Firefox won't open even in Safe Mode

[sheilahoff]

This is very weird. This morning my Vista computer locked up opening Outlook. I had to force close the system and cold reboot. Now I can’t open Firefox or MSIE at all, even in Firefox Safe Mode. Fortunately Safari opens which is how I'm able to post here. I tried rebooting again to no avail. I’ve never seen this behavior before and I’m puzzled how to proceed. There's no error message. Any thoughts?

Thanks!
Sheila

[LoudNoise]

Are you getting any sort of error message when you try to start?

[sheilahoff]

no error messages at all. I'm thinking I should restart my computer in Safe Mode and try a system restore to yesterday. I hate doing that though if I can avoid it.

[LoudNoise]

For Firefox you might try to reinstall it. Also, have you should also scan your system for baddies if you haven't recent.

[sheilahoff]

The fact that MSIE won't open either makes me think there's something more then just a FF reinstall needed. I run Norton and it says I have no baddies. It's up to date. I could also run some malware detectors.

[LoudNoise]

MSIE and Firefox are two different programs. While the cause of the problem might be the same my concern is getting Firefox up and running. Something else you might try. Click on Start --> All Programs --> Accessories--> Command Line. Type Firefox.exe and hit enter. Does Firefox run?

[sheilahoff]

No FF doesn't run from the command prompt...at least not at the place it defaults to which is my user folder. Then I cd to the program files/ firefox and tried and no, it still doesn't run there. And I've already tried running FF in Safe Mode. Of course I realize IE is a different app. But since both don't work it implies a systemic issue not a program issue, doesn't it? So reinstalling FF seems unlikely to address the issue. I can certainly try it.

[sheilahoff]

PS...I just got IE to open by right-clicking and saying to run as admin (even though I am admin). It opened fine. And then I closed it and reopened w/o needing to do that. So I tried that with FF and still no joy. Guess I need to try the reinstall now.

[sheilahoff]

Can I resintall FF over itself w/o losing all my settings and add-ons, etc? What is the correct way to proceed?

[LoudNoise]

Try installing it over itself. You profile is stored in a different location so, if it wasn't nailed by the crash, you should be all right.

[sheilahoff]

Thanks. I just tried that and my computer thinks FF is running so it won't install. Tells me to close it! I'm going to try another reboot then try reinstalling again. I'll report back in a bit. Appreciate your help.

[LoudNoise]

Your profile might be locked. See the locked profile section of this http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_is_al ... responding

[TerenceJC]

Have you tried working through this?

Profile in use - MozillaZine Knowledge Base



Sorry LoudNoise for duplicating your post!

[sheilahoff]

Not sure what was the cause, but I rebooted, tried FF again and when it still didn't open, I opened Task Manager, closed FF there and successfully reinstalled FF. I'm happy to report I'm writing you from FF and all my profile is intact (I do regular backups of it too). So thanks again, both of you. Case closed.

[Guest]

This is very weird. This morning my Vista computer locked up opening Outlook. I had to force close the system and cold reboot. Now I can’t open Firefox or MSIE at all, even in Firefox Safe Mode. Fortunately Safari opens which is how I'm able to post here. I tried rebooting again to no avail. I’ve never seen this behavior before and I’m puzzled how to . There's acomplia no error message. Any thoughts?

Thanks!
Sheila

Hi , and thanks, the safe mode problem was solved by really looking for unclosed instances of Firefox in the task manager, so I was able to access safe mode eventually, and change and restore my settings. The original problem of ONLY ONE WINDOW persists though. I can only open one Firefox window, and Session Manager has simultaneously disappeared, although it still is in the add-ons and once is a while appears on start-up but fails to function.