Firefox no longer supports -remote parameter

The -remote option has existed essentially forever, but I question its usefulness.
- It requires a running instance to be any useful, so any script actually using it should first do -remote 'ping()' and handle the response properly.
- It is not cross-application. The remote service dispatches the -remote commands to the command line handler, and, for example, desktop b2g builds don't have handlers for -remote (although thunderbird and seamonkey do).
- It is not a cross-platform option, which leads to the following point:
- There are other command line ways to do the same thing (at least in Firefox), without having to jump through hoops with -remote 'ping()', because there are command line options to do those same things on non-X11 platforms.

For the latter, in Firefox case:
- -remote 'openURL(url)' can be replaced with firefox url
- -remote 'openURL(url,new-tab)' can be replaced with firefox -new-tab url
- -remote 'openURL(url,new-window)' can be replaced with firefox -new-window url
- -remote 'openfile(file,...)' is the same as -remote 'openurl(file,...) so, can be replaced as above
- -remote 'xfedocommand(openbrowser)' is inherited from the mozilla suite and doesn't make much sense, but can be replaced with firefox -new-window about:home

Thunderbird has:
- openurl
- mailto
- xfedocommand(openinbox)
- xfedocommand(composemessage)

Seamonkey has:
- openurl/openfile
- mailto
- xfedocommand(openbrowser)
- xfedocommand(openinbox)
- xfedocommand(composemessage)

They may not have command line equivalents for all of those, so if they don't, and until they do, we may want to keep the -remote code in toolkit/xre/nsAppRunner.cpp behind a #ifdef for them.

Benjamin, what do you think?

(In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #0)
> - -remote 'xfedocommand(openbrowser)' is inherited from the mozilla suite
> and doesn't make much sense, but can be replaced with firefox -new-window
> about:home

firefox -new-window, in fact (without about:home).

(In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #0)
> The -remote option has existed essentially forever, but I question its
> usefulness.

*nowadays. Well, since bug 280725, 9 years ago.

At the same time, we should remove the mozilla-xremote-client binary.

(In reply to Mike Hommey from comment #0)
> Seamonkey has:
> - openurl/openfile
> - mailto
> - xfedocommand(openbrowser)
> - xfedocommand(openinbox)
> - xfedocommand(composemessage)
>
> They may not have command line equivalents for all of those

-remote openfile(file) -> -file <file>
-remote openurl(url) -> -url <url>
-remote openurl(url,new-window) -> -new-window <url>
-remote openurl(url,new-tab) -> -new-tab <url>
-remote xfedocommand(openbrowser,url) -> -browser <url>
-remote xfedocommand(openinbox) -> -mail
-remote xfedocommand(composemessage,args) -> -compose args

We do have bug 499785 filed on our -remote support... I wonder whether the reporter still uses -remote after all these years.

I think this is fine. Even if you were using it previously, using new-style remoting is not a big change.

Created attachment 8502937
Remove the -remote option

The -remote option has existed essentially forever, but its usefulness is
questionable:
- It requires a running instance to be any useful, so any script actually
  using it should first do -remote 'ping()' and handle the response properly.
- It is not cross-application. The remote service dispatches the -remote
  commands to the command line handler, and, for example, desktop b2g builds
  don't have handlers for -remote (although thunderbird and seamonkey do).
- It is not a cross-platform option, which leads to the following point:
- There are other command line ways to do the same thing (at least in
  Firefox), without having to jump through hoops with -remote 'ping()',
  because there are command line options to do those same things on non-X11
  platforms.

For the latter, in Firefox case:
- -remote 'openURL(url)' can be replaced with firefox url
- -remote 'openURL(url,new-tab)' can be replaced with firefox -new-tab url
- -remote 'openURL(url,new-window)' can be replaced with firefox -new-window
  url
- -remote 'openfile(file,...)' is the same as -remote 'openurl(file,...) so,
  can be replaced as above
- -remote 'xfedocommand(openbrowser)' is inherited from the mozilla suite and
   doesn't make much sense, but can be replaced with firefox -new-window

The interesting part is that without changing nsBrowserContentHandler.js,
-remote still works, meaning that if people really feel strongly about
-remote, they'll still be able to write an addon to bring it back. This also
means this patch actually doesn't remove -remote for applications other than
Firefox that do support it, although -remote 'ping()' doesn't work as
expected. However, other -remote commands will now work even without a
running instance.

