Firefox broken in upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04 Natty

I tried opening the browser after the upgrade and it seemed to get stuck verifying my addons were compatible as I was also upgraded to Firefox 4-- which I am interested in trying and will likely use.

My addons which may have locked up the process were: TinyMenu, firebug, lastpass, downthemall, chatzilla, and an unnamed colorpicker (because I cannot remember the name).

First save your bookmarks. Firefox default behavior is to very thoughtfully back them up for you. How I recovered mine can be found below:

brad@bclaptop:~$ sudo find / -name bookmarks-2011-*.json
[sudo] password for brad: 
/home/brad/.mozilla/firefox/v99epiaf.default/bookmarkbackups/bookmarks-2011-04-25.json
/home/brad/.mozilla/firefox/v99epiaf.default/bookmarkbackups/bookmarks-2011-04-23.json
/home/brad/.mozilla/firefox/v99epiaf.default/bookmarkbackups/bookmarks-2011-04-26.json
/home/brad/.mozilla/firefox/v99epiaf.default/bookmarkbackups/bookmarks-2011-04-22.json
/home/brad/.mozilla/firefox/v99epiaf.default/bookmarkbackups/bookmarks-2011-04-28.json
brad@bclaptop:~$ cp ~/.mozilla/firefox/v99epiaf.default/bookmarkbackups/bookmarks-2011-04-28.json ~/bookmarks-2011-04-28.json

Now we set about fixing the broken stuff.

First I removed firefox. If you try to remove it and it is a dependency to other packages you will be stopped. To continue just add those packages in a space character delimited list (within reason). The code that worked for me was:

brad@bclaptop:~$sudo dpkg --remove firefox icedtea-plugin icedtea6-plugin firefox-globalmenu


Then I was able to reinstall the application. DO NOT sudo apt-get install firefox, you will likely be somewhat disappointed with the result.


What you want is:


brad@bclaptop:~$sudo kubuntu-firefox-installer


Boom, working firefox.


From there I imported my old bookmarks, added my add-ons & extensions, and had the Java fun we all know and love. I was getting a Network Proxy Configuration error while Firefox was running. So, I also had to go to Edit > Preferences . Once there under the Advanced Tab and Networking Sub-Tab in the Connection Settings, I put the radio button on detect proxy settings automatically.


Happy computing,
Brad Chesney