[R] R-2.1.0 search engine works with mozilla browser but not firefox

[Marc Schwartz]

On Fri, 2005-04-29 at 11:34 -0700, Waichler, Scott R wrote:
>   > > I'm running R-2.1.0 on a Linux box and found that the HTML search 
> > > engine help would not work with Firefox 1.0.3 but would work with 
> > > Mozilla 1.7.7.  I have Java Runtime Environment 1.5.0_02 
> > installed.  
> > > With Firefox, when I launch help.start() and click to the search 
> > > engine, it brings up the first page with "Applet 
> > SearchEngine started" 
> > > in the status bar, but clicking on one of the contents entries or 
> > > trying to search for a term does nothing.
> 
> > It works with Firefox 1.0.3 for me on Fedora Core 3.
> > 
> > Please consult the appropriate manual as linked from the 
> > search page: this is a configuration issue local to you.  One 
> > irritating part of FC3's updates is that they do not (at 
> > least for me) copy the plugins across, so I had manually to 
> > fix up my Firefox 1.0.3 update yesterday.  Sounds like your 
> > plugin is not set up correctly.
> 
> I followed the advice posted at
> http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/faqs/java.html#Linux to install the JRE
> plugin correctly:
> 
> "If you installed the JRE 5.0 RPM, this plugin is
> /usr/java/j2re1.5.0/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so - and to
> install it for Mozilla (including Mozilla Firefox), do the following:
> 
>     * Open a terminal
>     * Change to your Mozilla (or Mozilla Firefox) plugins directory
>     * Issue the following command: ln -s
> /usr/java/j2re1.5.0/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so

I believe the problem is related to the change in the installation
directory for the updated JVM from Sun.

If you use the jre1.5.0_02 from java.sun.com, then the plugin is
installed in:

/usr/java/jre1.5.0_02/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so

I just downloaded the updated RPM binary installer from java.sun.com.

A key step here is that you need to remove the old 1.5 version:

rpm -e jre-1.5.0-fcs

With both versions installed, there appear to be conflicts. The new
installer appears to use "rpm -i" rather than "rpm -U", which leaves
both versions in place. Testing at the site below with both versions
installed fails.

Once you have properly done the above, then go here:

http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml

to test your java plug-in installation.

> Important! If you install your JRE in a different way (self extracting
> package, debian package, etc), libjavaplugin_oji.so will quite likely be
> in a different location. Do not just blindly use the command listed
> above!" 
> 
> All of this checked out for me, and Firefox still won't work with R's
> search engine.  Yes, I understand this isn't an R issue per se, but I
> don't know where to turn. . .


One more thing. In the Firefox URL bar, enter the following:

about:plugins

and then hit return. That will tell you which plugins have been enabled
for Firefox.

Needless to say, be sure that both Java and Javascript are enabled in
the Edit -> Preferences -> Web Features dialogue for Firefox.


HTH,

Marc Schwartz