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Lolu chungechunge lwabekwa kunqolobane. Uyacelwa ubuze umbuzo omusha uma udinga usizo.

Open New Window in Running Instance from the outside

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  • Igcine ukuphendulwa ngu m4tze

m4tze
m4tze
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Dear Community,

I recently updated Firefox on my Gentoo system (Window Manager is Ratpoison). I had a shortcut <Ratpoison escape key>-F to open firefox. Before the update I used to press this combination again and another FF window comes up without any problems. Thus, I had 5-6 running FF windows on a normal working day, each with several tabs in it.

Since the update, when I use the same method, no new window appears but after a few seconds the message window comes up saying that the running instance is not responding and that FF could not be started. I know the problem with concurrent access of the profile. But, there was (and should be) the functionality that FF connects to a running instance and opens a new window in it. Unfortunately, I do not know how this works programmatically. I already installed dbus (and yes, I also started the dbus daemon) to ensure that this is not the reason - I usually do not use dbus in my setup.

Is there a way to reliably trigger the running instance to open a new window from my window manager? How does this "connection to a running instance" usually works? Why is it not working? What can I do to use it, are there any requirements needed?

Thank you very much for your effort to help me out.

Kind regards - M4tze

Dear Community, I recently updated Firefox on my Gentoo system (Window Manager is Ratpoison). I had a shortcut <Ratpoison escape key>-F to open firefox. Before the update I used to press this combination again and another FF window comes up without any problems. Thus, I had 5-6 running FF windows on a normal working day, each with several tabs in it. Since the update, when I use the same method, no new window appears but after a few seconds the message window comes up saying that the running instance is not responding and that FF could not be started. I know the problem with concurrent access of the profile. But, there was (and should be) the functionality that FF connects to a running instance and opens a new window in it. Unfortunately, I do not know how this works programmatically. I already installed dbus (and yes, I also started the dbus daemon) to ensure that this is not the reason - I usually do not use dbus in my setup. Is there a way to reliably trigger the running instance to open a new window from my window manager? How does this "connection to a running instance" usually works? Why is it not working? What can I do to use it, are there any requirements needed? Thank you very much for your effort to help me out. Kind regards - M4tze

Isisombululo esikhethiwe

Dear jonzn4SUSE,

my problem is solved. I downloaded the binary distribution for generic Linux distributions. I also made other changes inspired by this download - and I am pretty sure that it was in fact a dbus problem. Obviously my dbus instance changed the location of the socket which invalidated the environment settings, especially DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS. It was in /run/dbus before and now resides in /tmp. My window manager is started before dbus and therefore had no clue about the correct value. I changed the start order and now, when all components share the same env var, everything works again.

Thank you for your support!

Kind regards - M4tze

Funda le mpendulo ngokuhambisana nalesi sihloko 👍 1

All Replies (2)

jonzn4SUSE
jonzn4SUSE
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Try downloading another copy of Firefox and run it from the folder. Do not sign into your Firefox account and see if you have the same issue.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#product-desktop-release

What does Ctrl + N do on your desktop? I get a new window in KDE.

m4tze
m4tze Umnikazi wombuzo
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Isisombululo Esikhethiwe

Dear jonzn4SUSE,

my problem is solved. I downloaded the binary distribution for generic Linux distributions. I also made other changes inspired by this download - and I am pretty sure that it was in fact a dbus problem. Obviously my dbus instance changed the location of the socket which invalidated the environment settings, especially DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS. It was in /run/dbus before and now resides in /tmp. My window manager is started before dbus and therefore had no clue about the correct value. I changed the start order and now, when all components share the same env var, everything works again.

Thank you for your support!

Kind regards - M4tze