title: Selenium in Ruby - can't get it working, and it's reset firefox to it's default installed state
body: <p>I've been using Selenium (with selenium rc, and the ide) in ruby, with rspec, for some time and it's been great.  I recently wiped my installation of ubuntu, however, and installed ubuntu 9.10.  I set selenium up again, which consisted of installing the selenium-client gem (1.2.17) and adding the selenium ide plugin in firefox.</p>
  
  <p>When i run a test, eg my most basic 'sanity check' test which just loads the google homepage, it hangs for ages then comes back with this error (below).</p>
  
  <p>Also, when i start firefox, it's gone back to its default installed state - no firebug, no selenium ide, no delicious etc, and it's forgotten my config settings.  It's as if it's loading the vanilla firefox that is used by the selenium rc server.</p>
  
  <p>here's that stack trace - can anyone give me any advice/help?  i'm kind of lost...
  thanks - max</p>
  
  <pre><code>Timeout::Error in 'google test can find Selenium'
  execution expired
  /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:54:in `rbuf_fill'
  /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:56:in `timeout'
  /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:76:in `timeout'
  /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:132:in `rbuf_fill'
  /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:116:in `readuntil'
  /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:126:in `readline'
  /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:2020:in `read_status_line'
  /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:2009:in `read_new'
  /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1050:in `request'
  /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1037:in `request'
  /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:543:in `start'
  /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1035:in `request'
  /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:845:in `post'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/selenium-client-1.2.17/lib/selenium/client/protocol.rb:88:in `http_post'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/selenium-client-1.2.17/lib/selenium/client/protocol.rb:12:in `remote_control_command'
  /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:56:in `timeout'
  /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:76:in `timeout'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/selenium-client-1.2.17/lib/selenium/client/protocol.rb:11:in `remote_control_command'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/selenium-client-1.2.17/lib/selenium/client/protocol.rb:19:in `string_command'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/selenium-client-1.2.17/lib/selenium/client/base.rb:85:in `start_new_browser_session'
  ./spec/selenium/tests/regular_user/google_spec.rb:12:
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/example/example_methods.rb:70:in `instance_eval'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/example/example_methods.rb:70:in `eval_each_fail_fast'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/example/example_methods.rb:70:in `each'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/example/example_methods.rb:70:in `eval_each_fail_fast'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/example/example_group_hierarchy.rb:17:in `run_before_each'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/example/example_methods.rb:103:in `run_before_each'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/example/example_methods.rb:124:in `before_each_example'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/example/example_methods.rb:39:in `execute'
  /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:48:in `timeout'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/example/example_methods.rb:37:in `execute'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/example/example_group_methods.rb:214:in `run_examples'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/example/example_group_methods.rb:212:in `each'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/example/example_group_methods.rb:212:in `run_examples'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/example/example_group_methods.rb:103:in `run'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/runner/example_group_runner.rb:23:in `run'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/runner/example_group_runner.rb:22:in `each'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/runner/example_group_runner.rb:22:in `run'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/runner/options.rb:151:in `run_examples'
  /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/rspec-1.2.9/lib/spec/runner/command_line.rb:9:in `run'
  script/spec:5:
  </code></pre>