Can't change Firefox home page in Ubuntu MATE

Bug #1605887 reported by Luke Horwell
210
This bug affects 46 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Ubuntu GNOME
Fix Released
Medium
Unassigned
Ubuntu MATE
Invalid
Low
Unassigned
ubuntu-gnome-default-settings (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Medium
Unassigned
ubuntu-mate-settings (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
High
Martin Wimpress 
Yakkety
Invalid
High
Unassigned

Bug Description

The settings used to set the default Ubuntu MATE home page are currently always overriding the users' preferences, which defeats achieving a good user experience.

Steps to re-produce:

1) Open Firefox to the preferences page.
2) Set the home page to a different URL.
3) Close all instances of Firefox.
4) Open Firefox again, the Ubuntu MATE Start page has overwritten the preferences.

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Changed in ubuntu-mate-settings (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Changed in ubuntu-mate-settings (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Low
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Changed in ubuntu-mate:
status: New → Triaged
importance: Undecided → Low
Revision history for this message
Dave Stroud (bigdavesr) wrote :

Sorry but I think the importance should be set to high.

Revision history for this message
vmc (vmclark) wrote :

The only solution is to change to desired location here: /usr/lib/firefox/ubuntumate.cfg

Revision history for this message
frenchy82 (cartes) wrote :

You can delete too this line in the file and firefox will works like it should

Revision history for this message
Dick Barmann (reb68) wrote :

I have that line in a terminal.How can I change or delete it.

Revision history for this message
GeorgeVita (georgevita) wrote :

How to delete the "sticky" homepage:

Open a terminal window (ctrl-alt-t) and run:
gksudo pluma /usr/lib/firefox/ubuntumate.cfg

Enter your password, delete home page configuration line, save, exit.
Finally, set your homepage from preferences menu within firefox.

Revision history for this message
Dave Stroud (bigdavesr) wrote :

this is now occurring in gnome 17.04.

Revision history for this message
Etienne Papegnies (etienne-papegnies) wrote :

This also affects 17.04 Beta 2 apparently according to this review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-dVhs6YZMc

tags: added: zesty
Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)
Changed in ubuntu-gnome-default-settings (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Medium
status: New → Triaged
Changed in ubuntu-gnome:
importance: Undecided → Medium
status: New → Triaged
milestone: none → zesty
summary: - Ubuntu MATE Start page are overriding users' preferences.
+ Can't change Firefox home page in Ubuntu GNOME 17.04, Ubuntu MATE
Revision history for this message
Jeremy Bícha (jbicha) wrote : Re: Can't change Firefox home page in Ubuntu GNOME 17.04, Ubuntu MATE

This is what we currently have set. Ubuntu's default Firefox overrides the default homepage so this sets it back to the default. But you get the same bug if you set a different webpage for broser.startup.homepage. (Ubuntu Mate uses http://start.ubuntu-mate.org/ ) I also duplicated this bug with Firefox on Windows.

$ cat /usr/lib/firefox/ubuntu-gnome.cfg
//
pref("browser.startup.homepage", "about:home");

$ $ cat defaults/pref/all-ubuntu-gnome.js
pref("general.config.obscure_value", 0);
pref("general.config.filename", "ubuntu-gnome.cfg");

Revision history for this message
Jeremy Bícha (jbicha) wrote :

To be clear, that last file is stored at /usr/lib/firefox/defaults/pref/all-ubuntu-gnome.js

Revision history for this message
Jeremy Bícha (jbicha) wrote :

This can be fixed by using defaultPref instead of pref

https://developer.mozilla.org/Firefox/Enterprise_deployment

Changed in ubuntu-gnome-default-settings (Ubuntu):
status: Triaged → Fix Committed
Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)
Changed in ubuntu-gnome:
status: Triaged → Fix Committed
Changed in ubuntu-mate-settings (Ubuntu):
status: Triaged → In Progress
importance: Low → High
assignee: nobody → Martin Wimpress (flexiondotorg)
Changed in ubuntu-mate:
status: Triaged → Invalid
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-gnome-default-settings - 17.04.3

---------------
ubuntu-gnome-default-settings (17.04.3) zesty; urgency=medium

  * Use defaultPref instead of pref to allow users to change the
    Firefox homepage (LP: #1605887)

 -- Jeremy Bicha <email address hidden> Mon, 10 Apr 2017 05:50:30 -0400

Changed in ubuntu-gnome-default-settings (Ubuntu):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Changed in ubuntu-mate-settings (Ubuntu):
status: In Progress → Fix Committed
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-mate-settings - 17.04.7

---------------
ubuntu-mate-settings (17.04.7) zesty; urgency=medium

  * Use defaultPref instead of pref to allow users to change the Firefox
    homepage (LP: #1605887)

 -- Martin Wimpress <email address hidden> Mon, 10 Apr 2017 11:06:43 +0100

Changed in ubuntu-mate-settings (Ubuntu):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)
Changed in ubuntu-mate-settings (Ubuntu Yakkety):
importance: Undecided → High
status: New → Triaged
no longer affects: ubuntu-gnome-default-settings (Ubuntu Yakkety)
summary: - Can't change Firefox home page in Ubuntu GNOME 17.04, Ubuntu MATE
+ Can't change Firefox home page in Ubuntu MATE
Changed in ubuntu-gnome:
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Richard Elkins (texadactyl) wrote :

Easy work-around for a single user system:

sudo vi /usr/lib/firefox/ubuntumate.cfg
Set the pref value (2nd string) to the desired home page.

For me, the result was this:
pref("browser.startup.homepage", "file:///home/elkins/www/html/index.html");

tags: removed: zesty
Revision history for this message
nmaxx (nmaxx) wrote :

FYI, I ran into this bug again on the current 17.10 beta of Ubuntu MATE.

Revision history for this message
nmaxx (nmaxx) wrote :

I just checked /usr/lib/firefox/ubuntumate.cfg in Artful and instead of

defaultPref("browser.startup.homepage", "https://start.ubuntu-mate.org");

it is

pref("browser.startup.homepage", "https://start.ubuntu-mate.org");

Definitely a regression here, but it should be easy to fix.

Revision history for this message
Egmont Koblinger (egmont-gmail) wrote :

Yup, still (or again) present in Artful beta.

Revision history for this message
Hans Joachim Desserud (hjd) wrote :

Fwiw, see bug 1721965 for the regression in Artful.

Revision history for this message
scott-uu (scott-f-1) wrote :

This bug is back in version 17.10 Ubuntu Mate.

Luke Horwell (lah7)
Changed in ubuntu-mate-settings (Ubuntu Yakkety):
status: Triaged → Invalid
Revision history for this message
theloveiknow (theloveiknow701) wrote :

why is this invalid if it is still happening today? please let us know?

Revision history for this message
Luke Horwell (lah7) wrote :

- Bugs against "ubuntu-mate" may be invalidated by the bug supervisor when they can be filed towards a specific package. (See after comment #11 for when that happened)
- Yakkety is EOL (end of life) and won't be possible to update that release anymore.

Please see bug 1721965 for Artful (17.10), as a fix is committed but not yet released.

Revision history for this message
Coeur Noir (coeur-noir) wrote :

Still a problem in 2021…

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