firefox
August 1, 2005 7:05 PM   Subscribe

I downloaded the updates for Firefox and now the browser refuses to open. How can I get my life back?
posted by bamassippi to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)
 
Start by trying to open the browser in safe mode. You can do this by going to the start menu -> Mozilla Firefox -> Firefox (Safe Mode). If this works, chances are good that one of the updates you downloaded is hanging on the installation. You should be able to remove them through the extension menu.

If this doesn't work, try creating a new profile by entering
firefox.exe -profilemanager
on a command line. If even this fails to run, something's gone horribly wrong.
posted by boo_radley at 7:24 PM on August 1, 2005


Download the newest version of Firefox from the website. Should do the trick.
posted by Sonic_Molson at 7:25 PM on August 1, 2005


Response by poster: That's the problem... I did download the newest version.
posted by bamassippi at 7:41 PM on August 1, 2005


I had a similar problem caused by my profile. Try boo_radley's suggestion. Firefox wouldn't run in safemode for me. I uninstalled Firefox and then found out where my profile was stored (it's not the same place as the rest of the application) and then started anew. You can probably copy your bookmarks and some other stuff before you do this and import them back later.
posted by mullacc at 7:52 PM on August 1, 2005


Have you looked to see if the firefox.exe process is still running? (via ctrl-alt-del) If it is, kill it manually then try to run Firefox again. More often than not this works for me.

However, on Mozillazine.org deleting your profile is pretty much the first step to resolving every problem.
posted by oddman at 7:53 PM on August 1, 2005


System restore?
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:25 PM on August 1, 2005


Safemode usually does it, but should that not work, here's what you can try:
Uninstall Firefox through the Windows' Control Panel.
You will NOT lose any of your personal settings/plugins. They may be disabled, but that's easy enough to remedy.

Then install the newly downloaded version (in the exact same location the older version was in), and see if it works.

This did the trick for me, hope it works for you as well.
posted by Grensgeval at 2:57 AM on August 2, 2005


I had this problem a while back. Solved it by deleting everything Firefox related from the "Application Data" directory after uninstalling Firefox from the install/remove programs directory. You'll lose all personal settings but hey. The "Application Data" directory is in Documents and Settings/Your User as of Windows 2000 but I think it's in the Windows directory in earlier versions.

In general, always uninstall the previous version of Firefox before installing a new one. You won't lose any personal settings by doing this, and it's safer.
posted by selfnoise at 5:11 AM on August 2, 2005


selfnoise wrote "In general, always uninstall the previous version of Firefox before installing a new one."

More true with pre-1.0 versions than now. I haven't had any issues with Firefox installing over an older profile unless there's a conflict with an extension. With a default install, it's not really necessary to remove prior to installing unless there is a problem.

If uninstall/reinstall doesn't help, rather than kill the entire FF profile directory, try removing some (or all) extensions by manually deleting the extensions folders and see if that helps...
posted by caution live frogs at 6:54 AM on August 2, 2005


Create a new profile. The current one is now corrupted.
posted by webmeta at 8:02 AM on August 5, 2005


« Older Name of song in "Deuce Bigalow" TV ad?   |   Feline floor folly. Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.