VMware Horizon Community
kslish
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Firefox and Persona users

I wanted to offer the Firefox web browser as a alternative to IE on our Win 7 floating staff pool w/Personas, but every time a user logs in initally, uses Firefox, and then logs out, they get the following message when they log into the pool again and open Firefox:

Firefox error.jpg

The error seems to come and go, but has been enough of an consistant issue that I've removed Firefox from the base image and just told everyone that they are going to just have to use IE for now for their web browser.

Any ideas on what the glitch could be?  I've tried turning on "Roam Local Settings Folders" on in the Persona group policy which I initially believed to be the answer, but the issue still came back.

Thanks for any advice anyone can offer.

Reply
0 Kudos
5 Replies
mittim12
Immortal
Immortal

How did you tie it into View persona?   Was firefox really already running? 

Reply
0 Kudos
JCL225
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

It sounds like a faulty install or plugin of Firefox.

Something isn't releasing the lock file in the users firefox profile (which gets created when firefox is launched). Its supposed to delete it on app close.

On the second launch of firefox (after user has logged in and its not working) you can check their profile path

%appdata&\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\hdsefhbm.default

for 'parent.lock'

The hdsefhbm.default may be different for you. I'm not sure if it was dynamically named that or something else.

Anyhow if the file is there, then you won't be able to get in until you delete it. And if you can't delete it then something else is keeping it open.

Is your App data directory redirected to a shared directory, and does the user have firefox open elsewhere? Firefox will not work on multiple workstations for the same user if folder redirection is enabled for app data (application data pre win 7)

I'm going to go with my intial guess and say that something is wrong with the firefox install. You can double check on the first logon where Firefox works. Just check if the lock file disappears when they close the browser.

----

On a side note I've had mutliple issues with firefox in VDI with folder redirect\roaming profiles\persona management etc.

Stick with IE9. I prefer it personally.

Reply
0 Kudos
kslish
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

The Firefox install works.... if I use the disk image in a persistent pool, it works fine.  If I put it in a floating pool without Personas, it works fine (but of course the Mozilla profile folders in AppData is being recreated each time you login this way).  It only gets cranky on a floating pool with Personas.

The Persona profiles are being stored on a Windows fileshare as specified in the VMware deployment guide.  There is only one View pool using this fileshare, and it's setup where you can't login twice at the same time.

The lock file seems to be disappearing the way it's suppossed to.  And if I manually delete the Mozilla folders in AppData/Local and AppData/Roaming Firefox starts working again, but then you lose all the user's preferences.  Firefox seems to be kinda messy with all it's pref/config files it stores in different locations.  I'm guessing something isn't getting saved or synched properly profile-wise which is causing a confused Firefox when a new session with the stored Persona is started.

I have Profile Upload Interval set at 10 minutes in group policy if that make a difference.

I wonder if I should just try Chrome or Safari instead.  I just want to provide an alternative to IE for general browsing (we are currently stuck at IE8 due to some of our legacy web applications not supporting IE9 yet).

Reply
0 Kudos
JCL225
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I'm going to bow to someone with more persona experience than me, but it doesn't sound like the sync is recording and applying the delete action of the lock file. I'm stumped.

And I can see why you need an alternative. IE8, ugh.

--------

My final two cents is if you go the Chrome path, be careful which install you use. The default consumer download and setup from google.com is user specific and writes its application directory inside the installing user's profile.

Instead use

https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/business/browser/

It will give you a traditional msi you can use to install and deploy.

Reply
0 Kudos
kslish
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I ended up removing Firefox and installing "Chrome for Enterprise" with an ADM template that shuts off the auto updating capability of Chrome since these will be non-persistent linked clones with Personas.  Chrome seems to be more than happy in this type of setup.

If anyone ever encounters and fixes whatever issue I was having with Firefox and Personas, I'm all ears.

Reply
0 Kudos