GNU bug report logs - #77415
Native Messaging in librewolf doesn't work

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Konrad Hinsen <konrad.hinsen <at> fastmail.net>
To: bug-guix <at> gnu.org
Subject: Native Messaging in librewolf doesn't work
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2025 21:43:01 +0200

Hi everyone,

I noticed that librewolf is now in Guix, and tried to migrate from my
current installation via librewolf's Debian repository to a Guix-based
installation.

This works mostly fine, except for one point: in the Guix-built
librewolf, the Native Messaging implementation has some problem.

My setup:
 - librewolf 136.0.4-1 (from commit
 2e17b532ed659ed38c738f44f11c35a887bd31c0)
 - PassFF extension (https://codeberg.org/PassFF/passff)
 - PassFF host (https://codeberg.org/PassFF/passff-host)
 - password-store from Guix

With this setup, PassFF signals an error

   "Connection to the host app failed or returned an unexpected result!"

every time it is opened. Some debugging reveals that the Python script
from PassFF host is never run.

Running the apt-installed librewolf (same version), with everything else
exactly the same (same user profile), PassFF works fine.

Cheers,
  Konrad.

Message #8 received at 77415 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Rutherther <rutherther <at> ditigal.xyz>
To: Konrad Hinsen <konrad.hinsen <at> fastmail.net>
Cc: 77415 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: Native Messaging in librewolf doesn't work
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2025 22:18:41 +0200

Hello Konrad,

I would like to confirm the same behavior on my end. This happens with
every native messaging extension I tried, doesn't seem to be just some.
Actually, it used to work, then after something updated in Guix it
stopped working. The same for Firefox from nonguix.

I have no idea how to debug this since Firefox apparently decided to
print the most helpful message ever for any and every error in the
native hosting! Sigh. That's why I haven't even reported it, because I
wanted to share at least some information about it, but could find
nothing. My only other idea was to look through the librewolf
compilation log, maybe it will print a warning about a missing/wrong
dependency etc.

Regards,
Rutherther

Message #11 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Clément Lassieur <clement <at> lassieur.org>
To: Rutherther via Bug reports for GNU Guix <bug-guix <at> gnu.org>
Cc: Konrad Hinsen <konrad.hinsen <at> fastmail.net>, Ian Eure <ian <at> retrospec.tv>,
 Rutherther <rutherther <at> ditigal.xyz>, 77415 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#77415: Native Messaging in librewolf doesn't work
Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2025 16:07:58 +0200

Hi all,

Did you try the guix passff-icecat package?

$ guix shell icecat-minimal passff-icecat
then you start icecat, and it works

Same if you replace icecat-minimal with mullvadbrowser or torbrowser.

With librewolf there is an extra step due to a librewolf package bug:

$ guix shell librewolf passff-icecat
then
- you start librewolf
- [extra step] you go to about:addons and enable passff
- then it works

As to why it does not work with your non-guix extension, I imagine it's
because your native-messaging-hosts path is wrong?

Did you try either
- ~/.librewolf/native-messaging-hosts
- $ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR/native-messaging-hosts

?

Cheers,
Clément Lassieur


On Mon, Mar 31 2025, Rutherther via Bug reports for GNU Guix wrote:

> Hello Konrad,
>
> I would like to confirm the same behavior on my end. This happens with
> every native messaging extension I tried, doesn't seem to be just some.
> Actually, it used to work, then after something updated in Guix it
> stopped working. The same for Firefox from nonguix.
>
> I have no idea how to debug this since Firefox apparently decided to
> print the most helpful message ever for any and every error in the
> native hosting! Sigh. That's why I haven't even reported it, because I
> wanted to share at least some information about it, but could find
> nothing. My only other idea was to look through the librewolf
> compilation log, maybe it will print a warning about a missing/wrong
> dependency etc.
>
> Regards,
> Rutherther

