Comments on: How to fix “Firefox is already running” error

By: dick wicks

dick wicks — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 01:07:44 +0000

why should i have to go throught all this stuff which I do not understand to use a browser that is supposed to be better than IE. I don’t have time for this crap. It makes me want to give in and just use the damn IE.

By: Phil

Phil — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:44:02 +0000

I fixed firefox by uninstalling zone alarm and using comodo firewall

By: rich

rich — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:22:17 +0000

as root copied the entire /root/.mozilla directory in over the .mozilla directory for the user w/ the issue. Updated permissions and ownership….all better

By: Kudos

Kudos — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:04:20 +0000

I had the same problem, but had been running my main profile using the -no-remote switch. To be able to run links from external programs (e.g., double clicking a link in an email client), the -no-remote switch has to be removed. Mozilla’s documentation states that it should never be run for the default profile (which it would seem also applies to whatever profile you use most of the time). (This documentation was mentioned in the original article above and may be found here: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_in_use)

For the record, I removed the switch and everything works like a charm now.

By: Srikanth Eswaran

Srikanth Eswaran — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:52:51 +0000

Jonathan,

Thanks, that circumvented the current problem on hand of mozilla not starting up.! I use fC 6 and the problem is resolved.

Srikanth.

By: Javaman59

Javaman59 — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:53:21 +0000

I had the problem (frequently) with Vista.

Rebooting always fixed it, but I’d had enough, and wanted to fix it without rebooting.

I found the parent.lock file in C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\, and tried to delete it. Windows prevents it, saying that it’s in use (even though Firefox is not in the task manager).

So I opened up a DOS shell, cd’d to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\ and ran “firefox.exe -profilemanager”.

I created a new profile, and used the browser (in the wizard) to make it point to the old profile. No dice – it still thinks the “parent.lock” is in use.

This worked:

– I used Explorer to copy the profile folder, within the Profiles folder. Windows doesn’t copy the “parent.lock”, and another file, because they are “in use”. Rename the new folder to “new.default”
- Run “firefox.exe -profilemanager”
- rename the old profile to “profile.save”
- create a new profile, call it “default”
- When the wizard asks for a profile folder, browse to the copied folder, ie. “new.default”
- Run Firefox!

By: Zach

Zach — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:59:38 +0000

Haha I’m a nub, I’ve just been restarting my PC manually for ages because I couldn’t be fucked looking up a solution. Took me all of 30 seconds to find this page (Ctrl+alt+del and ending process wasn’t working for me)

By: johnstone

johnstone — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 19:42:27 +0000

I dont know if anybody can help me but, I’ve been using firefox and ever since i upgraded to 3.05 i cannot get a connection to the internet and its been doing this for about a week

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:07:51 +0000

On linux if all else fails I’ve found in the past:
running in bash
firefox -ProfileManager
starts the profileManager for creating to create a new profile
and then start everything up smoothly and even copy your
old profile’s bookmarks into the new one, will also work in Windows I think
see http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Managing+profiles
for more information

By: sar

sar — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 19:09:42 +0000

I’m late on this thread but I am trying to solve this problem, and using the advice in this thread. Wish me luck.

I’d like to link the list of add ons that are known to cause problems – I wonder if IE Tab was giving me trouble. I can’t install IE View Lite because I’m in the latest FF version (a Beta) because I needed a different add on that was only for the Beta (SIGH)

In case this helps anyone:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Problematic_extensions