"Firefox still running" error even after uninstall

[AquaDyne]

I seem to have permanently broken my Firefox install!

Here's what I did:

1. In preparation for an extended travel period I took a new laptop and downloaded the latest version (1.5.0.1) of Firefox. I used it just a bit with the default profile, but eventually got around to wanting to copy over information from my other computer.

2. I created a new profile and mass-copied the profile from my old machine (firefox was not running).

3. I started up firefox with the new profile. Bookmarks looked okay, but extensions did not appear to be working. I went through and tried to uninstall the extensions. The message said they would be uninstalled after I restarted firefox.

4. I closed, and restarted firefox. The extensions hadn't gone away. I closed, rebooted, and restarted firefox. Still there. I closed, opened the profile manager, created a brand new profile, deleted the old profile, and tried to start Firefox. I got an error message "Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system."

5. I verified with the task manager no firefox process was running. I restarted my system. Same error.

6. I uninstalled Firefox. I reinstalled firefox. I tried to start firefox. Same "Firefox is already running" error message.

7. I uninstalled Firefox. I rebooted my machine. I reinstalled firefox. Same "Firefox is already running" error message.

Any ideas what step 8 should be? I realize that I probably erred back in step 2, and should have only copied over bookmarks... but at this point I just want to get a working copy of Firefox on my system. Or find out why it thinks it's already running when it's been completely uninstalled!

[AquaDyne]

Step 8. Uninstalled Firefox. Manually went in and found all my firefox folders anywhere on my system, deleted them. Rebooted. Reinstalled firefox. Things look normal now. Apparently there was some sort of lockfile somewhere... anyway, doing this the *smart* way now.

[Vectorspace]

There was a lockfile - it was in your profile...
Firefox locks the profile in use with an empty file called 'parent.lock'

[AquaDyne]

Thanks, Vectorspace.

Guess I should have read http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_in_use . I was at a page which linked to that but the symptoms didn't quite match and I didn't follow the link... but my symptoms are clearly specified there.

[Noel8]

Well after uninstalling FF, I saw a file with the extension *.xpi and recognized it as FF file. I deleted it and rebooted a new installment of FF and this time it came back normal...so i agree with AquaDyne look for FF files manually and delete them.

[LoudNoise]

You are replying to an elderly thread (2006). Locking. Please start a new thread fully describing the problem.