BleachBit corrupts Firefox and possibly more

[ffrr]

Hi,

The other day I installed BleachBit from the Software Center, indending to routinely clear cookies and caches for both Firefox and Flash ever day before shutting down. So I checked the four items. Nothing else. The delete list was frighteningly long (> 2000 files), considering I had manually cleaned the Firefox cache the day before. A cursory inspection of the delete list verified the word 'cache' somewhere in the path names. The ensuing purge must have deleted stuff it shouldn't have, because Firefox no longer loads some web pages. I spent most of this day googling, reading FAQs and pertinent posts. I ran apt-get 'update', 'upgrade' and even 'install gnome', which installed another frightening number of files, taking about ten minutes. I reinstalled Firefox. There is no improvement. If anything changed, it is more sluggish response.

What could a remedial strategy be in this situation?

Frederic

[HermanAB]

Well, you could start by sending a nice email to the makers of Bleachbit, asking them to please stop distributing their program...

After you got that off your chest, you could make a new user account, copy all your data from your old user account to the new user account, fix the owner:group of the copied files, add the new user to the sudoers file and then you should be back in business.

[deadflowr]

You might try simply creating a new (another) firefox profile
Done two ways,

Either open firefox and in the menu go to Help > Troubleshooting Information > scroll down to Profiles click on about:profiles
(or simply type about:profiles in the address bar)
Then in Profiles, click on Create New Profile and follow the directions; you might consider naming it something like Test profile.

or

open a terminal and type

firefox --ProfileManager

and create the new profile here.

Then set it to start with the new profile and see if that has the same issues or not.
If it does have the same issues then you can't really blame bleachbit.
And if it works like it should then lesson learned about what not to do with bleachbit.
(Not to say you've done wrong, but to say that bleachbit can have some wrinkles, if you're not aware of them.
And now you'd be aware)

[VMC]

I use bleachbit everyday sometimes several times a day. Never an issue. I'd be interested in your "purge must have deleted stuff it shouldn't have" files that were deleted.

Output your 'bleachbit.ini' file.

[ffrr]

Thank you all. I think Firefox is off the hook. I reinstalled it. And 'bleachbit.ini' had a line path=... The 950 files I found in that path all had a creation date later than that bleachbit action. Suspecting a problem related to package inconsistencies, I did an 'autoclean' and achieved the total loss of internet access (Server not found). Most pages had been accessible before the 'auoclean'. Only one didn't respond (without error nessage). Now all say 'Server not found'. (I am writing this on another machine.)

'bleachbit.ini' looks different now, although I haven't used it again:

[bleachbit]
auto_hide = True
auto_start = False
check_beta = False
check_online_updates = True
shred = False
exit_done = False
delete_confirmation = True
units_iec = False
first_start = False
version = 1.10
hashsalt = 4b37c0de7aa6a21651cfa0c6d277c38767e28d065a12bddff5a0714e687aa9df18a1c2772bdb9a06e6e2377061ffd3f92d6ded3ff2bad2c113ac6f79bd48efe0

[hashpath]

[list/shred_drives]
0 = /home/fr/.cache

[preserve_languages]
en = True

[tree]
flash.cookies = True
flash = True
flash.cache = True
firefox.passwords = False
firefox = True
firefox.cache = True
firefox.cookies = True

(End of 'bleachbit.ini')

I'm sure I could restore some sanity with proper package management, if I knew where to start. I have gotten in trouble with apt-get a few times and found that it is very easy to make thing worse taking shorts in the semi-dark. There must be utilities for checking overall package consistency, analysis, repair . . . I will greatly appreciate suggestions.

Thanks

Frederic

-------------------------------------------------------------------

This is what autoclean did (for what it's worth):

