Update to 6.5.1 failed on Linux

[reticulatus]

What happened?

When I checked Help -> About it said that release 6.5.1 was available.

I clicked to download the update, but when I restarted Waterfox, it failed to reappear.

I tried running it from a terminal, but got the following error message:

richardt@Pavilion:~ $ waterfox
/opt/waterfox/updater: error while loading shared libraries: libmozsqlite3.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Edit: I am using Mint 22.

Reproducible?

• I have checked that this issue cannot be reproduced on Mozilla Firefox.

Version

G6

What platform are you seeing the problem on?

Linux

Relevant log output

[reticulatus]

I have just done a full install of 6.5.1 and it appears to be working.

[KrzysztofMr]

I've got the same issue in Debian 12. Had to 'downgrade' to v6.5.0

[TruthInFiction]

I've run into the same problem with Mint 21.3.

[T0nd0Tara]

I have got the same problem with ubuntu 24.04

[tgolightly]

I am experiencing the same issue on two of my laptops one running kubuntu 24.04 and kde neon 23.x.

[krivine]

Same here. Mint 21.3

[csylvain]

problem is updater doesn't find libmozsqlite3.so in the current directory.

workaround:

$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. waterfox

(see output of "$ ldd updater")

[jcea]

I was going to post the same workaround that @csylvain but he/she/it was faster :-).

That workaround is only needed during the upgrade. After you are running 6.5.1, just close it and launch Waterfox like you always do.

[thecnoNSMB]

Issue occurs on Nobara 40. I'm honestly surprised that this failure state is even possible.

[N8ouy]

Please explain or give an example of "$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. waterfox" After a 16 hour shift, I am not really here.
never mind...... The ./ is what I forgot when using the cli

/waterfox$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./waterfox

Thank you for finding this!

[Ketrel]

I have/had this issue on Arch, with the browser manually installed from the .bz2 download on the website.

[kkds1999]

Trying the LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./waterfox option but not working for me. In the waterfox download directory if i do:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./waterfox

and afterwards ldd updater | grep libmozsqlite3.so i get libmozsqlite3.so => not found

Trying to run waterfox from terminal gives:
/home/xxx/Downloads/waterfox/updater: error while loading shared libraries: libmozsqlite3.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

[ibrahimBeladi]

I tried LD_LIBRARY_PATH, but it did not work for me either, I am on Linux Mint 22

However, I found another workaround, it may or may not work for you:

1. Launch the browser in first-startup mode, /home/YOUR_PATH/waterfox --first-startup
2. Go to the 3-dash icon, then Help, then Troubleshoot Mode, and then restart the browser, then Open

[kkds1999]

I tried LD_LIBRARY_PATH, but it did not work for me either, I am on Linux Mint 22

However, I found another workaround, it may or may not work for you:

1. Launch the browser in first-startup mode, /home/YOUR_PATH/waterfox --first-startup
2. Go to the 3-dash icon, then Help, then Troubleshoot Mode, and then restart the browser, then Open

Excellent, thank you. That is now working for me on Mint 22 as well. I also disabled auto update option as well.

[Ketrel]

If you're using LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.

1. Try ./ rather than just .
2. Make sure you're IN the waterfox directory that contains that .so file when you do this

(deleted/reposted because formatting was broken, and editing wasn't fixing it)

[Enkidu70]

Same here (Mint 21.3) but workaround worked.

[hiiiha]

Reproducible here. A full new install works and the profile remained

[MrAlex94]

Hi all,

Just a note I am aware of this issue, and so are Mozilla - this seems to be an upstream issue that we're all investigating. Doing my best to work with them on this as quickly as possible.

I do apologies about this!

[N8ouy]

Stranger things have been known to happen. Thank you for digging into it.

[Ketrel]

Sounds like adding an rpath to the updater to point to . would work

[explor202]

Is this issue restricted to Linux installs?

[MrAlex94]

Hi all,
Just a note I am aware of this issue, and so are Mozilla - this seems to be an upstream issue that we're all investigating. Doing my best to work with them on this as quickly as possible.
I do apologies about this!

BS. The "upstream" bug was from 8 years ago.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1292050 https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/18900

It was fixed in affected projects 8 years ago.

This is a regression. One of you hit the wrong button, and when you're called out on it, you flag it as abuse. Clown show.

That code path doesn't even exist anymore: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-esr128/source/toolkit/xre/nsUpdateDriver.cpp.

And since this affects only ESR128.x builds and not previous ones (ESR115.x), with no build-system changes on my end, nor touching of the updater code on my side, bar the renaming of mozilla -> waterfox/browserworks, is it not a fair assumption that it's an upstream issue?

Also no one has flagged this as abuse, a very odd comment.

[MrAlex94]

Sounds like adding an rpath to the updater to point to . would work

To this point, I can add a build step that uses patchelf, which sets rpath to . for the updater executable. My only concern is if there are any unintended consequences of doing so? I've tested it locally myself and the updater now runs.

[Ketrel]

I think if you use patchelf you'd want to use $ORIGIN not . As far as I know unless you're wiping out an existing rpath, you'd just be modifing the library search path for the one binary. So the only thing I could think of offhand is that there's another library along side that should not be loaded, but calling it with LD_LIBRARY_PATH would trigger anything like that too. -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

[Ketrel]

Also think if using patchelf you'd want to set runpath over rpath. -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

[MrAlex94]

Thanks for that information, very useful. Will help point me in the right direction, hopefully by the time for next release as I don't want to push out another Linux update that doesn't properly work.

tarballs really aren't the best method of distribution anyway, but they have their place.

