[Bug 882125] [NEW] nsIProcess doesn't work for some executables

[Christian Holtje]

Public bug reported:

Hello!

I'm the author of the Firefox extension "It's All Text!".  This
extension launches a local editor (like emacs or gvim) with the contents
of a textarea to make editing web pages (wikis, etc.) easier.

I have discovered a bug in Ubuntu's firefox:
https://github.com/docwhat/itsalltext/issues/18

It appears that the nsIProcess run*() methods fail for *some* binaries.

In the issue I referenced above, the user was able to use /usr/bin/gedit
but not /usr/bin/sublime-text-2.  It would fail to launch and return an
exit code 1.

The user was nice enough to let me screen share with him and we tried
runwAsync() (the default), runAsync(), and run() to launch the editor
but it failed in all cases.

We then downloaded Firefox from the official site (both the Ubuntu one
and the official one were 7.0.1) and nsIProcess then worked.

I am unable to figure out:

* How /usr/bin/gedit and /usr/bin/sublime-text-2 differ that one fails and one succeeds.
* How the Ubuntu Firefox and the Official Firefox differ.

I haven't a clue about what's going on here.

I am unable to reproduce this problem in my VM.  I'll ask the user to
subscribe to this bug in case you want to ask him additional questions.

Ciao!

** Affects: firefox (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/882125

Title:
  nsIProcess doesn't work for some executables

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