Message #17 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Rutherther <rutherther <at> ditigal.xyz>
To: Clément Lassieur <clement <at> lassieur.org>, Rutherther via
 Bug reports for GNU Guix <bug-guix <at> gnu.org>
Cc: Konrad Hinsen <konrad.hinsen <at> fastmail.net>, Ian Eure <ian <at> retrospec.tv>,
 77415 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#77415: Native Messaging in librewolf doesn't work
Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2025 16:56:04 +0200

Hi Clément,

Clément Lassieur <clement <at> lassieur.org> writes:

> Hi all,
>
> Did you try the guix passff-icecat package?
>
> $ guix shell icecat-minimal passff-icecat
> then you start icecat, and it works
>
> Same if you replace icecat-minimal with mullvadbrowser or torbrowser.
>
> With librewolf there is an extra step due to a librewolf package bug:
>
> $ guix shell librewolf passff-icecat
> then
> - you start librewolf
> - [extra step] you go to about:addons and enable passff
> - then it works
>
> As to why it does not work with your non-guix extension, I imagine it's
> because your native-messaging-hosts path is wrong?
>
> Did you try either
> - ~/.librewolf/native-messaging-hosts
> - $ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR/native-messaging-hosts
>

I think you've discovered the actual bug. The issue is that
.librewolf/native-messaging-hosts is not checked, instead
ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR is, with no fallback even if it's empty. When I set
ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR to $HOME/.librewolf all is working fine again.

Since I use Guix Home to symlink the native messaging hosts json file
anyway, I will change it on my end and am happy with that, but I still
think it's a packaging bug.

Thanks,
Rutherther

> ?
>
> Cheers,
> Clément Lassieur
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 31 2025, Rutherther via Bug reports for GNU Guix wrote:
>
>> Hello Konrad,
>>
>> I would like to confirm the same behavior on my end. This happens with
>> every native messaging extension I tried, doesn't seem to be just some.
>> Actually, it used to work, then after something updated in Guix it
>> stopped working. The same for Firefox from nonguix.
>>
>> I have no idea how to debug this since Firefox apparently decided to
>> print the most helpful message ever for any and every error in the
>> native hosting! Sigh. That's why I haven't even reported it, because I
>> wanted to share at least some information about it, but could find
>> nothing. My only other idea was to look through the librewolf
>> compilation log, maybe it will print a warning about a missing/wrong
>> dependency etc.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Rutherther

Message #23 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Clément Lassieur <clement <at> lassieur.org>
To: Rutherther via Bug reports for GNU Guix <bug-guix <at> gnu.org>
Cc: Rutherther <rutherther <at> ditigal.xyz>, ian <at> retrospec.tv,
 konrad.hinsen <at> fastmail.net, 77415 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#77415: Native Messaging in librewolf doesn't work
Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2025 17:12:12 +0200

On Mon, Apr 07 2025, Rutherther via Bug reports for GNU Guix wrote:

> I think you've discovered the actual bug. The issue is that
> .librewolf/native-messaging-hosts is not checked, instead
> ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR is, with no fallback even if it's empty. When I set
> ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR to $HOME/.librewolf all is working fine again.

I don't think so, because on my computer,

$HOME/.librewolf/native-messaging-hosts/passff.json

works (without changing ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR)

and if I remove that file it doesn't work anymore.

So just to make it clear: I can't reproduce the bug.

Cheers,
Clément

Message #29 received at 77415 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Rutherther <rutherther <at> ditigal.xyz>
To: Clément Lassieur <clement <at> lassieur.org>, Rutherther via
 Bug reports for GNU Guix <bug-guix <at> gnu.org>
Cc: konrad.hinsen <at> fastmail.net, ian <at> retrospec.tv, 77415 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#77415: Native Messaging in librewolf doesn't work
Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2025 09:11:47 +0200

Clément Lassieur <clement <at> lassieur.org> writes:

> On Mon, Apr 07 2025, Rutherther via Bug reports for GNU Guix wrote:
>
>> I think you've discovered the actual bug. The issue is that
>> .librewolf/native-messaging-hosts is not checked, instead
>> ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR is, with no fallback even if it's empty. When I set
>> ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR to $HOME/.librewolf all is working fine again.
>
> I don't think so, because on my computer,
>
> $HOME/.librewolf/native-messaging-hosts/passff.json
>
> works (without changing ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR)
>
> and if I remove that file it doesn't work anymore.

