[pkg-boinc-devel] boinc-manager: Does not open browser windowwhenbuttons in left column are clicked

[Olek Wojnar]

Ok, I've been experimenting with a number of 
different configurations and here's what I've found:

First, with GNOME. Once I su'd to root the 
BROWSER variable seemed to actually remain stored 
(it was never there if I entered it as a normal 
user then checked it). However, neither "mozilla" 
nor "/usr/bin/mozilla" solved the problem. I can 
execute both just fine (as user or root) from a 
terminal window and they spawn the browser so not 
sure what the problem is there. Here's the 
kicker, when I run boincmgr from a terminal 
window as root in the same session as the one 
where I passed the BROWSER variable, it works 
fine! Perhaps some permission issue?

Then I tried the same scenarios in KDE with 
surprisingly different results. BROWSER variables 
were stored as both user and root. Also, the 
BROWSER variable was maintained when I did su to 
root! (but not when I changed back to user) 
Mozilla once again spawned just fine when invoked 
from the terminal as root with either BROWSER 
variable set. Got the following message repeated 
four times when changing tabs in boincmgr after 
launching from terminal as user: 
"(boincmgr:17695): Pango-WARNING **: Invalid 
UTF-8 string passed to pango_layout_set_text()" 
Don't know if that's relevant since when it 
launched the WWW buttons worked... But, these 
buttons only worked if the BROWSER variable was 
set. If I exited the term window and opened it 
again, the variable was not set and mozilla did not open the page.

Sorry if this is a bit wordy but since I'm hardly 
a programming expert I wasn't sure that would 
help! :) In summary, my layman's opinion is that 
the BROWSER variable fixes the problems but only 
for the user setting the variable. (i.e. I'm 
assuming running boincmgr from menu executes it 
as a different user. Is that accurate?)

So, is there any way to set BROWSER globally? I 
thought the GNOME/KDE application choosers did 
that... Also, not sure why GNOME doesn't retain 
the variable as a normal user. It seems to be 
like Frank suggested, that the error lies in a 
package other than boincmgr. I'm not sure which 
package that would be or how to transfer this bug 
to that package, but let me know if there's 
anything else I can do to help. And thanks for the quick replies to my bug!

-Olek


At 01:35 PM 1/8/2006, Frank S. Thomas wrote:
>On Sunday 08 January 2006 21:52, Steffen Moeller wrote:
> > Hi, I recall that it worked for me ... and I did something, just ... what.
>
>Now that would be really interesting. Did you used GNOME or KDE when it
>worked? It never worked for me, but I didn't care much because KBoincSpy is a
>so much better replacement. :-)
>
> > Frank, please try to give it the complete path to the executable.
>
>It doesn't make a difference, does it? I'm using the boincmgr with the patch
>that I checked in previously and it works fine, even if the MIME stuff fails
>and without setting the BROWSER variable.
>
>Grüße,
>Frank
>
>--
>bureaucracy, n: A method for transforming energy into solid waste.