I was able to reproduce this while strace-ing firefox. The file was lost too. (In fact it was empty. I'm not a bash expert, but is it possible that the strace-command provided does not write the file actually?)
However, I noticed a line in the strace-output that mentions that access was denied to the file "places.sqlite-journal" IT belonged to the root user. I executed this command: sudo chmod 777 ~/.mozilla/firefox/5tutnx4z.default/places.sqlite-journal and I started firefox again. This solved the problem, I was able to use the back button again. After starting firefox, the file "places.sqlite- journal" was owned by myself again, not by root, and its permissions were reset to "rw-r--r--". I have no idea why the file's owner was set to root. -- Firefox 3.0 Menu Buttons disabled https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/292474 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs