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Firefox will not open because it thinks it is open, but task manager says it is not open.

  • 3 ŋuɖoɖowo
  • 1 masɔmasɔ sia le esi
  • 1 view
  • Nuɖoɖo mlɔetɔ SafeBrowser

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I cannot get firefox to open. If I try to uninstall it says I must close it. If I try to download it it says I must close it.

I cannot get firefox to open. If I try to uninstall it says I must close it. If I try to download it it says I must close it.

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Sounds like Firefox is "hanging at exit". That problem is frequently caused by an Extension or a Plugin. Read all of the following articles.

NOTE: Establish a habit of exiting/closing Firefox with Firefox button > Exit or File > Exit to allow an orderly shutdown of Firefox and closing of all of the files that Firefox has open.


  1. Stop the Firefox process:
  2. Why Firefox may hang:
  3. Use Firefox Safe Mode to find a problem with an Extension or Plugin:


If this reply solves your problem, please click "Solved It" next to this reply when signed-in to the forum.

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I too faced this issue sometime back, and it happened while i was trying to change/run Firefox with a different profile. Try this it should atleast open your browser

1) goto Run and type "firefox.exe -profilemanager" [or firefox.exe -P]

When it asks the you can try creating a new profile or try with the existing ones

2) Browse to C:\Users\"Your user_name"\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox

Once there delete the 'Profiles' dir and also the 'profiles.ini' file.

Then try repeating STEP 1 above and create a new profile when asked

In worst case give the machine a restart and repeat from STEP 1

Prabhuti trɔe

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CAUTION: Prabhuti's post

Deleting the Profile folder (following step 2) in Prabhuti's post will delete all of your personal information (passwords, bookmarks, extensions, customizations). This should not be done. Only as a last resort is establishing a new Profile usually necessary. Keeping the old profile allows the user to retrieve certain important information (passwords, bookmarks) and copy them to the new profile.

The path shown in step 2 is not the path for XP.

The result of Prabhuti's post is starting clean like the initial installation of Firefox.


If this reply solves your problem, please click "Solved It" next to this reply when signed-in to the forum.