Other applications are free to consider removing the -remote argument handling from their command line handler, but this is out of scope for this bug.

Comment on attachment 8502937
Remove the -remote option

\o/

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/8044e5199fe2

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/8044e5199fe2

It seems to be that bug that cause a breakage here.

I have Firefox 32.0.2 installed on Fedora 20. The one in the path.

I run Firefox out m-c that I build myself - directly out of the build tree. So far there was no problem. I could open URL from third-parties app, no problem. Until this morning where I can no longer. It pops up the profile chooser (expected on startup) as it can't find the remote instance.

This is include calling "firefox <URL>"

In short this completely breaks that feature on Linux.

Also |./obj-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/dist/bin/firefox <URL>| broke too. (this is using the current build)

Hubert, can you describe precisely what you're doing because I can't reproduce (as in, it works perfectly fine here)

Running Firefox from m-i compiled by myself.

|./obj-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/dist/bin/firefox|

Then any Gnome app that tries to open a URL tries to open a new instance (I get the profile selector after a while - which is actually longer than when I don't have Firefox running)

If I do in my terminal |firefox URL|, same thing.
If I do in my terminal |./obj-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/dist/bin/firefox URL| (from the source dir), same thing.

If every case it used to, before that patch, to open the firefox instance that was running - and this is that patch since I no longer have the problem after reverting it locally.

I run Fedora 20 + Gnome 3.12 in case that matters.

Is your firefox configured to always show the profile selector?

yes it is configured to always show it - because I sometime need a different profile (that I start with --no-remote). This is expected when I start a new instance of Firefox.

(In reply to Hubert Figuiere [:hub] from comment #17)
> yes it is configured to always show it - because I sometime need a different
> profile (that I start with --no-remote). This is expected when I start a new
> instance of Firefox.

even when i configure my firefox to always display the profile selector, I can't reproduce. Can you file a new bug, make it block this one, Cc me, and provide steps to reproduce with builds from the ftp and no pre-existing ~/.mozilla ? (like, run fx32 with -P, create 2 profiles, uncheck box, etc.)

This broke the browse-url library in emacs, which expects a -remote argument and still uses OpenURL syntax in the browse-url-firefox function.

Not expecting this to be fixed by mozilla, just noting the breakage for further reference.

(In reply to Kyle Machulis (OUT OCT 1-NOV 30) [:kmachulis] [:qdot] (USE NEEDINFO?) from comment #19)
> This broke the browse-url library in emacs, which expects a -remote argument
> and still uses OpenURL syntax in the browse-url-firefox function.
>
> Not expecting this to be fixed by mozilla, just noting the breakage for
> further reference.

Ironically, this broke my attempt to follow the link to this bug from Gnus....

Ok, some experimentation on Linux:

>For the latter, in Firefox case:
>- -remote 'openURL(url)' can be replaced with firefox url
>- -remote 'openURL(url,new-tab)' can be replaced with firefox -new-tab url

I modified my browse-url function to do this. No Joy. So I tried it from the command line (release FF and locally-built nightly. No Joy.

"./firefox -new-tab http://example.com/" opens the profile selector, always.
Ditto for "./firefox url".
If I select a profile and say "open this one by default", then if I try to use -new-tab I get a bunch of "fcntl(F_SETLK) failed. errno = 11" (no surprise) and then it fails.

firefox.exe -new-tab <whatever> seems to work on Windows

Huh.... So we seem to be horribly broken on linux now. Hopefully this is some odd artifact of my system/env...

Fedora 19, though it likely doesn't matter for the Nightly tests.

The problem is regular users upgrading and having the problem. Telling them "clean your profile" isn't a solution.

I'll try to find time to debug this...

cf. comment 18.

(In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #23)
> cf. comment 18.

