10:54 pm, 1 Aug 06
firefox with multiple profiles!
Using Firefox with multiple profiles simultaneously has been broken on Ubuntu for a while. No matter the flags to the second run of firefox, it'd just pop up a new window.
Again, the Ubuntu Firefox bug has the key: despite both the
Have I mentioned that I hate computers?
Again, the Ubuntu Firefox bug has the key: despite both the
-help output and manpage suggesting the -P <profile> flag, that is in fact ignored unless you also use the -a <profile> flag which is only documented on the manpage.Have I mentioned that I hate computers?
Firefox profiles
I trust you realise that Firefox in Ubuntu 6.06 (and earlier? And Debian as well now I think) has a hack in the shell script wrapper that runs it that detects that there's another instance running and runs a -remote command instead? It will use the -remote flag even if the Firefox in question is running on a different machine (but on the same display), so I imagine that it'll quite happily ignore such minor things as it being a different profile.I ended up hacking the firefox script on one of my machines so that it didn't do that, so I can run firefox from two machines displayed onto the same display (handy for testing things, etc). Even then I have to remember to start them in the correct order, or the -remote behaviour takes over.
I couldn't see any obvious flag that you could pass to say --don't-do-that-silly-thing, alas. (I can see why they might want it for "normal" users, but it's very annoying for development as I often find I have to close the whole browser to clear state.) I'm perfectly able to supply the -remote flag when I want that behaviour (and indeed have a bunch of shell scripts which do just that).
Ewen
Re: Firefox profiles
I'd be happy enough if using -P implied the "don't use the -remote trickery" flag. The manpage says as much but it's apparently lying.