>
> So just to make it clear: I can't reproduce the bug.

Okay, I was wrong. The problem is only when ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR is unset.
When it's set to anywhere, like /, it works fine for me as well.

Regards,
Rutherther

Message #35 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Clément Lassieur <clement <at> lassieur.org>
To: Rutherther via Bug reports for GNU Guix <bug-guix <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 77415-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Rutherther <rutherther <at> ditigal.xyz>,
 konrad.hinsen <at> fastmail.net, ian <at> retrospec.tv
Subject: Re: bug#77415: Native Messaging in librewolf doesn't work
Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2025 09:35:57 +0200

On Tue, Apr 08 2025, Rutherther via Bug reports for GNU Guix wrote:

> Clément Lassieur <clement <at> lassieur.org> writes:
>
>> On Mon, Apr 07 2025, Rutherther via Bug reports for GNU Guix wrote:
>>
>>> I think you've discovered the actual bug. The issue is that
>>> .librewolf/native-messaging-hosts is not checked, instead
>>> ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR is, with no fallback even if it's empty. When I set
>>> ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR to $HOME/.librewolf all is working fine again.
>>
>> I don't think so, because on my computer,
>>
>> $HOME/.librewolf/native-messaging-hosts/passff.json
>>
>> works (without changing ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR)
>>
>> and if I remove that file it doesn't work anymore.
>
>>
>> So just to make it clear: I can't reproduce the bug.
>
> Okay, I was wrong. The problem is only when ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR is unset.
> When it's set to anywhere, like /, it works fine for me as well.

Great!

Closing :)

Regards,
Clément

Message #43 received at 77415 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Rutherther <rutherther <at> ditigal.xyz>
To: Clément Lassieur <clement <at> lassieur.org>
Cc: konrad.hinsen <at> fastmail.net, ian <at> retrospec.tv, 77415 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#77415: Native Messaging in librewolf doesn't work
Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2025 10:12:28 +0200

>> Okay, I was wrong. The problem is only when ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR is unset.
>> When it's set to anywhere, like /, it works fine for me as well.
>
> Great!
>
> Closing :)

Should this really be closed? I think it's a bug that ought to be fixed.
Or at least the user's should get to know somehow they have to set it.
If user is not using any extensions via Guix, they won't be able to use
native messaging unless they know about this culprit.

Message #46 received at 77415 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Konrad Hinsen <konrad.hinsen <at> fastmail.net>
To: Rutherther <rutherther <at> ditigal.xyz>, Clément Lassieur
 <clement <at> lassieur.org>
Cc: ian <at> retrospec.tv, 77415 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#77415: Native Messaging in librewolf doesn't work
Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2025 10:31:58 +0200

Rutherther <rutherther <at> ditigal.xyz> writes:

>>> Okay, I was wrong. The problem is only when ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR is unset.
>>> When it's set to anywhere, like /, it works fine for me as well.
>>
>> Great!
>>
>> Closing :)
>
> Should this really be closed? I think it's a bug that ought to be fixed.
> Or at least the user's should get to know somehow they have to set it.
> If user is not using any extensions via Guix, they won't be able to use
> native messaging unless they know about this culprit.

I agree!

It's absolutely not obvious that LibreWolf users should
 - look for extension packages labeled "icecat"
 - set an undocumented environment variable to make the
   documented standard behavior of LibreWolf work

In particular, if it is possible to restore the standard behavior
(search for extensions under ~/.librewolf), that should be done.

Cheers,
  Konrad.