I tried a new user with no .mozilla; no easy repro. (Side note: thanks Fedora, I couldn't get back to my main session ("an error has occurred and you will be logged out and all extensions disabled") and lost all my context.) However: that doesn't solve my problem, which is that it doesn't work on my existing profiles. Why? Does this affect others with existing profiles? (likely) Good question, I'm happy to try to help track it down given a hint of where to look.

Unless there are steps to reproduce, I can't say much besides inviting you to debug it yourself, or finding what parts of your existing profiles make it happen.

Added in the release notes with "`-remote` option removed" as wording.

How am I supposed to open urls in a specific instance after this change? I mean, what should I use to replace the following:

firefox -P "$1" -remote "openURL($2, new-tab)"

where $1 is the profile name, and $2 is the url.

I sometimes will need different instances of firefox with different configurations, the command above enables me to use FireGuesture to open the current page in another instance, so I don't need copy & paste urls as I do with Google Chrome.

(In reply to lilydjwg from comment #27)
> How am I supposed to open urls in a specific instance after this change? I
> mean, what should I use to replace the following:
>
> firefox -P "$1" -remote "openURL($2, new-tab)"
>
> where $1 is the profile name, and $2 is the url.

firefox -P "$1" -new-tab "$2"

(In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #28)
> firefox -P "$1" -new-tab "$2"

This doesn't work for me. It always opens in the first instance I've launched.

I'm on Arch Linux and Firefox 36.0b1 just downloaded, commands I used are

./firefox --ProfileManager --new-instance

Then created another profile named "test".

Then I closed it and ran:

./firefox -P default -new-tab URL
./firefox -P test -new-tab URL

All opened in one instance. I used "--ProfileManager --new-instance" to create another instance with test profile, then ran them again. They all opened in the first Firefox window (the default profile one).

I can confirm this breaks a similiar use case I have to <email address hidden>. We run a kiosk like environment with two firefox profiles. We need two independent firefox instances that we can launch new windows in, depending on what content is being displayed.

In the past we did this by pinging the window to determine, if a specific instance was active.

  firefox -P profilename -remote 'ping()'

Then either launching a new instances if it wasn't presennt

  firefox -P profilename -new-instance https://www.domain.tld

Or sending the new url to the running instance

  firefox -p profilename -remote "openurl(https://www.domain.tld)"

With the removal of -remote, we have no way of communicating to specific existing Firefox instances. -new-tab and -new-window only open in the first launched instance, we can't direct commands to the second instance of firefox.

Updated:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Command_Line_Options#-remote_remote_command
and
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/36#Other

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

Confirming that removing the -remote option breaks this use case.

I was using firefox profiles with the -remote option to synchronize with KDE activities (one profile per activity) and now I can't open new tabs / windows in the current activity anymore.

firefox -P $profilename -new-tab $url

just ignores the profile name and it opens the tab in the last opened profile

firefox -P $profilename -no-remote -new-tab $url

simply does not open anything, as it complains that firefox is already running.

Please provide a way to open new tabs in a specified profile from the command line!!

(In reply to Jeremy Mizell from comment #30)
> I can confirm this breaks a similiar use case I have to <email address hidden>.
> We run a kiosk like environment with two firefox profiles. We need two
> independent firefox instances that we can launch new windows in, depending
> on what content is being displayed.
>
> In the past we did this by pinging the window to determine, if a specific
> instance was active.
>
> firefox -P profilename -remote 'ping()'
>
> Then either launching a new instances if it wasn't presennt
>
> firefox -P profilename -new-instance https://www.domain.tld
>
> Or sending the new url to the running instance
>
> firefox -p profilename -remote "openurl(https://www.domain.tld)"
>
> With the removal of -remote, we have no way of communicating to specific
> existing Firefox instances. -new-tab and -new-window only open in the first
> launched instance, we can't direct commands to the second instance of
> firefox.

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

I opened bug 1138053 for this problem. I might be able to fix it.

This is causing me a serious headache, in that I'm now no longer able to open links remotely.

Here's my use case. I'm logged in to my laptop, machineA (running linux with X11). However, I read email with emacs rmail on my server, machineB (the emacs is running on machineB, connecting to the display on machineA -- I ssh login to machineB).

