@philm@Manjaro After this update my Firefox 85.0.2 started to show this Home page: https://manjaro.org/ on my Manjaro Gnome Stable. And now Firefox Settings does not allow me to change the Firefox Home page to something which I want. I have newer before seen this to happen with Firefox Settings/Home page.
Since this was not listed in your ‘‘Known issues and solutions’’, I guess this situation with unchangeable Firefox Home page is a mistake of this new version Firefox 85.0.2, correct ?
For me everything is ok. Probably your Firefox’s profile files are corrupted. Try to delete .mozilla directory and see if on fresh profile you can change it.
@Tomek Thanks for advice. However it DID NOT HELP. At first i deleted .mozilla directory - it did not help; after that I uninstalled Firefox and installed it once again from Manjaro Official sources - also this did not help.
Next I can do is to install Firefox 85.0.2 either from snap or flatpak, shoud I do it ??
I changed the wording ‘Starting page’ to ‘Home page’ in my previous message, since this is the wording Firefox uses in English version.
Did you try to change start page in Firefox settings after that? https://manjaro.org/ is default start page in fresh install or profile in Manjaro. Before you install FF from other sources try FF’s advices.
@pelka
Please don’t shout (using all upper-case letters is considered shouting) - so please don’t.
Manjaro updates - never touches a user’s personal settings as those are stored in the user’s personal folder.
Some distribution defaults are stored in the relevant application’s default configuration folders.
If you have never changed a specific setting then the application’s default setting will be applied - and that default setting may have been updated - but as pointed out above - Manjaro updates never touches the user’s personal settings as stored in your ~ (home) folder.
I tried Firefox 85.0.2 from flatpak and there https://manjaro.org was not the Home page. However there in Settings was a warning that updates. are not coming directly but - evidently - via flatpak, so I removed it, because I don’t know about flatpak updates. I reinstalled FF 85.0.2-1 from Manajaro Official package sources (extra) and try to figure out what causes this strange phenomena in this desktop.
I checked this with Manajaro Gnome Stable laptop and Manjaro Gnome Stable mini pc running still with previous version FF 85.0.1 and in those 2 other machines the same phenomena (Home page changed to https://manjaro.org) took place after 2nd launch of FF. I guess this happened because those two machines are also connected to my FF account synchronizing and they got this from the 1st machine originally.
The workaround is to replace in additional ‘Starting page’ manjaro.org with the desired home page and change to that page in place of Manjaro page. But now there also it is not possible to make change in FF/Settings/Home page.
So I have this same phenomena now on 3 Manjaro machines, one with FF 85.0.2 and two with FF 85.0.1.
(Then I checked this same thing with one Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS laptop and there - after 2nd launch of FF 85.0.1 - the Home page is now empty page instead of my normal one and here also not possible to make change in FF/Settings/Home page. Evidently this took place after synchronizing this pc with my FF account.)
I am not saying your issue don’t exist but it must have another cause than mere update - because as stated - and I will repeat - Manjaro updates do not touch files and settings inside your ~ folder.
The Firefox settings (hamburger menu → Preferences → Home) is where you change the start page - but you already know that.
This could be a permission issue - inadvertently running firefox as root using sudo - yes - some people do that … This will create permission issues within your home folder - only effective remedy is to correct the permissions - but I do think it is an edge case and not one you would have done.
Another thing to know is that most Manjaro editions installs a package named manjaro-browser-settings - this package installs presets for various browsers.
When you delete your browsers profile from your home you are forcing the browser to use the presets defined by the browser. The same thing could happen if a browser vendor has made major changes which requires reloading defaults - then a homepage change could theoreticaly happen.
But I do feel I need to emphasize
Manjaro updates never touches your home files.
applications your run on a daily base will change files relevant for the function of said application.
You can verify the presets installed by the mentioned package as the package installs the following files (you can see files installed by a package using pamac → package → files tab).
@linux-aarhus Thank you for very clear statement. I’ve checked the files you mentioned and they all are present. I’ve been using Firefox since about 2010 in many machines and OS’s but never seen this kind of phenomena.
I installed falkon and copied my FF bookmarks there so that I can now try to do some testing with FF and even reset my FF account settings without risk to loose them. I read from FF Help pages that sometimes some FF extensions may cause this kind of phenomena and they should be checked one by one. I’ll try to test by removing and installing back the same extensions one by one. I’ll come back when all this is done.
@Guytoo To my understanding I refresh FF every time I use it and/or download official updates, but evidently you mean something else. Could you pls tell more exactly what you mean by refreshing ?
@linux-aarhus This was the result, so far: Deleting all FF extensions did not help. FF account settings don’t allow ‘resetting’, so I had to, at first, remove the FF account and then later re-establish it again. But since I could not keep this phenomena in my ‘production’ pc’s and other devices connected to FF synchronization, I turned them to Ubuntu pc’s with new FF account, and kept one pc left with Manjaro and falkon browser. I’ll try to establish a separate FF account for this Manjaro pc and see how it reacts.
There is no reason you cannot remove the package manjaro-browser-settings - it is not strictly required and provides only some presets to load/present Manjaro relevant pages either as the home page or as bookmarks.
uninstalling the package manjaro-browser-settings is not enough
In it, there is a directory /usr/share/libalpm/hooks
with presets getting copied to /usr/lib/firefox/distribution/distribution.ini
This will stay even after removal of the package!
The remedy is to reinstall firefox, after removal of the browser settings package,
because it also provides that file, but in a non Manjaro specific version.
@linux-aarhus@Nachlese Thank you for your kind replies. This seems to be quite inconvenient question: In Manjaro pc I tried
at first to download new FF to my user credentials, but I received the same FF with https://manjaro.org on the Home page; FF Settings refused to change it. Evidently because browser setting package is still there;
then I created to this same pc addition user and downloaded FF, for which I could now create new FF account. In this FF Home page can be changed normally. Evidently because browser setting package was not there. In my mind this hints that reply of @Nachlese is correct.
Could somebody write exact step-by-step instructions how to put into practice advice of @Nachlese about safely removal of FF browser setting package after removal FF with help of pacman?
Not knowing the whole issue of FF browser settings removal the only remedy I used was to: 1.) change of OS to something else to prevent FF synchronizing spreading the problem and 2.) add of guest user to Manjaro machine, download new FF there and sign in with FF account credentials of guest user and copy bookmarks from the main user to guest user.
first remove the browser settings package sudo pacman -Rns manjaro-browser-settings
then reinstall firefox sudo pacman -S firefox
this reinstallation of firefox will overwrite the offending file in
/usr/lib/firefox/distribution/distribution.ini
with the non Manjaro specific version that comes with the browser itself.
After that, when you create a new browser profile
(by removing or renaming ~/.mozilla)
the Manjaro specific bookmarks and other settings won’t be there anymore.
Homepage and new windows (Firefox Home (default) or you can change that.
I’m curious why you can’t… I can.
So open Dolphin and browse to 1. A few days old snapshot ~/.mozilla/firefox and the other side to your home .mozilla firefox.
Rename your current firefox.CURRENT and copy the snapshot one in… start up firefox again.
Start firefox with a new profile… firefox -P
Or look at a new tab about:profiles and make a new one there.
Generally this shouldn’t be necessary if you just log into your Firefox, make a profile in your name, then sign in and sync…
@Nachlese Thank you for your instructions. It was an effective remedy ! Now FF Home page settings in this Manjaro machine work OK. Thank you once more !
