Comments on: Firefox is already running, but is not responding

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:28:01 +0000

Dear users!
I had the same problem on FF v3.5. But when I unchecked all 3 “Automatically check for updates to” check boxes (Tools->Options->Update) it started to go right. But I don’t know he reason…

By: Happowal

Happowal — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 05:14:59 +0000

I fixed the problem on my computer, i don’t know if it would work for anyone else but they might as well try it. If you’re on vista, click start and then type into the search box:

%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\

click the folder that comes up (that is your profile), and delete “parent.lock” (make sure you don’t have firefox open when you do this otherwise it wont work)

hope it helps. and thankyou to Damian, as he pointed me in the right direction.

[on a sidenote, i think its to do with the profiles and the lock.. i’m not sure i understand this correctly, but when firefox starts up, its supposed to create a lock and then that lock disappears when you close it, my firefox had a lock before it opened, and somehow i think that affects it? i hope this helps if anybody can understand this)

By: scube

scube — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 03:29:45 +0000

I have experienced this problem after I installed the latest Java.

I could restart Firefox every time by doing nothing else but shutting java down in the processes window of Task Manager.

It may be a Firefox issue or it may be a Java issue.

I have now installed an earlier Java and the issue is still there.

Windows 2000
Firefox 3.0.8
Java – current

scube

By: linux

linux — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:00:02 +0000

Right, because AVG is the problem, when I’m having this error message in Linux…

By: HellBringer

HellBringer — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:44:09 +0000

Good News people!!!
I’ve finally found the problem (at least in my conputer)

the piece of junk that has been anoying our try for a succesful execution of firefox iiiiis: “the AVG add-ons”

After iniciating FF3 in Safe-Mode, taking all the add-ons and everything else out, I realized the problem had stoped. I exited FF over and over again to make sure it worked.
Then, I started activating the add-ons 1 by 1 and exiting FF to try if it still worked. Until… guess what! After adding the AVG add-ons, FF didn’t work anymore. So then I deactivated the AVG add-ons. But it still didnt work. So I had to start FF in Safe-Mode once again.
I activated the add-ons again (except the AVG add-ons) and now I have my FF working perfectly.

Thanks for the help. Hope that this info. can also help you guys.

By: HellBringer

HellBringer — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:40:32 +0000

thank Martin

I’ll do the Safe-Mode thing

but how do I create a new profile?
and can someone explain how to do the batch file
and what to put in it?
i know what it is but not how to create it

By: Martin

Martin — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:54:10 +0000

Hellbringer you could try the following:

a) create a new profile and see if it happens there as well
b) run Firefox in Safe-Mode which disables all add-ons so that you know if an add-on might be the cause of the problem.

By: HellBringer

HellBringer — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:32:08 +0000

i spoke too soon
it doesnt work
i have no idea what to do

By: HellBringer

HellBringer — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:25:03 +0000

hey dude.head
at last someone has solved the problem
i did it too and it seems that it works
you have no idea of how good i feel now (or probably you do)
thaks to all
woo hoo my FF works

By: dude.head

dude.head — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:58:05 +0000

hey thanks for this,, i went to the “root” link and i had trial and error with the different causes and it turns out that just disabling the AVG Safesearch extension fixes my problem. now runs perfectly and i can start fireox after closing it without having to end process :P

By: R

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:56:16 +0000

I run zone alarm , and have found that if I turn down the internet zone to medium the problem of this recuring notification seems to disappear, however I am not expert enough to really understand why , except for the fact that I am visible to hackers while online . sometimes after I have opened ff3 I will go back to zone alarm and turn the settings back up.
works for me

By: Damian

Damian — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 23:11:28 +0000

I used to have this problem fairly regularly at uni running Linux (Fedora to be precise) and the problem seems to have been cause by a lock not being released.
In linux, these locks are found in ~/.mozilla/firefox/random string for profile/

The 2 files which need to be deleted are lock and .parentlock.

A simple shell script which removes these files and launches firefox is very easy to make and doesn’t seem to cause any problems either, as the locks are recreated as needed

By: roggaro

roggaro — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:11:55 +0000

happened for the first time to day and I´m using FF2…
to me it seems to be a an issue within windows.
was running JetAudio with ‘time critical’ file playback at the same time… so I just lowered and will see if it happens again

By: Jojo

Jojo — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:05:20 +0000

@madforit – try rebuilding your user profile.

By: AussieRodney

AussieRodney — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 07:38:38 +0000

Occasionally happens when I close the FF Preloader & attempt to start FF itself. Usually goes away on the second attempt.

By: madforit

madforit — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 06:11:53 +0000

Had this problem from the very first copy of firefox,and i agree its nothing to do with extensions/addons,glad to know its not just me.
Had to reformat my pc yesterday and decided to
start afresh with everything,even firefox 3
which after testing the first version hated and
was surprised how fast it now is,but still getting the firefox still running problem.

By: venkat

venkat — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 04:43:34 +0000

@martin
Yes I found this problem once I solved it by killing the Firefox process that’s as the solution I mentioned to this in my blog post also .Unless Firefox comes with solution to this in their knowledge base ,this is the temporary solution seems to be the solution

By: george

george — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:51:21 +0000

I have this problem all the time with firefox. I’ve always believed the cause was the privacy setting “always clear my private data when i close firefox”. You may have closed your firefox window but there may be a process in the background busy erasing your browser data. You can turn this privacy feature off and let a third party privacy utility take care of it. You might also try minimizing firefoxs cache.

By: paulo

paulo — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 02:14:47 +0000

Yeah, I hit this issue about 2 or 3 times a day. I use update checker too but there should be a real less janky solution.

By: clownboat

clownboat — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:37:36 +0000

I have it with FF 3.x on an irregular basis. Alas, I force a shutdown through task manager. My problem is I love my FF, I just want it clean and lean. Too much resource use. Unless I get a new laptop every year I can’t keep ahead of the resource curve.