The solutions proposed here would appear to create a new firefox running on machineB. That's not what I want. Aside from the performance penalty, it means that when I move machineA around (take it to work, or whatever), the firefox in question would go away.

I don't care about the -ping option. I start firefox on login, so it's always around; if for some reason it goes away, I just restart it.

The upshot is that there now appears to be no way to do this. I'm not willing to switch mailers or anything like that. I guess I'll have to back off to firefox 35 until this capability is restored.

(In reply to Robert Krawitz from comment #34)
> This is causing me a serious headache, in that I'm now no longer able to
> open links remotely.
>
> Here's my use case. I'm logged in to my laptop, machineA (running linux
> with X11). However, I read email with emacs rmail on my server, machineB
> (the emacs is running on machineB, connecting to the display on machineA --
> I ssh login to machineB).
>
> The solutions proposed here would appear to create a new firefox running on
> machineB.

If I do:
  1. firefox
  2. ssh -X foo firefox -new-tab http://firefox.com

That opens a firefox.com tab in the firefox launched at step 1, which seems to be what you want to be happening. Note that there are a few things that can make this fail to work, but that should have always been the case: firefox on both ends much be running with the same username and same application name. For instance, if you run a firefox aurora on one end and plain firefox on the other, that won't work unless you pass -a firefox or firefox-dev depending on which end is which. Similarly, you need to pass -u username if the user names differ.

This broke a demo kiosk application that I have, and solutions proposed don't seem to work because firefox -url always opens a new window or tab. My config is simple:
a script is cycling through a list of URLs and opens them one after another, reusing the same tab.

Now if I replace it with firefox -url 'url' or firefox 'url', it open a new tab every time a new URL is passed, so Firefox has a ton of tabs in a couple of hours.

Is there a way to open every URL in the same tab from the command line?

(In reply to Alex K from comment #36)
> Is there a way to open every URL in the same tab from the command line?

Try setting browser.link.open_newwindow.override.external to 1. (It used to be called browser.link.open_external before bug 324164 and bug 509664.)

See comment 0, use -new-tab.

Regression in xfce4 (on Fedora 20).

As a work-around:
$ mkdir -p .local/share/xfce4/helpers
$ cp /usr/share/xfce4/helpers/firefox.desktop ~/.local/share/xfce4/helpers/firefox.desktop
$ patch -p0 <<EOF
--- ./.local/share/xfce4/helpers/firefox.desktop 2013-08-03 13:48:31.000000000 +0200
+++ ./.local/share/xfce4/helpers/firefox.desktop 2015-03-03 12:41:52.370528712 +0100
@@ -53,5 +53,5 @@
 StartupNotify=false
 X-XFCE-Binaries=firefox;firefox-gtk2;firefox-gtk;mozilla-firefox;
 X-XFCE-Category=WebBrowser
-X-XFCE-Commands=%B -remote "openURL(about:blank,new-window)";%B;
-X-XFCE-CommandsWithParameter=%B -remote "openURL(%s)";%B %s;
+X-XFCE-Commands=%B;%B;
+X-XFCE-CommandsWithParameter=%B "%s";%B %s;
EOF

I'd really like to urge consideration of reversion of this removal.

The command line is in some ways the equivalent of the system call interface of the kernel: it's the way that other programs can instantiate a browser. As is becoming clear as people upgrade -- there are quite a few of these! I use, among other things, a very rusty environment which has Eclipse's odd help system: it fires up a browser via the -remote call -- and has worked for a decade. And now it's broken.

The command line should really be considered to be quite stable. Keep compatibility with old forms like -remote, even if if it is only to make them "mostly" compatible by filtering them into new and preferred forms. Preserve past functionality, while you build new: isn't that why content still renders from HTML 1.0?

My addon profilist is based on -P and -profile launching single instance. unless -no-remote is attached with it.

however it would be extremely useful to remote to the other profiles. i saw mention of a "new way of remoting"? can we please get info on that. ideally the old command lines should have just hooked into the new ones, updating the backend, if a change was really needed. but we can cope just show us how to remote the new pretty please.