root@hatchbox-2:~# apt-get -s install compiz
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
compiz is already the newest version (1:0.9.12.2+16.04.20160823-0ubuntu1).
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  account-plugin-aim account-plugin-jabber account-plugin-salut account-plugin-yahoo alacarte bijiben caribou-antler dconf-editor
  dconf-tools dleyna-renderer empathy empathy-common fairymax finger five-or-more fonts-cantarell four-in-a-row geoclue-2.0
  gir1.2-champlain-0.12 gir1.2-geocodeglib-1.0 gir1.2-gfbgraph-0.2 gir1.2-gmenu-3.0 gir1.2-grilo-0.2 gir1.2-gtkchamplain-0.12
  gir1.2-mediaart-2.0 gir1.2-rest-0.7 gir1.2-tracker-1.0 gir1.2-zpj-0.0 gnome-chess gnome-clocks gnome-dictionary gnome-documents
  gnome-games gnome-getting-started-docs gnome-klotski gnome-logs gnome-maps gnome-music gnome-nettool gnome-nibbles
  gnome-online-miners gnome-photos gnome-robots gnome-shell-extension-weather gnome-shell-extensions gnome-sound-recorder
  gnome-tetravex gnome-themes-standard gnome-tweak-tool goobox gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf hamster-applet hamster-indicator
  hitori hoichess iagno libappindicator1 libbonobo2-0 libbonobo2-common libbonoboui2-0 libbonoboui2-common libcaribou-gtk-module
  libcaribou-gtk3-module libclutter-gst-2.0-0 libcoverart1 libcoverartcc1v5 libdiscid0 libgdict-1.0-9 libgdict-common libgeoclue-2-0
  libgfbgraph-0.2-0 libglade2-0 libgnome-2-0 libgnome2-0 libgnome2-bin libgnome2-common libgnomecanvas2-0 libgnomecanvas2-common
  libgnomeui-0 libgnomeui-common libgsf-bin libgsound0 libidl-2-0 libindicator7 libjansson4 liborbit-2-0 liborbit2
  librygel-core-2.6-2 librygel-db-2.6-2 librygel-renderer-2.6-2 librygel-renderer-gst-2.6-2 librygel-server-2.6-2
  libsofia-sip-ua-glib3 libsofia-sip-ua0 libtelepathy-farstream3 libwnck-common libwnck22 libzapojit-0.0-0 lightsoff
  mcp-account-manager-uoa polari python-appindicator python-gconf python-gnome2 python-gobject python-pyorbit python-wnck python-xdg
  quadrapassel rygel rygel-playbin rygel-tracker swell-foop tali telepathy-gabble telepathy-idle telepathy-logger telepathy-rakia
  telepathy-salut unoconv xboard
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 23 not upgraded.
root@hatchbox-2:~# apt autoremove
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  account-plugin-aim account-plugin-jabber account-plugin-salut account-plugin-yahoo alacarte bijiben caribou-antler dconf-editor
  dconf-tools dleyna-renderer empathy empathy-common fairymax finger five-or-more fonts-cantarell four-in-a-row geoclue-2.0
  gir1.2-champlain-0.12 gir1.2-geocodeglib-1.0 gir1.2-gfbgraph-0.2 gir1.2-gmenu-3.0 gir1.2-grilo-0.2 gir1.2-gtkchamplain-0.12
  gir1.2-mediaart-2.0 gir1.2-rest-0.7 gir1.2-tracker-1.0 gir1.2-zpj-0.0 gnome-chess gnome-clocks gnome-dictionary gnome-documents
  gnome-games gnome-getting-started-docs gnome-klotski gnome-logs gnome-maps gnome-music gnome-nettool gnome-nibbles
  gnome-online-miners gnome-photos gnome-robots gnome-shell-extension-weather gnome-shell-extensions gnome-sound-recorder
  gnome-tetravex gnome-themes-standard gnome-tweak-tool goobox gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf hamster-applet hamster-indicator
  hitori hoichess iagno libappindicator1 libbonobo2-0 libbonobo2-common libbonoboui2-0 libbonoboui2-common libcaribou-gtk-module
  libcaribou-gtk3-module libclutter-gst-2.0-0 libcoverart1 libcoverartcc1v5 libdiscid0 libgdict-1.0-9 libgdict-common libgeoclue-2-0
  libgfbgraph-0.2-0 libglade2-0 libgnome-2-0 libgnome2-0 libgnome2-bin libgnome2-common libgnomecanvas2-0 libgnomecanvas2-common
  libgnomeui-0 libgnomeui-common libgsf-bin libgsound0 libidl-2-0 libindicator7 libjansson4 liborbit-2-0 liborbit2