Message #49 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Clément Lassieur <clement <at> lassieur.org>
To: Rutherther via Bug reports for GNU Guix <bug-guix <at> gnu.org>
Cc: Rutherther <rutherther <at> ditigal.xyz>, 77415-reopen <at> debbugs.gnu.org,
 konrad.hinsen <at> fastmail.net, ian <at> retrospec.tv
Subject: Re: bug#77415: Native Messaging in librewolf doesn't work
Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2025 13:22:22 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

On Tue, Apr 08 2025, Rutherther via Bug reports for GNU Guix wrote:

>>> Okay, I was wrong. The problem is only when ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR is unset.
>>> When it's set to anywhere, like /, it works fine for me as well.
>>
>> Great!
>>
>> Closing :)
>
> Should this really be closed? I think it's a bug that ought to be fixed.
> Or at least the user's should get to know somehow they have to set it.
> If user is not using any extensions via Guix, they won't be able to use
> native messaging unless they know about this culprit.

Oh right, I reopen.

Would the attached patch fix your issue?  (Can't test it right now.)

Thanks,
Clément

[0001-gnu-librewolf-Create-lib-icecat-so-that-ICECAT_SYSTE.patch (text/x-diff, attachment)]

Message #56 received at 77415 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Clément Lassieur <clement <at> lassieur.org>
To: 77415 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Cc: Rutherther <rutherther <at> ditigal.xyz>, 77415-reopen <at> debbugs.gnu.org,
 konrad.hinsen <at> fastmail.net, ian <at> retrospec.tv
Subject: Re: bug#77415: Native Messaging in librewolf doesn't work
Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2025 17:14:46 +0200

On Tue, Apr 08 2025, Clément Lassieur wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 08 2025, Rutherther via Bug reports for GNU Guix wrote:
>
>>>> Okay, I was wrong. The problem is only when ICECAT_SYSTEM_DIR is unset.
>>>> When it's set to anywhere, like /, it works fine for me as well.
>>>
>>> Great!
>>>
>>> Closing :)
>>
>> Should this really be closed? I think it's a bug that ought to be fixed.
>> Or at least the user's should get to know somehow they have to set it.
>> If user is not using any extensions via Guix, they won't be able to use
>> native messaging unless they know about this culprit.
>
> Oh right, I reopen.
>
> Would the attached patch fix your issue?  (Can't test it right now.)

I could try the patch, it works.

Message #59 received at 77415 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Konrad Hinsen <konrad.hinsen <at> fastmail.net>
To: Clément Lassieur <clement <at> lassieur.org>
Cc: Rutherther <rutherther <at> ditigal.xyz>, 77415 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#77415: Native Messaging in librewolf doesn't work
Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2025 20:34:47 +0200

Clément Lassieur <clement <at> lassieur.org> writes:

>> Would the attached patch fix your issue?  (Can't test it right now.)
>
> I could try the patch, it works.

Great, thanks!

I had tried to build Librewolf with this patch, but my laptop is too
small for this. Parallel combination runs out of memory (I have "only"
16 GB), and serial compilation runs out of disk space.

I'll wait for this to appear as a substitute!

Thanks again,
  Konrad.

Message #62 received at 77415 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Clément Lassieur <clement <at> lassieur.org>
To: Konrad Hinsen <konrad.hinsen <at> fastmail.net>
Cc: Rutherther <rutherther <at> ditigal.xyz>, 77415 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#77415: Native Messaging in librewolf doesn't work
Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2025 19:34:32 +0200

On Tue, Apr 08 2025, Konrad Hinsen wrote:

> Clément Lassieur <clement <at> lassieur.org> writes:
>
>>> Would the attached patch fix your issue?  (Can't test it right now.)
>>
>> I could try the patch, it works.
>
> Great, thanks!
>
> I had tried to build Librewolf with this patch, but my laptop is too
> small for this. Parallel combination runs out of memory (I have "only"
> 16 GB), and serial compilation runs out of disk space.

I can understand this :)

> I'll wait for this to appear as a substitute!

It should be available on bordeaux.guix.gnu.org: 
https://data.qa.guix.gnu.org/gnu/store/3126vqyzvvf4xzj00xxpwylzg15482rq-librewolf-136.0.4-1.drv

(Triggered by https://issues.guix.gnu.org/77677)

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