Multi profile heavily relies on this. When users click a link and they have multiple profiles open i like to give them an option into which browser to open. It's a big deal if it opens in the wrong one, because say they didn't want to mix cookies because websites track them etc.

Here's the multi profile work i'm working on right now: https://github.com/Noitidart/Profilist/issues/18#issuecomment-46795390

*** Bug 11631 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

What Don Barry said. There's some amount of software out there that has to be rewritten because of this, and it appears to have been done without notice.

Emacs, for example, needs browse-url-firefox to be rewritten. It's not complicated to do, but it does mean that browsing URL's from emacs is broken for me until I get around to spending a few minutes on it, and for everyone else until the emacs maintainers code this up and do a release, and the various Linux distributions push the release.

Python has an issue with this too. So I can't view HTML messages from mutt as the helper script is written in Python, my script opens wrong places, etc.

Link: http://bugs.python.org/issue23262

I asked about this on IRC and in general there seems to be support for reverting this change.

(In reply to Tom Schuster [:evilpie] from comment #45)
> I asked about this on IRC and in general there seems to be support for
> reverting this change.

This is a significant enough issue for my company, that we're planning on patching and compiling Firefox to get this back.

Backing out this change seems trivial, in which branches should/could we land this?

It seems that the impact of this change is quite high for a low gain.

Benjamin, Mike, do you agree? Thanks

(In reply to Sylvestre Ledru [:sylvestre] from comment #48)
> It seems that the impact of this change is quite high for a low gain.
>
> Benjamin, Mike, do you agree? Thanks

Thanks all for this. If they do agree, we're hoping for a 36.0.1 release so we don't have to make exceptions in all our other softwares etc to handle FF 36 in a special way. What is the "new way of remoting" btw? I saw these words in this topic but did not see the method outlined.

FYI, some testing (on a local m-c build), Fedora 21 x64:

Given: running one browser with just -P profile

From a shell:

running /usr/bin/firefox -new-tab http://mozilla.org/ -- new instance (asks for profile)
running ~/src/mozilla/m-c/obj*/dist/bin/firefox -new-tab http://mozilla.org/ -- new instance (asks for profile)
Checking "Start this profile automatically", retry - same result, doesn't ask first

From emacs, it used to invoke /usr/lib64/xulrunner/mozilla-xremote-client -remote -new-tab url -- this just worked. Not anymore (with or without -remote). Also, with the xremote, it sits for a long time trying to ping().

This probably can't be fixed by a backout by now. However, as mentioned in comment 7, it can be restore with an addon, modulo bug 1138053 and maybe a glitch with the profile manager. Or in browser code only. But that should be a separate bug imho.

(In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #51)
> This probably can't be fixed by a backout by now. However, as mentioned in
> comment 7, it can be restore with an addon, modulo bug 1138053 and maybe a
> glitch with the profile manager. Or in browser code only. But that should be
> a separate bug imho.

Can you please elaborate on how to implement it back with an addon. You guys are probably busy, but if you have the research/know how already, if you guys could write us a script that we can drop in our addons that would be awesome. I'm busy working on other aspects of multi profile addon to step back immediately to start working on this. :(

The code landed. This bug should stay fixed unless the change gets backed out.

This should do the work:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/restore-remote/

What does "albeit working slightly differently" mean? Will scripts using the old CLI work unmodified?

(In reply to Robert Krawitz from comment #55)
> What does "albeit working slightly differently" mean? Will scripts using
> the old CLI work unmodified?

Depends what the scripts do. Version 0.0.2 should work with the vast majority.

That's not very useful; what are the "slight differences"?

While appreciative of the offer for an addon, I really urge consideration that this is a historic API, widely used -- and thus should be preserved, awkward or not. I understand the desire for cleanup, but this is how a significant body of code interfaces with the browser. There will be nothing to indicate to users of that code, when things now break, that they need to suddenly install an addon to activate an interface which has been there for years. For something like a browser, the command line *is* an API to external programs. Stability of APIs, even bad ones, is a good thing. In this case, it doesn't seem that it's consuming an inordinate amount of code, thus arguing for stability over cleanup.