  librygel-core-2.6-2 librygel-db-2.6-2 librygel-renderer-2.6-2 librygel-renderer-gst-2.6-2 librygel-server-2.6-2
  libsofia-sip-ua-glib3 libsofia-sip-ua0 libtelepathy-farstream3 libwnck-common libwnck22 libzapojit-0.0-0 lightsoff
  mcp-account-manager-uoa polari python-appindicator python-gconf python-gnome2 python-gobject python-pyorbit python-wnck python-xdg
  quadrapassel rygel rygel-playbin rygel-tracker swell-foop tali telepathy-gabble telepathy-idle telepathy-logger telepathy-rakia
  telepathy-salut unoconv xboard
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 122 to remove and 23 not upgraded.
After this operation, 176 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y
(Reading database ... 256776 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing account-plugin-aim (3.12.11-0ubuntu3) ...
Removing account-plugin-jabber (3.12.11-0ubuntu3) ...
Removing account-plugin-salut (3.12.11-0ubuntu3) ...
Removing account-plugin-yahoo (3.12.11-0ubuntu3) ...
Removing alacarte (3.11.91-2) ...
Removing bijiben (3.18.2-1) ...
Removing caribou-antler (0.4.20-1) ...
Removing dconf-tools (0.24.0-2) ...
Removing dconf-editor (3.18.2-1) ...
Removing dleyna-renderer (0.4.0-1) ...
Removing mcp-account-manager-uoa (3.12.11-0ubuntu3) ...
Removing empathy (3.12.11-0ubuntu3) ...
Removing empathy-common (3.12.11-0ubuntu3) ...
Removing fairymax (4.8v-1) ...
Removing gnome-nettool (3.8.1-1build3) ...
Removing finger (0.17-15) ...
Removing gnome-games (1:3.14+3ubuntu1) ...
Removing five-or-more (1:3.18.0-1) ...
Removing fonts-cantarell (0.0.24-1~ubuntu16.04.0) ...
Removing four-in-a-row (1:3.18.2-1) ...
Removing gnome-maps (3.18.4-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing gnome-clocks (3.18.0-1build1) ...
Removing geoclue-2.0 (2.4.1-1) ...
Removing gir1.2-gtkchamplain-0.12:amd64 (0.12.13-1) ...
Removing gir1.2-champlain-0.12:amd64 (0.12.13-1) ...
Removing gir1.2-geocodeglib-1.0:amd64 (3.18.2-1) ...
Removing gir1.2-gfbgraph-0.2:amd64 (0.2.3-1) ...
Removing gnome-shell-extensions (3.18.3-2) ...
Removing gir1.2-gmenu-3.0:amd64 (3.13.3-6ubuntu3.1) ...
Removing gnome-music (3.18.2-1ubuntu1) ...
Removing gir1.2-grilo-0.2:amd64 (0.2.15-1) ...
Removing gir1.2-mediaart-2.0:amd64 (1.9.0-2) ...
Removing gnome-documents (3.18.3-0ubuntu0.16.04.1) ...
Removing gir1.2-zpj-0.0 (0.0.3-1ubuntu1) ...
Removing gir1.2-rest-0.7 (0.7.93-1) ...
Removing gir1.2-tracker-1.0:amd64 (1.6.2-0ubuntu1.1) ...
Removing gnome-chess (1:3.18.0-1) ...
Removing gnome-dictionary (3.18.0-2) ...
Removing gnome-getting-started-docs (3.18.2-1ubuntu1) ...
Removing gnome-klotski (1:3.18.2-1) ...
Removing gnome-logs (3.18.1-1ubuntu1) ...
Removing gnome-nibbles (1:3.18.2-1) ...
Removing gnome-photos (3.18.2-1) ...
Removing gnome-online-miners (3.14.3-1ubuntu2) ...
Removing gnome-robots (1:3.18.1-1) ...
Removing gnome-shell-extension-weather (0~20151125.gitccaa1eb-1) ...
Removing gnome-sound-recorder (3.18.2-1) ...
Removing gnome-tetravex (1:3.18.0-1) ...
Removing gnome-themes-standard:amd64 (3.18.0-2ubuntu1) ...
Removing gnome-tweak-tool (3.18.1-1) ...
Removing goobox (3.4.1-5) ...
Removing gtk2-engines:amd64 (1:2.20.2-3ubuntu1) ...
Removing gtk2-engines-pixbuf:amd64 (2.24.30-1ubuntu1.16.04.2) ...
Removing hamster-indicator (0.1+037dd2e-0ubuntu2) ...
Removing hamster-applet (2.91.3+git20120514.b9fec3e1-1ubuntu2) ...
Removing hitori (3.19.1-1) ...
Removing hoichess (0.10.3-6.1) ...
Removing iagno (1:3.18.2-1) ...
Removing python-appindicator (12.10.1+16.04.20170215-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing libappindicator1 (12.10.1+16.04.20170215-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing python-gnome2 (2.28.1+dfsg-1.1) ...
Removing libgnomeui-0:amd64 (2.24.5-3.1) ...
Removing libbonoboui2-0:amd64 (2.24.5-3ubuntu1) ...
