation
> > until the xulrunner-* packages provide some /usr/bin/xulrunner (as
> > symlink to /etc/alternatives/xulrunner, probably as slave alternative)
> > in addition to /usr/bin/xulrunner-stub aka
> > /etc/alternatives/xulrunner-stub.
>
> Unfortunately, that can't work anymore, especially since version
> 5.0.

Can you elaborate that a little bit more? I don't understand the following:

* Why can xulrunner-stub be changed via alternatives, but not
xulrunner?



xulrunner-stub *was* doing a search of the most recent xulrunner
compared to the constraints in application.ini. The xulrunner binary
doesn't. And I'm saying "was" because that feature is gone with version
5.0.

* How should I be able to use the xulrunner-stub which is chosen via
alternatives while the xulrunner should be hard-coded to some
specific version. That doesn't make sense for me.



I'm afraid I'll have to remove that alternative considering the above.
(and that may happen as soon as today)

> The unfortunate only solution is to have that symbolic link.

I'd really like to make a symlink to /usr/bin/xulrunner, but I surely
won't bind conkeror to a specific xulrunner version if it works with
more than one xulrunner version.



That's however the only way it's going to work in the future... It's not
because conkeror is fortunate enough to work with different versions
that we can assume everything will.

I know I'm the one who invited you to use the xulrunner-stub, but at the
time, it was a viable solution. It's not anymore for your purpose.
Sad, but true.

Mike



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#5 Axel Beckert
July 22nd, 2011 - 09:40 pm ET | Report spam
Hi Mike,

Mike Hommey wrote:
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 09:45:08PM +0000, Debian Bug Tracking System wrote:
> Hi Mike,

(You should have CCed me, you're lucky that i looked back at this bug)



Oops, my fault.

> * Why can xulrunner-stub be changed via alternatives, but not
> xulrunner?

xulrunner-stub *was* doing a search of the most recent xulrunner
compared to the constraints in application.ini. The xulrunner binary
doesn't. And I'm saying "was" because that feature is gone with version
5.0.



Oh, ok.

I'm afraid I'll have to remove that alternative considering the above.
(and that may happen as soon as today)



Good to know, so I'm forgetting my work on getting this way of
choosing the xulrunner version back into the conkeror Debian package.

IIRC conkeror's upstream also argued about there's no more way to get
the newest xulrunner version by giving proper commandline arguments,
which seem to have the same source.

> > The unfortunate only solution is to have that symbolic link.
>
> I'd really like to make a symlink to /usr/bin/xulrunner, but I surely
> won't bind conkeror to a specific xulrunner version if it works with
> more than one xulrunner version.

That's however the only way it's going to work in the future...



Well, no, the "xulrunner /path/to/application.ini" approach still
seems to work fine with all xulrunner versions, so I'll stick with
that for now. IIRC conkeror's upstream is also going in that
direction. They used some commandline options to get the GRE version
before IIRC.

It's not because conkeror is fortunate enough to work with different
versions that we can assume everything will.



Sure. I though think that instantbird is the only other non-mozilla
xulrunner application in Debian besides conkeror.

I know I'm the one who invited you to use the xulrunner-stub, but at
the time, it was a viable solution. It's not anymore for your
purpose. Sad, but true.



Yeah, thanks a lot for the detailed explanation, it really helped to
understand the issue. (I wouldn't have done that bug report ping-pong
if I was aware of that solution being gone completely.)

Regards, Axel
,''`. | Axel Beckert , http://people.debian.org/~abe/
: :' : | Debian Developer, ftp.ch.debian.org Admin
`. `' | 1024D: F067 EA27 26B9 C3FC 1486 202E C09E 1D89 9593 0EDE
`- | 4096R: 2517 B724 C5F6 CA99 5329 6E61 2FF9 CD59 6126 16B5



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