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Firefox borked on Windows 10


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Hi all,

 

I am experiencing an issue with Firefox on a Windows 10 laptop. I have been searching for a solution but nothing has worked, hopefully somebody here can offer some advice :100:

 

Firefox no longer opens. I cannot kill the firefox.exe process in Task Manager nor through the Command prompt using Taskkill. After I uninstall Firefox and reboot my machine, the firefox.exe process is no longer displayed in Task Manager. I do a fresh install of Firefox but when I try to open it I receive the error:

 

Firefox is already running, but is not responding. The old Firefox process must be closed to open a new window.

 

I press the Close Firefox button and it adds another firefox.exe process In Task Manager. The same error (as above) is displayed. I can end all of the firefox.exe processes except for 1. When I try to close the last process, I receive this error:

 

The operation could not be completed. Access is denied.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Cheers,

Matthew

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First of all.

 

1 - Uninstall Firefox

 

2 - Open File Explorer, navigate to "C:\Users\YOUR USERNAME\AppData\Local\Mozilla"

 

Delete the Folder called Mozilla It should contain a Firefox Folder along with your browser profile.

 

3 - Restart your machine

 

4 - Grab a new copy of the Firefox installer from the legitimate source eg: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

 

5 - Install it

 

6 - Just to be sure restart your machine again

 

7 - Try it now

 

Cheers,

 

Brad

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First of all.

 

1 - Uninstall Firefox

 

2 - Open File Explorer, navigate to "C:\Users\YOUR USERNAME\AppData\Local\Mozilla"

 

Delete the Folder called Mozilla It should contain a Firefox Folder along with your browser profile.

 

3 - Restart your machine

 

4 - Grab a new copy of the Firefox installer from the legitimate source eg: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

 

5 - Install it

 

6 - Just to be sure restart your machine again

 

7 - Try it now

 

Cheers,

 

Brad

 

Thanks for your reply @Brad :)

 

I followed your steps exactly, however at Step 7 I receive the same error "Firefox is already running, but is not responding." I can't kill the process in the TaskManager or through the command prompt :cry

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Last night I had what I thought were graphics issues on a win10 PC running FireFox. 5 -7 bands of crap from top of screen to bottom with what I was looking at on Firefox still in the background. Took out the mouse and could only shutdown the PC killing the power to it. ( normal PC power button would only reboot Win 10, that's different) so I literally pulled the power to the PC.

Powered the PC up and there was an immediate WIN 10 update. After than machine was still sluggish but graphics errors were gone. Got a Firefox update this morning and machine has been working sweet since.

May be related?.

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Here's one for you. For some reason the Aussie Arcade website only opens in script with Firefox on my gaming rig .. and in typical me fashion i just open it in Chrome now rather than attend to the problem. One of these days ....

I've had a very similar problem to the OP and i did pretty much exactly what Brad said to do and it cured it.

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That the problem with computers and software. There are countless variations to contend with.

 

Normally deleting the Users Profile gets rid of almost all problems. Alternatively you can create a new profile following this: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles but if you deleted the Mozilla Directory then I'm not sure how this process could help.

 

You could also try removing the registry entry after un-installation but this is a small chance of fixing it:

 

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mozilla

 

Brad

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Here's one for you. For some reason the Aussie Arcade website only opens in script with Firefox on my gaming rig .. and in typical me fashion i just open it in Chrome now rather than attend to the problem. One of these days ....

I've had a very similar problem to the OP and i did pretty much exactly what Brad said to do and it cured it.

 

What do you mean by opening it up in script? I'm a devout Firefox user so colour me intrigued.

From the analytics most people seem to use Chrome.

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Thanks for all the replies :)

 

I have done some more testing, these are my findings so far:

 

1a) If I reboot or shut down the machine without killing the firefox.exe process, the OS will attempt to restart Firefox after it has loaded. This causes an endless loop with the "Not responding" popup.

1b) If I shut down the machine using "shutdown /p" from the Command prompt, the OS will not attempt to restart Firefox. This resolves the endless loop.

2) If I start Firefox manually after the reboot in step 1b, Firefox opens and I can use it. However, if I close Firefox and try to re-open it, I get the "Not responding" popup again and I can't kill the firefox.exe process through Task Manager or the Command prompt. I must run step 1b again.

 

Once the firefox.exe process is running, it can't be stopped without a reboot using "shutdown /p" from the Command prompt. I don't understand why Firefox is locking the process :unsure

 

Cheers,

Matthew

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Matt, not sure if this will help but try turning OFF 'Fast Startup' (I think it's enabled by default). I think this is the difference between your 1a and 1b. Fast startup is like closing down in a semi hibernation mode. It keeps a snapshot of your system when closing down so it can use it to reopen in that same state when starting back up. You may have more issues than this but it might be a start.

 

Go to Control panel/system settings

 

a4p95BL.jpg

 

It's better explained here: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-disable-windows-10-fast-startup

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Matt, not sure if this will help but try turning OFF 'Fast Startup' (I think it's enabled by default). I think this is the difference between your 1a and 1b. Fast startup is like closing down in a semi hibernation mode. It keeps a snapshot of your system when closing down so it can use it to reopen in that same state when starting back up. You may have more issues than this but it might be a start.

 

Go to Control panel/system settings

 

https://i.imgur.com/a4p95BL.jpg

 

It's better explained here: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-disable-windows-10-fast-startup

 

Thanks Fab, turning off Fast Startup resolves the endless loop after reboot/shutdown :023:

 

Firefox is definitely borked on this machine though. When Firefox opens correctly, there are 8 firefox.exe processes shown in the Task Manager, and when Firefox is closed, there are still 2 firefox.exe processes shown in the Task Manager. I can kill 1 of the processes but not the other one (Access is denied) :headbuttwall:

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