On Wed, Sep 07, 2005 at 02:36:45PM -0400, David H. Gutteridge wrote:

> Hello fellow Firefox build sufferer,
> 
> I've successfully built Firefox several times on 2.1RC3/i386, several times
> because if you do get it running, you may find it has what appear to be
> problems relating to netdb functions.  I've put some emails out about the
> issue, but don't know of a solution at this point.  (See for instance
> http://mail-index.netbsd.org/current-users/2005/09/05/0003.html)
> 
> Basically, DNS queries hang, and they can do so even when the browser just
> starts up and calls the home page that's set.  This appears to be related
> to the fact that the pertinent function(s) in netdb.h are not thread-safe,
> but I'm a bit confused as to why the exact same package built with the very
> same options under 2.0.2/i386 works without such problems, I haven't figured
> that out.  (So I may be following a red herring.)
> 
> I have two Firefox builds in package form, the plain vanilla version and one
> with debugging symbols and output enabled.  If you're willing to trust some
> guy you don't know on the internet (ha ha), I can make them available to you.

"ugh".

I think this is a fallout from the __NetBSD_Version__ change in 2.1,
because firefox/mozilla/thunderbird test __NetBSD_Version__ and use
thread-safe resolver functions if it's recent enough.

my guess is that the change in NetBSD 2.1 means this code is turned on
in Firefox, but I think 2.1 lacks the thread-safe resolver functions,
so it breaks.

look at patches/* and see if you can tweak the version number to do
the right thing..

grant.