Firefox no longer supports -remote parameter

Since Firefox 36.0 -remote is no longer supported [1][2][3], so `exo-open --launch WebBrowser URL` no longer opens URL.

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/36#Other
[2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Command_Line_Options#-remote_remote_command
[3] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1080319

Created attachment 6003
fix helper commands for Firefox 36.0

Firefox 36.0 dropped support for command line argument -remote. This
changes desktop helper file to call firefox with argument -new-tab.

(In reply to Christian Hesse from comment #1)
> Created attachment 6003 [details]
> fix helper commands for Firefox 36.0
>
> Firefox 36.0 dropped support for command line argument -remote. This
> changes desktop helper file to call firefox with argument -new-tab.

According to the mozilla bug, the equivalent of "-remote 'openURL(url)'" is "firefox url".

We also need to fix the icecat and iceweasel helpers. I'm build those now to see how they behave and if any options are needed.

Created attachment 6004
Drop use of the -remote option in Firefox helpers

The attached patch works for me. 'exo-open --launch WebBrowser' opens a new browser window and 'exo-open url' opens the url in a new tab (for all three changed helpers).

Tested browsers:

 - Firefox 36.0
 - Iceweasel 36.0
 - IceCat 31.4.0

Pushed to master: http://git.xfce.org/xfce/exo/commit/?id=8022a52d10e834ef4481a317b11d6fe02a6c1bf3

(In reply to noitidart from comment #80)
> (In reply to Pavlos Touboulidis from comment #79)
> > (In reply to noitidart from comment #78)
> > > I opened my 2nd profile with this:
> > > firefox.exe -P Dev -no-remote
> >
> > Try "firefox.exe -P Dev -new-instance"
>
> Thanks Pavlos I tried that.
>
> 1) firefox.exe -P Dev -new-instance
> 2) it opened new window of the current profile already open, it did not open
> my proflie named Dev
>
> So i tried this:
> 1) firefox.exe -P Dev -new-instance -no-remote
>
> this opened my profiled named Dev in parallel/concurrent to my other running
> profile
> I then tried to remote it:
> 2) firefox.exe -P Dev -remote "openURL(http://www.bing.com,new-tab)"
>
> but it just opens a new window in my first running profile, and it doesnt
> even point to bing.com just the homepage of that first running profile :(

That's bug 1138053 and it's fixed in nightly. Use -new-tab instead of -remote, though.

Comment on attachment 8573128
Backout the part that removed -remote

Approval Request Comment: See comment 64

Considering how late we are in the beta cycle, it's more reasonable to get this on 37. 38 will get the alternative approach.

(In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #82)
> Comment on attachment 8573128
> Backout the part that removed -remote
>
> Approval Request Comment: See comment 64
>
> Considering how late we are in the beta cycle, it's more reasonable to get
> this on 37. 38 will get the alternative approach.

Aw darn are you sure we can't land it in 36? Then for backwards compatability addons have to work in an exception for just FF36. :( And I know software like Notepad++ and other softwares won't add in an exception for FF36. It will impact ESR when it gets to FF36 for the longest amount of time.

Just sharing my thoughts on some ways it hurts if we cant get it into FF36 but I appreciate you guys bringing it back, even if it doesnt get to FF36.

(In reply to noitidart from comment #83)
> (In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #82)
> > Comment on attachment 8573128
> > Backout the part that removed -remote
> >
> > Approval Request Comment: See comment 64
> >
> > Considering how late we are in the beta cycle, it's more reasonable to get
> > this on 37. 38 will get the alternative approach.
>
> Aw darn are you sure we can't land it in 36? Then for backwards
> compatability addons have to work in an exception for just FF36. :( And I
> know software like Notepad++ and other softwares won't add in an exception
> for FF36. It will impact ESR when it gets to FF36 for the longest amount of
> time.
>
> Just sharing my thoughts on some ways it hurts if we cant get it into FF36
> but I appreciate you guys bringing it back, even if it doesnt get to FF36.

Do you mean 38 everywhere you wrote 36? Do you also mean that notepad++ on windows is actually using the -remote option? And what addons are you talking about? Addons should not care about Firefox command line.