[explor202]

@MrAlex94 is this issue unique to Linux? I have run into a similar issue where I can't upgrade from 5.1.12 to 6.5.1 as noted here.

[reticulatus]

I have just run the update from 6.5.1 to 6.5.2 on both my Linux Mint 22 PCs and it failed with the same error as before:

richardt@Avalon:~ $ waterfox
[fluent-dom] An element named "helpus-donateLink" wasn't found in the source.
richardt@Avalon:~ $ /opt/waterfox/updater: error while loading shared libraries: libmozsqlite3.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
^C
richardt@Avalon:~ $ 

@MrAlex94 - does the bug fix that you have included affect the upgrade from 6.5.1, or only upgrades from 6.5.2 ?

[MrAlex94]

Okay, 6.5.2 is now out and I've added $ORIGINto the RPATH. On the systems I've had issues with, this seems to be resolved.

Weirdly enough, on a fresh VM for Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04, I couldn't repro the issue, but on Debian 12 I could. No idea what the root cause actually is without investing more time.

Please re-open if this occurs.

@explor202, unrelated issue.

[Ketrel]

I'd compare the system version of that library on the two VMs. I'd bet the ubuntu one likely matches. -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

[PixelOfDeath]

Hat the issue from 6.5.0 to 6.5.1 and now again from 6.5.1 to 6.5.2. On Xubuntu 23.10.
Unpacking the tar.bz2 and it works just fine.

[MrAlex94]

Just a note, the existing updater binary has the issue; the binary provided in 6.5.2 has fixed the issue, but if you're on 6.5.0 or 6.5.1, the update will of course still fail. Updates starting from 6.5.2 onward should no longer fail.

[gc-user]

Can confirm @MrAlex94

Had this issue when updating from 6.5.0 to 6.5.1 and now from 6.5.1 to 6.5.2.
So I checked this thread again and saw your post (the one just above mine). Downloaded the archive manually, dropped just the updater file into the waterfox directory and executed updater. Then the updated went through fine and waterfox started fine with 6.5.2 update applied.

Thanks for the fix!

[Megalomaniak]

>>> waterfox-g4
[27812, Main Thread] WARNING: Locale not supported by C library.
        Using the fallback 'C' locale.: 'glib warning', file /home/runner/work/Waterfox/Waterfox/toolkit/xre/nsSigHandlers.cpp:187

(waterfox:27812): Gtk-WARNING **: 14:20:46.840: Locale not supported by C library.
        Using the fallback 'C' locale.
/opt/waterfox-g4/updater: error while loading shared libraries: libmozsqlite3.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
>>> echo $LD_LIBRARY_PATH 
/usr/local/lib
>>> LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/waterfox-g4/                                                                                                                                                                  
>>> export LD_LIBRARY_PATH                                                                                                                                                                            
>>> sudo ldconfig
[sudo] password for user: 

>>> echo $LD_LIBRARY_PATH                                                                                                                                                                             
/opt/waterfox-g4/
>>> waterfox-g4
[28760, Main Thread] WARNING: Locale not supported by C library.
        Using the fallback 'C' locale.: 'glib warning', file /home/runner/work/Waterfox/Waterfox/toolkit/xre/nsSigHandlers.cpp:187

(waterfox:28760): Gtk-WARNING **: 14:22:09.932: Locale not supported by C library.
        Using the fallback 'C' locale.

(process:28760): Gtk-WARNING **: 14:22:10.025: Locale not supported by C library.
        Using the fallback 'C' locale.
[28760, Main Thread] WARNING: Locale not supported by C library.
        Using the fallback 'C' locale.: 'glib warning', file /home/runner/work/Waterfox/Waterfox/toolkit/xre/nsSigHandlers.cpp:187

(waterfox:28760): Gtk-WARNING **: 14:22:17.332: Locale not supported by C library.
        Using the fallback 'C' locale.
[Parent 28760, Main Thread] WARNING: gdk_x11_window_get_xid: assertion 'GDK_IS_X11_WINDOW (window)' failed: 'glib warning', file /home/runner/work/Waterfox/Waterfox/toolkit/xre/nsSigHandlers.cpp:187

(waterfox:28760): Gdk-CRITICAL **: 14:22:20.319: gdk_x11_window_get_xid: assertion 'GDK_IS_X11_WINDOW (window)' failed
[Parent 28760, Main Thread] WARNING: gdk_x11_window_get_xid: assertion 'GDK_IS_X11_WINDOW (window)' failed: 'glib warning', file /home/runner/work/Waterfox/Waterfox/toolkit/xre/nsSigHandlers.cpp:187

(waterfox:28760): Gdk-CRITICAL **: 14:22:21.323: gdk_x11_window_get_xid: assertion 'GDK_IS_X11_WINDOW (window)' failed
[Parent 28760, Main Thread] WARNING: Unable to register object on bus: An object is already exported for the interface com.canonical.dbusmenu at /com/canonical/menu/0: 'glib warning', file /home/runner/work/Waterfox/Waterfox/toolkit/xre/nsSigHandlers.cpp:187

(waterfox:28760): LIBDBUSMENU-GLIB-WARNING **: 14:22:21.324: Unable to register object on bus: An object is already exported for the interface com.canonical.dbusmenu at /com/canonical/menu/0

Hint, by the end there it worked again.

[eric7dev]

This has happened twice since I've started trying out waterfox a few months back, seems the issue keeps happening with each update. This firefox fork is too unstable, better stick to the official vanilla Firefox. Does not worth the troubleshooting time.

[Megalomaniak]

This firefox fork is too unstable, better stick to the official vanilla Firefox. Does not worth the troubleshooting time.

Consider LibreWolf instead.