(In reply to Don Barry from comment #58)
> While appreciative of the offer for an addon, I really urge consideration
> that this is a historic API, widely used -- and thus should be preserved,
> awkward or not. I understand the desire for cleanup, but this is how a
> significant body of code interfaces with the browser. There will be nothing
> to indicate to users of that code, when things now break, that they need to
> suddenly install an addon to activate an interface which has been there for
> years. For something like a browser, the command line *is* an API to
> external programs. Stability of APIs, even bad ones, is a good thing. In
> this case, it doesn't seem that it's consuming an inordinate amount of code,
> thus arguing for stability over cleanup.

Thanks Don. Your explanation makes a ton of sense, and points to implementing fix in like 36.0.1 do you think that would be possible? Lots broke :(

(In reply to Kevin Brosnan [:kbrosnan] from comment #53)
> The code landed. This bug should stay fixed unless the change gets backed
> out.

(In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #54)
> This should do the work:
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/restore-remote/

Thanks for this addon i didnt realize how inconvenient providing this via addon would be. I use profiles on the fly i have to install this to every profile. If we can get this fixed in 36.0.1 this would save the day.

It would also be nice if we can make sure its working on Windows Mac and Unix's. I started testing it just a few weeks ago and it wasnt working, on win8.1 but i was on beta channel so that may explain why it wasnt working for me on windows: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1133731

The real point here is that changing, or removing, an API without a very good reason just makes life difficult for users. In this case it's not at all apparent what the rationale is other than "cleanup", which doesn't seem like a very strong reason, especially since the functionality isn't being removed -- it's being provided, but with a different API. The effect on the end user is that common operations break for no apparent reason.

Saying that an extension will work "with slight differences" isn't really any better; it's not obvious to look for this extension, and it's certainly not obvious what "slight differences" means.

This kind of thing contributes to a perception (reality, really) of instability. That's not a good thing for end users.

I wish I had found this earlier, but my code breaking with the last update seems to have 'informed' me... :( I too have a big problem with removing this.

Any suggestions in this new world on how the following might be implemented? Essentially part of a bigger program that gives a menu of profiles to invoke, creates a new window if it's the first instance of that profile, or adds on if not (to get around 'firefox is already running' error). Using -no-remote doesn't work and all new instances now either fail or open in the first profile called with other variations tried.

1) firefox -P generic1 -remote "ping()"
   if [ ! $? == 0 ]; then
 nohup firefox -P generic1 -new-instance $URL 2>&1 >/dev/null &
   else
 nohup firefox -P generic1 -remote "openurl($URL,new-window)" 2>&1>/dev/null &
   fi
 ;;

To update after installing the restore-remote add-in, assume cases 1,2,3... from above. I start 1. I then start 2. It doesn't complain, but the new window is in profile 1, not 2!

Also tested with instances of 1 and 2 running, then opening another telling it profile 2. It came up in profile 1, which was the first one started of the 3 windows...

Still need a working method.

Created attachment 8573128
Backout the part that removed -remote

Approval Request Comment
[Feature/regressing bug #]: this bug
[User impact if declined]: Among many things, python's webbrowser module doesn't work properly.
[Describe test coverage new/current, TreeHerder]: https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=e8d349c9a6d0 (this is orange because I changed the mozconfigs to match those of release)
[Risks and why]: This is the opposite of the patch that landed, except for the removal of the mozilla-xremote-client executable, which stays removed. Call that a partial backout. This is the low-risk option. Other branches will be dealt with differently. -release needs something simple.
[String/UUID change made/needed]: None

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-release/rev/1bf1bdefeae0

I verified if disabled on:

FF 36.0.1
Build Id:20150305021524
OS: Ubuntu 14.04 x64

The following commands:

-remote 'openURL(url)'
-remote 'openURL(url,new-tab)'
-remote 'openURL(url,new-window)'
-remote 'openfile(file)'

were verified and are working properly.