(In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #84)
> (In reply to noitidart from comment #83)
> > (In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #82)
> > > Comment on attachment 8573128
> > > Backout the part that removed -remote
> > >
> > > Approval Request Comment: See comment 64
> > >
> > > Considering how late we are in the beta cycle, it's more reasonable to get
> > > this on 37. 38 will get the alternative approach.
> >
> > Aw darn are you sure we can't land it in 36? Then for backwards
> > compatability addons have to work in an exception for just FF36. :( And I
> > know software like Notepad++ and other softwares won't add in an exception
> > for FF36. It will impact ESR when it gets to FF36 for the longest amount of
> > time.
> >
> > Just sharing my thoughts on some ways it hurts if we cant get it into FF36
> > but I appreciate you guys bringing it back, even if it doesnt get to FF36.
>
> Do you mean 38 everywhere you wrote 36? Do you also mean that notepad++ on
> windows is actually using the -remote option? And what addons are you
> talking about? Addons should not care about Firefox command line.

No man I was hoping for FF36 :( I'm addon dev and I use this command line.

Also this very popular addon uses the remote feature: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profileswitcher/

Yep Notepad++ when you do preview in webbrowser it wont open.
Also Camtasia screen recording software it wont open the generated video in firefox for preview/youtube.

(In reply to noitidart from comment #85)
> (In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #84)
> > (In reply to noitidart from comment #83)
> > > (In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #82)
> > > > Comment on attachment 8573128
> > > > Backout the part that removed -remote
> > > >
> > > > Approval Request Comment: See comment 64
> > > >
> > > > Considering how late we are in the beta cycle, it's more reasonable to get
> > > > this on 37. 38 will get the alternative approach.
> > >
> > > Aw darn are you sure we can't land it in 36? Then for backwards
> > > compatability addons have to work in an exception for just FF36. :( And I
> > > know software like Notepad++ and other softwares won't add in an exception
> > > for FF36. It will impact ESR when it gets to FF36 for the longest amount of
> > > time.
> > >
> > > Just sharing my thoughts on some ways it hurts if we cant get it into FF36
> > > but I appreciate you guys bringing it back, even if it doesnt get to FF36.
> >
> > Do you mean 38 everywhere you wrote 36? Do you also mean that notepad++ on
> > windows is actually using the -remote option? And what addons are you
> > talking about? Addons should not care about Firefox command line.
>
> No man I was hoping for FF36 :( I'm addon dev and I use this command line.

-remote was restored in 36.0.1 already. But maybe you're still talking about comment 80? In which case, it is not related to this bug.

> Yep Notepad++ when you do preview in webbrowser it wont open.

I just tested, and it works. Also, Notepad++ doesn't use -remote, it just invokes "firefox.exe edited-file-name".

(In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #86)
> (In reply to noitidart from comment #85)
> > (In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #84)
> > > (In reply to noitidart from comment #83)
> > > > (In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #82)
> > > > > Comment on attachment 8573128
> > > > > Backout the part that removed -remote
> > > > >
> > > > > Approval Request Comment: See comment 64
> > > > >
> > > > > Considering how late we are in the beta cycle, it's more reasonable to get
> > > > > this on 37. 38 will get the alternative approach.
> > > >
> > > > Aw darn are you sure we can't land it in 36? Then for backwards
> > > > compatability addons have to work in an exception for just FF36. :( And I
> > > > know software like Notepad++ and other softwares won't add in an exception
> > > > for FF36. It will impact ESR when it gets to FF36 for the longest amount of
> > > > time.
> > > >
> > > > Just sharing my thoughts on some ways it hurts if we cant get it into FF36
> > > > but I appreciate you guys bringing it back, even if it doesnt get to FF36.
> > >
> > > Do you mean 38 everywhere you wrote 36? Do you also mean that notepad++ on
> > > windows is actually using the -remote option? And what addons are you
> > > talking about? Addons should not care about Firefox command line.
> >
> > No man I was hoping for FF36 :( I'm addon dev and I use this command line.
>
> -remote was restored in 36.0.1 already. But maybe you're still talking about
> comment 80? In which case, it is not related to this bug.
>
> > Yep Notepad++ when you do preview in webbrowser it wont open.
>
> I just tested, and it works. Also, Notepad++ doesn't use -remote, it just
> invokes "firefox.exe edited-file-name".

Ohh! Thanks for the clarificaiton! Excuse that mixup im going to go to sleep late here :P

Comment on attachment 8573128
Backout the part that removed -remote

That being said, I can see a point in being more conservative for the upcoming ESR.

(In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #88)
> Comment on attachment 8573128
> Backout the part that removed -remote
>
> That being said, I can see a point in being more conservative for the
> upcoming ESR.

thanks :)

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-aurora/rev/403d5c8e345c
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/29eac8276b62

It isn't clear to me what the final resolution is. Is -remote going to stay, or will it be removed?

