Proccess continues to run dispite closing firefox down

[chuckrock]

It seems that the firefox.exe continues to run in the background despite the fact that I've closed it down by clicking the x in the top right of the screen. This is preventing me from starting firefox the next time around. I have to go into ctrl-alt-delete and end the process in order to start it again.

[the-edmeister]

How quickly after closing Firefox are you trying to start it again? Firefox 3 has a longer file closing time for the files that are open while Firefox is running than any earlier version had. It was a lot worse back in beta2 & 3 until modifications were made. I am seeing like 10 seconds on my PII 350MHz PC and about 5 seconds on my AMD64 2.2GHz PC, both running W2K, but the closing time increases if I am closing multiple tabs and/or windows when closing Firefox down.

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[chuckrock]

it doesn't matter how long i wait. it could be second or several hours. same problem each time.

[T0AD]

I'm getting the same problem but your description of the problem is better:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=692395

The problem has effected FF3 RC1, RC2 and Final. The problem didn't effect FF2 (all versions).
I've tried un-installing, clearing out the "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox" folder and re-installing - no change.

I've also seen multiple firefox.exe processes running. If I close them all down (from the Task Manager) and start FF3 then it usually works. I haven't tried removing all the add-on's yet - I'll try that tonight.

[T0AD]

I'm begining to think it's a memory leak from a Firefox add-on.
The multiple firefox.exe processes (in the Task Manager) were of differing sizes - in the region of 30Mbytes to 40Mbytes each.
Next time it happens I'll get a screen capture and post it.

[the-edmeister]

See if anything here helps:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox.exe_always_open


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[dfoulkes]

First let me say that FF3 is a great piece of software and so far has performed very
well for me...but I have also experienced the "left-over" process running and it can still
be running in the background hours after I've stopped it. The main way that I find that
the "old" one is still running is that when I start up FF3 my bookmarks are gone and my
home page doesn't exist in the location window...anyway, it took me a couple of weeks
to figure out that the old one was just hanging around (slow on the uptake)...to clear it
out I would reboot the system but at least now I just stop the old one. I've not tried to
run FF without my add-ons so I'll try that and see if the problem goes away. It happens at least
2-3 times a day so I should be able to get back with my answer in a couple of days.

I've used IE since day-one and have now switched to FF3 and I find it much better!!

Thanks for all the work!

[the-edmeister]

All three of you guys are running WinXP, I wonder if all of you have SP3 installed yet?

I haven't seen that happen on W2K-SP4 on 2 different desktop PCs, nor have I seen it on WinXP-SP2 on my laptop, but I rarely use Firefox 3 on the laptop plus that gets shutdown fairly quickly after using Firefox. Both desktop PCs are running 24/7, so if Firefox 3 was not closing properly I would know about real fast.

The only thing that I can think of is that something outside Firefox is doing that.


Ed

[dfoulkes]

I've had sp3 on since the day of release plus all updates since then. Right now I'm running
without add-ons (hard to do once one is used to the easy road) and have not run into the
problem yet. I went into my reg to check on all the settings stated in the document found on
your prior note and all was ok. I update my virus stuff (Norton 360) daily...also...

So, I'll run without add-ons for a couple more days and then activate them all again to see what
happens. If it starts again I'll turn them all off and then start activating one at a time, run for
a couple of days and then start another one. Maybe I can catch something that way.

[tommco]

Somebody wrote in another forum something about the mouse, I believe this may have something to do with the problem of not closing completely , because it didn't start happening until I changed to a new optical mouse....

maybe a fluke....

[dfoulkes]

Well, I've also got an optical mouse but I would think that having that type of mouse connection
wouldn't relate to (not) closing down an application???

Anyway, I restarted my FF3 the other day without any add-ons running, ran FF3 off and on
for the whole day without problems...then activated two of my add-ons and again ran it for
good part of the day without any problems yet. In a couple of days I'll activate two more add-ons
to see what happens. I'm hopping to keep activating the add-ons until the problem starts again and
then maybe I can isolate it to a specific add-on.

[Khaleid]

I've had the same problem, and after reading the posts about the add-ons I decided to have a look.
It appears that in my case, the first add-on I disabled also solved the problem. The culprit was apparently the Skype-Addon, and after de-installing the problem disappeared.

[dfoulkes]

I've been attempting to create some pattern to this issue and about the only thing I've
come up with is that it may have to do with opening lots of tabs and then closing them.

Prior to this note I mentioned that I would stop all add-ons and I did and then I didn't have
any problems...I started two more add-ons and then had the problem...I stopped the last two
add-ons and the problem still surfaced but during the last two start/stops of the two add-ons
I started and stopped a large number of tabs and then closed them as a test ... then stopped FF3.
I did that again this morning at around 10am pst and just now went back to my computer to
check on stuff and it was still running. I'm going to start all of my add-ons again and continue
to check this stuff out. I guess it could also be memory issues...like having a lot of add-ons active
may cause expanded memory usage and problems and/or having few add-ons running but a large
amount of Tabs open may cause the same issues. I have no knowledge of how the internals of
Firefox work so I'm just shooting in the dark here.

[cambriahermit]

I have a macbook and I use both Firefox and Safari. I haven't added anything to it (firefox) except the adblock (ages ago) and the randomness of when it shuts down or not, does not appear to have any rhyme or reason. One day it is fine, the next it will not shut off. I run mac osx 10.4.11 and I don't use a mouse. Also, when it is having its issue and won't quit, it tends to not want to load certain sites or it loads them all wonky.

[FSchmertz]

In my case, I tracked down many of my problems with Firefox to my old Norton Antivirus program (yeah, I know-I'm going to dump it for NOD32 when my subscription runs out, if I can successfully manage uninstall it, that is). A Norton process called CCAP.exe is somehow involved.

It's now aggravated, I think, by the long time it takes to scan downloads with FF3.