Mar 26 2009
How to fix the “Firefox is already Running…” Problem
Firefox was working fine one day, then the next a box keeps coming up” Firefox is already running but not responding. To open a new window you must first close the existing firefox process or restart your system” I restarted it but nothing changed. Checked the task manager, and it wasn’t running. Tried to uninstall it, than reinstall but that didn’t work. Does anyone know a solution to this annoying problem?
A few days ago I accidently deleted my Firefox profile, thus it wouldn’t let me open Firefox, I kept getting the error mentioned above. This was because it was looking for a profile that no longer exists. Here are two ways to fix it:
First way is, going to: Windows Defender
If you have Windows Vista, then you have Windows Defender. Sometimes it is located in your task bar, or you can make it come up, if you log off and log back in. It’s a small document thumbnail picture, usually with a small red circle and a bar through it. If you can’t find it or you want to do it manually, the directions are below.
You can access it by going to Security on your control panel.There you will see Windows defender, click tools at the top. Then you get Tools and Settings, look for Software Explorer, click on it and you will get a list of all programs on your computer. There is a category bar located at the top, choose “Currently Running Programs” and scroll down for FireFox, click on it and choose end process located under the description. By far this is the easiest fastest way to fix this problem. But, it may not always work.
The second way is going to:
Command prompt (start -> run –> cmd), then I changed directories until I was in: c:\program files\mozilla firefox\, from here I ran: firefox.exe -profilemanager
So it would be:
C:\program files\mozilla firefox\firefox.exe -profilemanager
This could be different depending on your configuration. After running that, the profile manager popped up. I deleted my old profile and created a new one, and I was good to go.
Hope this helps anyone who might encounter this problem. Cheers.