-remote has been part of the API for quite a long time. Pulling it without an _extended_ notification (on the order of a year, say) will inconvenience a lot of people. Firefox and Thunderbird are upgraded a lot more frequently than most packages, and you have no way of knowing what software out there relies on -remote. In particular, I know that GNU Emacs does, and it is not updated very often (the current release, 24.4, dates to 10/2014; the previous release, 24.3, dates to 03/2013).

(In reply to Robert Krawitz from comment #91)
> It isn't clear to me what the final resolution is. Is -remote going to
> stay, or will it be removed?

See Tracking Flags in the header of this bug (where "fixed" means removed)

The release notes for 36.0.3 still claim that the -remote option has been removed, even though it now hasn't.

ni Sylvestre for comment 93

Indeed. Removed. thanks

Hi, sorry to revive this old thread, but what is the actual replacement for "-remote" from a functional point of view? I am asking because "-new-tab" and "-new-window" just don't respect the "-P" profile switch.

Is it possible to `-remote restart -P "profile1"? I'm trying to restart profiles launched by `firefox -no-remote -P "profile_name_here"`?

Is this expected to work on Mac OS X? I try -remote, and things like:

/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -new-window "www.mozilla.org"

...and all I get is a modal dialog box saying that I have to close Firefox because only one instance can be running.

No, Firefox for mac does not remote internally: that is all handled by the OS and apple events.

(In reply to Benjamin Smedberg [:bsmedberg] from comment #99)
> No, Firefox for mac does not remote internally: that is all handled by the
> OS and apple events.

Would you please provide a pointer to some information about Apple Events and Firefox? Googling for mozilla and "apple event", firefox and "apple event", and thunderbird and "apple event" doesn't reveal anything.
Alas "Apple Event," just pollutes the search results with a lot of crap about Apple's product announcements :-(

Documentation for FF and TB doesn't clearly state that the command line arguments won't work on Mac OS X.

Indeed, this page https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Command_Line_Options#Mac_OS_X implies that command line arguments should work on Mac.

There's the code at http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/xre/MacApplicationDelegate.mm

I don't know who wrote or reviewed that MDN page, but it's clearly not precise: there are a fair number of flags that only apply on some platforms. It's still true that mac doesn't use any of the remoting flags: -remote, -no-remote, etc

I think https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Command_Line_Options#-remote_remote_command is up-to-date.

For Windows I'm having a major issue. Clicking any of the items from multiple running profiles from the jump lists is either opening the window in default profile or saying "firefox is already running".

Is there any alternative to -remote? This is the relavent code thats bugging me out: https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/modules/WindowsJumpLists.jsm#107

You can see I tried to set -no-remote and -remote and -new-instance on these flags none of them work.

This is what I mean by multiple profiles in parallel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKw-BNWMyQM

(In reply to Jean-Yves Perrier [:teoli] from comment #102)
> I think
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Command_Line_Options#-
> remote_remote_command is up-to-date.

If that command is not available on the Mac platform, and that fact is not noted, I don't see how we can regard it as up-to-date.

Also, for more detail, this documentation second points to a page (http://www-archive.mozilla.org/unix/remote.html) which is annotated as follows: "Most of this content is highly out of date (some pages haven't been updated since the project began in 1998) and exists for historical purposes only." So that's another reason to regard this documentation as out-of-date.

That remote page describes the -remote command as being for "Unix" also, which is inaccurate, since Mac OS X is, at its core, a Unix platform. IIUC, what's actually going on is that the command is limited to X windows platforms, not Unix.

I've updated the article to note that this feature is x-Window only and done a bit of other cleanup. Let me know if it needs further changes.

I recently updated to Firefox-39 on Ubuntu 15.04 and this feature is broken again.

I use this script:

https://github.com/davidebasilio/firefox-kde

to bind Firefox profiles and kde sessions; it used to work fine, but now whenever I try to open a new page in an already open profile with:

/usr/bin/firefox -P $ACTIVITY -remote "openURL($url,new-tab)" &> /tmp/firefox-kde.log

I get the error dialog saying that Firefox is already running.

