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On linux, how does firefox find your installed plugins if running from the tar.gz archive?

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 221 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

BURGINABC
BURGINABC
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I am on Debian Linux 6. The only version of firefox it supports is version 3.6. Rather than trying to actually install firefox 9, I instead just unzipped the tar.gz. It runs, and it found my old settings and history, and my 'little' addons like "save as PDF" but there are a couple of problems.

One, it cannot find my installed flash plugin. I know where the 'properly installed' version keeps its plugins, and could copy the flash plugin symlink into the new one's plugins folder if I could find it, but I can't find it. It's not just the flash plugin either. It can't find the MPlayer plugin either, or my Java plugin.

Also, it does not integrate with my GTK theme I am using the way the 'properly installed' version did, making it a tad ugly. I could live with this, my more serious problem is definitely the plugin problem.

I am on Debian Linux 6. The only version of firefox it supports is version 3.6. Rather than trying to actually install firefox 9, I instead just unzipped the tar.gz. It runs, and it found my old settings and history, and my 'little' addons like "save as PDF" but there are a couple of problems. One, it cannot find my installed flash plugin. I know where the 'properly installed' version keeps its plugins, and could copy the flash plugin symlink into the new one's plugins folder if I could find it, but I can't find it. It's not just the flash plugin either. It can't find the MPlayer plugin either, or my Java plugin. Also, it does not integrate with my GTK theme I am using the way the 'properly installed' version did, making it a tad ugly. I could live with this, my more serious problem is definitely the plugin problem.

All Replies (4)

cor-el
cor-el
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Common places are /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ and /usr/lib/browser-plugins/

BURGINABC
BURGINABC Question owner
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I know that my plugins from the properly installed firefox 3 are in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins.

What I'm saying is that the firefox 9 that I unzipped from a tar.gz can't find them even though they are there. And I can't find a plugin folder in where I unzipped FF9 to to copy them into.

I unzipped it into $HOME/Downloads/firefox, and there, in what your link would call program_directory, was no 'plugins' directory in with everything else like there was supposed to be. I created one, and copied my plugins into it, and restarted firefox, but it still said that there were no plugins installed, and Youtube videos still gave the 'missing plugin' message. I don't get it.

BURGINABC
BURGINABC Question owner
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Hm? here's something interesting. In my profile directory, I found a file called 'pluginreg.dat'. It contained this data:


Generated File. Do not edit.

[HEADER]
Version:0.15:$
Arch:x86-gcc3:$

[PLUGINS]

[INVALID]
/home/neil/Downloads/firefox/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer-wmp.so:$
1267896942000:$
/home/neil/Downloads/firefox/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer-rm.so:$
1267896942000:$
/home/neil/Downloads/firefox/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer-dvx.so:$
1267896942000:$
/home/neil/Downloads/firefox/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer.so:$
1267896943000:$
/home/neil/Downloads/firefox/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer-qt.so:$
1267896942000:$
/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer-rm.so:$
1267896942000:$
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.26/jre/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so:$
1304498979000:$
/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer.so:$
1267896943000:$
/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer-qt.so:$
1267896942000:$
/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer-wmp.so:$
1267896942000:$
/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/gecko-mediaplayer-dvx.so:$
1267896942000:$
/usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so:$
1309501243000:$


Does this mean that it knows where they are, but does not consider them valid?

Modified by cor-el

cor-el
cor-el
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Did you install a 64 bit Firefox version or a 32 bit Firefox version?

A 64 Firefox version will only work with 64 bit versions of plugins and a 32 bit Firefox version will only work with 32 bit versions of the plugins and programs.
So you may have to install a 32 bit Firefox version if you currently have a 64 bit Firefox version but do not have all plugins in 64 bit version or the other way around.
It should work if both are the same version.