[FIXED] Firefox says it's already running, but it isn't

[Objekt]

I reinstalled Kubuntu 9.04 (64 bit) recently and for some reason, this time I'm having a problem with Firefox.

I installed all the firefox stuff with KPackage, but something must be broken. Whenever I try to run Firefox by clicking on the icon in the Internet group of the K menu, I get an error dialog that says "Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system."

Obviously that's not the case, as it happens when I've just logged in and haven't run anything yet. Also, Firefox is not listed as a running process in the System Monitor application.

I can run Firefox from the command line by using sudo. But I shouldn't have to do that, should I?

What's going on, and how do I fix it?

[vinnywright]

Re: Firefox says it's already running, but it isn't

you could try

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get check
sudo apt-get -f install

to see if thars eney broken packages?

or see if top show's it runing?

sounds like if root can run it but user cant mabey something rong in the home files /home/you/.mozilla

VINNY

[zill]

Re: Firefox says it's already running, but it isn't

Objekt: Open Konsole then try the following code...

killall firefox

[kevinc]

Re: Firefox says it's already running, but it isn't

This error message is common if you have more than one profile.

It happens when you try to open firefox (or thunderbird) and it cannot open a lock file in a directory, such as a removable drive, then it gives this message, thinking that it is already running.

see this article

http://support.mozilla.com/zh-TW/kb/...not+responding

[Guest]

Re: Firefox says it's already running, but it isn't

It happened to me sometimes because you just closed it and wanted to start it again, right??
Wait a few more seconds and it will start again with no problems.

[Zorael]

Re: Firefox says it's already running, but it isn't

As for when it's hung (or you otherwise need to kill the process when it doesn't want to shut down), I believe the process name is firefox-bin. At any rate, just hit Ctrl+Esc and sort by name. Find it and terminate it.

[Objekt]

Re: Firefox says it's already running, but it isn't

That's exactly the problem, I get the "Firefox is already running" nonsense when it is definitely NOT running, before I've started anything at all, and after running "killall firefox" (which notes that nothing was terminated, because there was no Firefox process running).

It seems to have something to do with profiles. I noticed that if I run profilemanager ("firefox -profilemanager" command) and create a new, empty profile, then run with it, Firefox starts right up.

The problem may be linked to the Firefox Environment Backup Extension (FEBE). Once I had Firefox installed under Linux, I brought in a full profile backup from my Windows XP installation of Firefox (I'm dual-booting). I have done this before with no problems, but at those times I probably had slightly different extensions in my profile. One or more of them must now be conflicting with Kubuntu somehow.

Also I'm getting no sound in Flash videos. This seems to be a common problem.

[Teunis]

Re: Firefox says it's already running, but it isn't

Yesterday when I was playing with the Shiretoko version (3.5) I got the same issue.
Removing the lock file from the .mozilla/firefox/something.default directory seemed to fix it.

[kevinc]

Re: Firefox says it's already running, but it isn't

I read this morning on another forum that upgrading firefox can lead to the old profile being used and this causes the error you mentioned.

If you re-installed, and used you existing home, then you probably have the old firefox profile and firefox cannot open a lock file there.

Check your /home/yourname/.mozilla/firefox directory. If you have one profile.ini and one profile then you should be OK. If firefox has put another profile, simply see what name is used in profile.ini (its text) and delete the other profile. Then it should work.

I have an idea that if you delete all profiles, then start firefox, it will create a new one and work, but, I'm not sure.
Read the post at http://support.mozilla.com/en/kb/Managing+profiles

also see http://support.mozilla.com/en/kb/Fir...not+responding

[Objekt]

Re: Firefox says it's already running, but it isn't

It's fixed! Yay!

Must have had something to do with the upgrade, except I thought I just installed 3.5 directly. Oh well.

Anyway, what I did was back up my profile - complete with all the extensions, bookmarks, etc. - before I did anything else, using Firefox Environment Backup Extension (FEBE).

Then, I opened the hidden .mozilla folder in my /home/objekt folder using sudo ("sudo dolphin"), went into the "firefox" folder, and trashed all profile folders plus profile.ini.

Upon the next startup of Firefox (using the normal command, just "firefox" this time), I reinstalled FEBE manually. Then I used FEBE to create a new profile with my username & restored my earlier profile backup to it.

Worked like a charm!