Like <email address hidden>, I also upgraded to FF39.0 in Fedora linux and discovered this feature broken again. The behavior seems nondeterministic now. I'm executing this command when no firefox instance with profile "myprofile" is currenty running:

firefox -P myprofile -remote 'ping()'

Sometimes I just get the prompt back with no visible side effect, sometimes I get a new instance of firefox that's already running using a different profile, and sometimes I get these error messages:

1437410472556 addons.xpi-utils ERROR Failed to load XPI JSON data from profile: TypeError: XPIProvider.installLocationsByName is null (resource://gre/modules/addons/XPIProvider.jsm -> resource://gre/modules/addons/XPIProviderUtils.js:312:4) JS Stack trace: <email address hidden>:312:5 < <email address hidden>:629:24 < XPIDB_asyncLoadDB/this._dbPromise<@XPIProviderUtils.js:732:9 < <email address hidden>:867:23 < <email address hidden>:746:7 < this.PromiseWalker.scheduleWalkerLoop/<@Promise-backend.js:688:37 < <email address hidden>:464:9
1437410472559 addons.xpi-utils WARN Rebuilding add-ons database from installed extensions.
1437410472561 addons.xpi-utils ERROR Failed to rebuild XPI database from installed extensions: TypeError: this.installLocations is null (resource://gre/modules/addons/XPIProvider.jsm:3365) JS Stack trace: <email address hidden>:3365:1 < <email address hidden>:779:9 < <email address hidden>:650:7 < XPIDB_asyncLoadDB/this._dbPromise<@XPIProviderUtils.js:732:9 < <email address hidden>:867:23 < <email address hidden>:746:7 < this.PromiseWalker.scheduleWalkerLoop/<@Promise-backend.js:688:37 < <email address hidden>:464:9
1437410472563 addons.manager ERROR Exception calling provider GMPProvider.getAddonByID: TypeError: this._plugins is null (resource://gre/modules/addons/GMPProvider.jsm:581:8) JS Stack trace: <email address hidden>:581:9 < <email address hidden>:235:12 < <email address hidden>:2109:1 < <email address hidden>:311:7 < <email address hidden>:2114:13 < <email address hidden>:423:7 < <email address hidden>:235:12 < <email address hidden>:2109:1 < <email address hidden>:311:7 < <email address hidden>:2114:13 < <email address hidden>:3824:7 < makeSafe/<@XPIProviderUtils.js:145:17 < <email address hidden>:126:5 < this.XPIDatabase.getAddon/<@XPIProviderUtils.js:1074:9 < <email address hidden>:867:23 < <email address hidden>:746:7 < this.PromiseWalker.scheduleWalkerLoop/<@Promise-backend.js:688:37 < <email address hidden>:464:9

Also, if an instance of firefox is already running with profile "myprofile" and I issue this command:

firefox -P myprofile -remote 'openurl(https://my.url.com/)'

Nothing happens. It just exits with no error message and $?==1.

(In reply to marsicanbear from comment #106)
> I recently updated to Firefox-39 on Ubuntu 15.04 and this feature is broken
> again.

see comment 92?

(In reply to j.j. from comment #109)
> (In reply to marsicanbear from comment #106)
> > I recently updated to Firefox-39 on Ubuntu 15.04 and this feature is broken
> > again.
>
> see comment 92?

The feature was removed in Firefox 36.0, but was restored in 36.0.1.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Command_Line_Options#-remote_remote_command

And, afaik, it was supposed to stay there.

> > see comment 92?
>
> The feature was removed in Firefox 36.0, but was restored in 36.0.1.
>
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Command_Line_Options#-
> remote_remote_command
>
> And, afaik, it was supposed to stay there.

No, comment 92 is right
> See Tracking Flags in the header of this bug (where "fixed" means removed)
"status-firefox39: fixed"

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Command_Line_Options#-remote_remote_command
Docs are wrong and need an update, thanks!
Setting keyword "dev-doc-needed" for that.

(In reply to j.j. from comment #111)
> No, comment 92 is right

OK, I see, so the -remote option was removed in 39.
I don't quite understand why it was reintroduced in 36.0.1, then.. But well, whatever. I guess that this time the decision is definitive.

Do you know if there is any other way to use different profiles at the same time to separate "activities"?

This feature was really cool for me to integrate my browsing with kde activities and it's the main reason I was using Firefox in the first place.

Hi,

are you sure that this option was removed in version 39.0?
I just tried with version 40.0.3 and it seems to work.
The documentation is still mentioning it as existing https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Command_Line_Options#-remote_remote_command even if marked as deprecated.
Can someone be clearer on the subject?

Regards,

It was removed in 39.0. I updated https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Command_Line_Options#-remote_remote_command to some extent.

Thanks Mike. I also added a note in: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/39#Miscelleanous

[Tracking Requested - why for this release]: