Firefox "failed to read config file"

Hardware Librem 5
1

I just updated L5 and Firefox produces an error saying “Failed to read the configuration file. Please contact the administrator.” It gives to press OK, and then after a second it starts normally. If I close it and try to start it again it does the same.

Any idea?

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2

This does not help:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1425490

because I can not find a folder called “pref”. The string general.config.filename exists
in about:config and points to a file called mobile-config-autoconfig.js

find ~/.mozilla/ -name mobile-config-autoconfig.js

returns nothing. But

locate mobile-config-autoconfig.js

returns

/usr/lib/firefox-esr/mobile-config-autoconfig.js

So this is not in user space. What is going on?

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4

Thanks, but this configuration is supposed to do something useful. Not?

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5

I don’t believe so, but if you’re concerned, you can always do it this way:

uninstall firefox-esr
delete the usr/lib/firefox-esr folder
reinstall firefox-esr

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6

Hmmm, I removed firefox-esr-mobile-config, now there is NO error message, but the interface has all elements and fonts tiny. So I guess this is what was this package about… What if I now re-install it?

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7

Give it a try. If just reinstalling the mobile-config doesn’t work, give my post above a try. It worked well for me.

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8

OK, so when I re-install the error returns but also the interface has larger elements as before. So it must be a bug in the PureOs packaging (I guess). Maybe next update will fix it?

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9

Wait, do you mean that uninstalling firefox-esr, removing /usr/lib/firefox-esr folder and re-installing
solves the issue and all has normal sizes on screen?

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10

That’s correct.

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11

Nope. Unfortunately I just returned to the same situation.

Elements on firefox are tiny. If I install again firefox-esr-mobile-config then again it produces the error.

Uninstallation was

sudo apt remove firefox-esr
After that the folder /usr/lib/firefox-esr did NOT exist to remove
So I re-installed with
sudo apt install firefox-esr

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The only other things that I see from:

are

and

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The issue with the firefox-esr-mobile-config package is that it is really outdated and does not support current Firefox ESR in PureOS Byzantium. There’s an old, pending MR on Purism’s gitlab, but that MR/ the version of the mobile-config-firefox project is also outdated by now.
I just recommend you to install postmarketOS / mobile-config-firefox · GitLab instead.

If you have git installed, you can install these customizations by running:

git clone https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/mobile-config-firefox.git
cd mobile-config-firefox
make
sudo make FIREFOX_DIR=/usr/lib/firefox-esr install

You can also replace the first step by downloading the lastest tar ball from https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/mobile-config-firefox/-/tags, unpacking that, and then continue with step two.

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14

I have loved Emma’s Mobile Friendly Firefox until the Firefox update dorked everything and the new version wouldn’t install. But I’m very happy with PostMarket config – best FF experience yet!

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15

Did you try updating Friendly Fox? I updated Friendly Fox and then ran the install script.

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16

Thanks, postmarketOS sounds like it will be maintained well.
Will try that.

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17

It will not be due to the GitLab repository being archived.

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18

You see the true error if you open a Terminal and launch firefox from there:

[GFX1-]: glxtest: DRM render node not clearly detectable. Falling back to using the only one that was found.

And if you click in the Check Box…

[GFX1-]: RenderCompositorSWGL failed mapping default framebuffer, no dt

I have no solution right now but i do not use DRM Content on my Librem5 Firefox Browser. So i did not spent time for searching or debugging.

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19

No, it’s maintained and will remain maintained, please don’t claim such things without even clicking the link a few posts above.

They just moved from https://gitlab.com/postmarketOS/ (gitlab dot com) to their own gitlab instance https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/ . See https://postmarketos.org/blog/2024/10/14/gitlab-migration/ for reasons why they did that.

Also, there’s hoping for Firefox to fare better on mobile without customizations, see https://nlnet.nl/project/Firefox-linuxmobile/.

(Edited links so that @FranklyFlawless can safely click them.)

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That DRM stands for Direct Rendering Manager - Wikipedia, not Digital rights management - Wikipedia - it’s confusing, I know :slight_smile:

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