[tor-bugs] #12774 [meek]: "Firefox is already running" when you select meek after bootstrapping

Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki blackhole at torproject.org
Sat Aug 2 17:25:33 UTC 2014


#12774: "Firefox is already running" when you select meek after bootstrapping
------------------------+-----------------
     Reporter:  dcf     |      Owner:  dcf
         Type:  defect  |     Status:  new
     Priority:  normal  |  Milestone:
    Component:  meek    |    Version:
   Resolution:          |   Keywords:
Actual Points:          |  Parent ID:
       Points:          |
------------------------+-----------------

Comment (by dcf):

 The proximate cause seems to be tor starting two instances of meek-client-
 torbrowser, which both try to start their own headless browser helper with
 -no-remote. Here is the tor log showing four rounds of "does not provide
 any needed transports" messages, the first two with meek and the next two
 without, when I select meek at 09:56:53.000:
 {{{
 Aug 02 09:56:53.000 [notice] Pluggable transport proxy (fte exec
 ./TorBrowser/Tor/PluggableTransports/fteproxy.bin --managed) does not
 provide any needed transports and will not be launched.
 Aug 02 09:56:53.000 [notice] Pluggable transport proxy
 (obfs2,obfs3,scramblesuit exec
 ./TorBrowser/Tor/PluggableTransports/obfsproxy.bin managed) does not
 provide any needed transports and will not be launched.
 Aug 02 09:56:53.000 [notice] Pluggable transport proxy (flashproxy exec
 ./TorBrowser/Tor/PluggableTransports/flashproxy-client --register :0
 :9000) does not provide any needed transports and will not be launched.
 Aug 02 09:56:53.000 [notice] Pluggable transport proxy (meek exec
 ./TorBrowser/Tor/PluggableTransports/meek-client-torbrowser --
 ./TorBrowser/Tor/PluggableTransports/meek-client) does not provide any
 needed transports and will not be launched.
 Aug 02 09:56:53.000 [notice] Pluggable transport proxy (fte exec
 ./TorBrowser/Tor/PluggableTransports/fteproxy.bin --managed) does not
 provide any needed transports and will not be launched.
 Aug 02 09:56:53.000 [notice] Pluggable transport proxy
 (obfs2,obfs3,scramblesuit exec
 ./TorBrowser/Tor/PluggableTransports/obfsproxy.bin managed) does not
 provide any needed transports and will not be launched.
 Aug 02 09:56:53.000 [notice] Pluggable transport proxy (flashproxy exec
 ./TorBrowser/Tor/PluggableTransports/flashproxy-client --register :0
 :9000) does not provide any needed transports and will not be launched.
 Aug 02 09:56:53.000 [notice] Pluggable transport proxy (meek exec
 ./TorBrowser/Tor/PluggableTransports/meek-client-torbrowser --
 ./TorBrowser/Tor/PluggableTransports/meek-client) does not provide any
 needed transports and will not be launched.
 Aug 02 09:56:53.000 [notice] Pluggable transport proxy (fte exec
 ./TorBrowser/Tor/PluggableTransports/fteproxy.bin --managed) does not
 provide any needed transports and will not be launched.
 Aug 02 09:56:53.000 [notice] Pluggable transport proxy
 (obfs2,obfs3,scramblesuit exec
 ./TorBrowser/Tor/PluggableTransports/obfsproxy.bin managed) does not
 provide any needed transports and will not be launched.
 Aug 02 09:56:53.000 [notice] Pluggable transport proxy (flashproxy exec
 ./TorBrowser/Tor/PluggableTransports/flashproxy-client --register :0
 :9000) does not provide any needed transports and will not be launched.
 Aug 02 09:56:53.000 [notice] Pluggable transport proxy (fte exec
 ./TorBrowser/Tor/PluggableTransports/fteproxy.bin --managed) does not
 provide any needed transports and will not be launched.
 Aug 02 09:56:53.000 [notice] Pluggable transport proxy
 (obfs2,obfs3,scramblesuit exec
 ./TorBrowser/Tor/PluggableTransports/obfsproxy.bin managed) does not
 provide any needed transports and will not be launched.
 Aug 02 09:56:53.000 [notice] Pluggable transport proxy (flashproxy exec
 ./TorBrowser/Tor/PluggableTransports/flashproxy-client --register :0
 :9000) does not provide any needed transports and will not be launched.
 Aug 02 09:56:54.000 [notice] Our directory information is no longer up-to-
 date enough to build circuits: We have no usable consensus.
 Aug 02 09:57:32.000 [warn] The communication stream of managed proxy
 './TorBrowser/Tor/PluggableTransports/meek-client-torbrowser' is 'closed'.
 Most probably the managed proxy stopped running. This might be a bug of
 the managed proxy, a bug of Tor, or a misconfiguration. Please enable
 logging on your managed proxy and check the logs for errors.
 Aug 02 09:57:32.000 [notice] Failed to terminate process with PID '21979'
 ('No child processes').
 Aug 02 09:57:33.000 [warn] We were supposed to connect to bridge
 '0.0.2.0:1' using pluggable transport 'meek', but we can't find a
 pluggable transport proxy supporting 'meek'. This can happen if you
 haven't provided a ClientTransportPlugin line, or if your pluggable
 transport proxy stopped running.
 Aug 02 09:58:58.000 [notice] Tried for 120 seconds to get a connection to
 [scrubbed]:80. Giving up. (waiting for circuit)
 Aug 02 09:59:14.000 [notice] Owning controller connection has closed --
 exiting now.
 }}}

 Of course, meek-client-torbrowser should be able to cope with two
 instances of itself running at once.
 It may be that -no-remote, [https://gitweb.torproject.org/pluggable-
 transports/meek.git/blob/7284693d057b53ff156f0e4cb3e145e3356dcec7:/meek-
 client-torbrowser/meek-client-torbrowser.go#l81 used in] meek-client-
 torbrowser, is not what we want. If profile.meek-http-helper is opened
 twice, it seems we want both to run, using the same profile, and it's
 probably okay to have them even in the same process.

 Firefox has -new-instance, which is separate from -no-remote. Historically
 [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=716110 their relationship
 has been muddled]. In the past, -no-remote was required, if you didn't
 want Firefox to ignore your -profile option, but that may no longer be the
 case. Also note that Tor Browser has [https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor-
 browser.git/commitdiff/e9b44888df375ca2cf73e03eb580ca84516272e5 a patch]
 (in the 4.0 branch, not in maint-3.6) that makes -no-remote the default,
 and to turn it off you must use -allow-remote.

 So we should try starting the helper with either "-allow-remote -new-
 instance" or "-allow-remote".

--
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/12774#comment:1>
Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki <https://trac.torproject.org/>
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