[SOLVED] Firefox: Could not initialize security component

Hello everyone,
I am having this issue with firefox:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Could_not_ini … _component
It started after my computer got shut down unexpectedly and arch wouldn't boot until I ran fsck manually.
Did that, fixed some errors in the usr partition, and sucessully rebooted. But when I started firefox, I got that error.
I tried all of the solutions presented at the link above.
I deleted profiles, created new profiles, deleted cert8.db, even uninstalled and reinstalled firefox.
None of that mattered. I still get the error and also cannot visit any websites except my home page.
I don't see any permission issue in the profiles directory. Firefox can create a new profile without error.
The error essentially disables firefox. Links will not be followed when clicked and addresses entered directly in the address bar will not load.
It's not a network issue because I can ping any site I want.
As a test, I installed epiphany and was able to load websites normally.
So I'm posting here hoping to get some other suggestions (apart from giving up on firefox).
Are there any other packages firefox depends on that I could try uninstalling and reinstalling?
Are their any other configuration files that firefox checks apart from those in /home/user/.mozilla/firefox?
Thanks in advance for any assistance.
Last edited by authentec (2012-07-05 15:56:21)

Lone_Wolf wrote:Have you tried creating a new user for testing purposes and running firefox for that user ?
I did try launching it as root.
(Yeah, I know, I was desperate to rule out anything weird)
It successfully created the /root/.mozilla/profile and then displayed the same error and behavior.
I suspect that suggested common reason for the error message is not the reason in my case.
To the other poster, I didn't try any other version of Firefox yet.
I have 13.01 from the repos.

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