Removing libgnome2-0:amd64 (2.32.1-5ubuntu1) ...
Removing libbonoboui2-common (2.24.5-3ubuntu1) ...
Removing libcaribou-gtk-module:amd64 (0.4.20-1) ...
Removing libcaribou-gtk3-module:amd64 (0.4.20-1) ...
Removing libclutter-gst-2.0-0:amd64 (2.0.18-1) ...
Removing libcoverart1:amd64 (1.0.0+git20150706-6) ...
Removing libcoverartcc1v5:amd64 (1.0.0+git20150706-6) ...
Removing libdiscid0:amd64 (0.6.1-5) ...
Removing libgdict-1.0-9:amd64 (3.18.0-2) ...
Removing libgdict-common (3.18.0-2) ...
Removing libgeoclue-2-0:amd64 (2.4.1-1) ...
Removing libgfbgraph-0.2-0:amd64 (0.2.3-1) ...
Removing libgnomecanvas2-0:amd64 (2.30.3-2) ...
Removing libglade2-0:amd64 (1:2.6.4-2) ...
Removing libgnome2-bin (2.32.1-5ubuntu1) ...
Removing libgnomecanvas2-common (2.30.3-2) ...
Removing libgnomeui-common (2.24.5-3.1) ...
Removing libgsf-bin (1.14.36-1) ...
Removing libgsound0:amd64 (1.0.2-1ubuntu1) ...
Removing python-pyorbit (2.24.0-7.1) ...
Removing liborbit2:amd64 (1:2.14.19-1build1) ...
Removing libidl-2-0:amd64 (0.8.14-4) ...
Removing libindicator7 (12.10.2+16.04.20151208-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing libjansson4:amd64 (2.7-3) ...
Removing rygel-tracker (0.28.3-1) ...
Removing rygel-playbin (0.28.3-1) ...
Removing rygel (0.28.3-1) ...
Removing librygel-db-2.6-2 (0.28.3-1) ...
Removing librygel-renderer-gst-2.6-2 (0.28.3-1) ...
Removing librygel-renderer-2.6-2 (0.28.3-1) ...
Removing librygel-server-2.6-2 (0.28.3-1) ...
Removing telepathy-rakia (0.8.0-3) ...
Removing libsofia-sip-ua-glib3 (1.12.11+20110422.1-2ubuntu1) ...
Removing libsofia-sip-ua0 (1.12.11+20110422.1-2ubuntu1) ...
Removing libtelepathy-farstream3:amd64 (0.6.2-1build1) ...
Removing python-wnck (2.32.0+dfsg-3) ...
Removing libwnck22:amd64 (1:2.30.7-5ubuntu1.1) ...
Removing libwnck-common (1:2.30.7-5ubuntu1.1) ...
Removing libzapojit-0.0-0 (0.0.3-1ubuntu1) ...
Removing lightsoff (1:3.18.0-1) ...
Removing polari (3.18.1-2) ...
Removing python-gconf (2.28.1+dfsg-1.1) ...
Removing python-gobject (3.20.0-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing python-xdg (0.25-4) ...
Removing quadrapassel (1:3.18.0-1) ...
Removing swell-foop (1:3.18.1-1) ...
Removing tali (1:3.18.0-1) ...
Removing telepathy-gabble (0.18.3-2build1) ...
Removing telepathy-idle (0.2.0-2) ...
Removing telepathy-logger (0.8.2-1) ...
Removing telepathy-salut (0.8.1-5ubuntu1) ...
Removing unoconv (0.7-1.1) ...
Removing xboard (4.8.0-2) ...
Removing libgnome-2-0:amd64 (2.32.1-5ubuntu1) ...
Removing libbonobo2-0:amd64 (2.32.1-3) ...
Removing libbonobo2-common (2.32.1-3) ...
Removing libgnome2-common (2.32.1-5ubuntu1) ...
Removing liborbit-2-0:amd64 (1:2.14.19-1build1) ...
Removing librygel-core-2.6-2 (0.28.3-1) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.13.3-6ubuntu3.1) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.22-1ubuntu5.1) ...
Processing triggers for bamfdaemon (0.5.3~bzr0+16.04.20160824-0ubuntu1) ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf-2.index...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.59ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.15-0ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.5-1) ...
Processing triggers for libglib2.0-0:amd64 (2.48.2-0ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for shared-mime-info (1.5-2ubuntu0.1) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.23-0ubuntu9) ...
Processing triggers for gconf2 (3.2.6-3ubuntu6) ...
Processing triggers for menu (2.1.47ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for fontconfig (2.11.94-0ubuntu1.1) ...
Processing triggers for dbus (1.10.6-1ubuntu3.3) ...
Processing triggers for install-info (6.1.0.dfsg.1-5) ...
Processing triggers for doc-base (0.10.7) ...
Processing 2 removed doc-base files...

[VMC]

Please you CODE tags like mine below:

[bleachbit]
auto_hide = True
auto_start = False
check_beta = False
check_online_updates = True
shred = False
exit_done = False
delete_confirmation = True
units_iec = False
first_start = False
version = 1.12
hashsalt = 9783fa0e051ba81b834dd46ae045bf8d8576d242dd3fc292d2b574e1e1e0f180dea4aab554d7dfb111e4f7a0063eba411c29794a5a837b57c8487dcadc0e998d
[hashpath]

[list/shred_drives]
0 = /home/vmc/.cache
[preserve_languages]
en = True
[tree]
apt = True
apt.autoclean = True
apt.autoremove = True
apt.clean = True
firefox = True
firefox.backup = True
firefox.cache = True
firefox.crash_reports = True
firefox.dom = True
firefox.download_history = True
firefox.forms = True
firefox.session_restore = True
firefox.site_preferences = True
firefox.url_history = True
firefox.vacuum = True
libreoffice = True
libreoffice.cache = True
libreoffice.history = True
system.cache = True
system = True
system.localizations = True
system.recent_documents = True
system.rotated_logs = True
system.tmp = True
system.trash = True
thumbnails = True
thumbnails.cache = True
x11 = True
x11.debug_logs = True

[ffrr]

VCM, thanks. I am keeping your ini, in case I decide to use bleachbit ever again. I see that you have version 1.12. Mine is 1.10. So I can't just switch inis. My most urgent need is to get Firefox back on line and for that, I am fairly sure, I need to reinstall important package components that have gotten thrown out first by bleachbit and then by autoclean, and in order to do that I need to find out which ones are missing. You asked the question. How would you find out if you had my machine?

Oh,I just notice, it wasn't 'autoclean'. It was 'autoremove' I called, although by recommendation of apt, I should have been more distrustful. I have a machine which autoremove completely wiped out some four years ago, down to the bare disk, or the BIOS I guess. It is still a good machine (Dell) but it has been waiting for four years or so to get set up again. When it happened I replaced it with a new machine to keep going, rather than tinkering open-ended, careful not to destroy data to the extent possible.

Frederic

[Frogs Hair]

Autoremove usually doesn't cause a problem unless proposed or 3rd party packages are installed. Did you have the gnome-shell or desktop environment installed on the computer in question? This might account for some of the packages listed in your output. I see gnome-tweak and shell-extensions were removed and would be there only if gnome-shell was installed. I'm Bleachbit user since 2010.

[yoshii]

Yeah, it's the autoremove. I use BleachBit also, and I also had issues with that.
I also had issues with apt-get asking to do autoremove for me. I never accept that dare because it lists files I still need.
So the problem is probably with apt making dumb assumptions.
I think it's because some programs require some DLL's that they install, but apt assumes that they aren't needed if they aren't linked in some formal way.
It's the same on MS Windows.

[ffrr]

Did it!

I ran ran 'apt-get upgrade' again. It loaded twenty-four files and I'm back in business. I will sleep well tonight and henceforth run 'bleachbit', if at all, with the indicated circumspection, 'autoremove' too. (One post I came across roaming forums called BleachBit a 'wrecking ball' and in no uncertain terms advised against using it. But again, you guys seem to be comfortable with it.

Frederic