It would be really nice if -new-window and -new-tab had the same behavior whether or not a browser is already running. Currently if no browser is running, 'firefox -new-window <url>' does not exit with a status code after the URL is opened (i.e. it waits for all windows to be closed before exiting), however if a browser is already running, this command does exit immediately, presumably with a status code indicating success.

(In reply to Catalin Varga [QA][:VarCat] from comment #66)
> I verified if disabled on:
>
> FF 36.0.1
> Build Id:20150305021524
> OS: Ubuntu 14.04 x64
>
> The following commands:
>
> -remote 'openURL(url)'
> -remote 'openURL(url,new-tab)'
> -remote 'openURL(url,new-window)'
> -remote 'openfile(file)'
>
> were verified and are working properly.

How about -remote 'ping()', or is that not supported with this reversion?

The way the old code worked, I needed to first detect if a firefox profile was running before I could do a -remote 'openURL(url,new-window)', otherwise I needed to do -new-instance url.

Here's an example of what I'm doing to launch windows into two different simultanously running firefox profiles.

if $firefoxpath -P $profile -remote 'ping()' > /dev/null 2>&1; then
  $firefoxpath -P $profile -remote "openurl($url,new-window)"
else
  $firefoxpath -P $profile -new-instance $url
fi

FTR, Firefox 36.0.1 has restored the -remote option as it broke many use cases without any real benefit. We could possibly revert commit 8022a52 in exo, though I can't think of an upside to using -remote in this context.

(In reply to Evangelos Foutras from comment #6)
> FTR, Firefox 36.0.1 has restored the -remote option as it broke many use
> cases without any real benefit. We could possibly revert commit 8022a52 in
> exo, though I can't think of an upside to using -remote in this context.

Seeing as -remote seems to enjoy a semi-deprecated status now, it's probably best to avoid it if possible for the time being.

Quick update, another thing this broke is the Windows 7 + jump menu:
http://i.imgur.com/OiyEzUI.png

(In reply to noitidart from comment #69)
> Quick update, another thing this broke is the Windows 7 + jump menu:
> http://i.imgur.com/OiyEzUI.png

This makes no sense, those are not using -remote: https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/modules/WindowsJumpLists.jsm#91

(In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #70)
> (In reply to noitidart from comment #69)
> > Quick update, another thing this broke is the Windows 7 + jump menu:
> > http://i.imgur.com/OiyEzUI.png
>
> This makes no sense, those are not using -remote:
> https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/modules/
> WindowsJumpLists.jsm#91

Ah you're right excuse that then. I don't know why it keeps telling me "Firefox is already running, but is not responding. The old Firefox process must be closed to open a new window".

Just a note, the documentation should be updated that the feature has been re-included.

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

(In reply to haarp from comment #72)
> Just a note, the documentation should be updated that the feature has been
> re-included.
>
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Command_Line_Options#-
> remote_remote_command

Ok i can do that. Should i update it to say:
"Not availabile in Gecko 36.0, but available again since Gecko ?.?"

What should i put for "?.?"?

It's in 36.0.1, but it's guaranteed to still be there in 37.

So, if I'm following correctly: -remote was removed in Fx 36, readded in the chemspill 36.0.1 and won't be removed in 37 at least?

Is this correct (We also need to update Fx 36 for devs).

A tip that we'll help us: if you back-out a bug that has "dev-doc-complete", please turn it back to "dev-doc-needed", so the doc team is aware of the change.

(In reply to Jean-Yves Perrier [:teoli] from comment #75)
> So, if I'm following correctly: -remote was removed in Fx 36, readded in the
> chemspill 36.0.1 and won't be removed in 37 at least?
>
> Is this correct (We also need to update Fx 36 for devs).

Err, I missed a not in my sentence. It is *not* guaranteed to still be there in 37.

(In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #74)
> It's in 36.0.1, but it's guaranteed to still be there in 37.

Awesome thanks ill check docs and update if its not updated yet!

I don't think this works on windows.

I opened my 2nd profile with this:
firefox.exe -P Dev -no-remote

Then tried to open a new tab in that profile with this:
firefox.exe -P Dev -remote "openURL(http://www.bing.com,new-tab)"

it didnt work :(

(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"

(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 :(

(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]: