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How to fix the Mozilla Firefox web browser if it will not start

Posted by Vivek Gite [Last updated: February 7, 2007]

This may sound a little weird but sometime Mozilla Firefox will not start. You click on Firefox icon and nothing happens. So how do you fix the Mozilla web browser if it will not start?

This may happen due to two following reasons:

a) Mozilla Firefox may be running and it is not responding at all

b) ~/.mozilla directory is corrupted while updating or installing an extension

Mozilla Firefox may be running and it is not responding at all

First see if Firefox is running or not by typing following command:
$ ps aux | grep firefox
Ouput:

vivek     3174 19.5 13.9 209040 107008 ?     S    20:17   7:30 /opt/firefox/firefox-bin

If a process is running, kill it by typing:
$ kill 3174
OR
$ killall firefox-bin

Now try to start Firefox

~/.mozilla/firefox directory is corrupted while updating or installing an extension

Just rename a ~/.mozilla/firefox directory
$ mv ~/.mozilla/firefox ~/.mozilla/firefox.old

Now try to start Firefox.

Please note that you can apply above procedure to other Mozilla products such as Mozilla Browser and email client.

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Discussion on This Article:

  1. Brady Bowen Says:

    Good tip on Firefox, and the other Mozilla family products. I have found this to be true in Netscape prior the arrival of Firefox or even Mozilla’s browser.

    I wish there was a way to permanently fix this problem, either in their code, or in a start up script that kills it and starts a new one.

  2. How to fix the Mozilla Firefox web browser if it will not start : Tech Tips Says:

    [...] How to fix the Mozilla Firefox web browser if it will not start [...]

  3. Geri Williams Says:

    absolutely useless. Where does one type $ ps aux | grep firefox ? I have uninstalled and installed Mozilla Firefox several times. It did work sometime ago but no longer works. Have given up. Thankful there are browsers that work - fire fox doesn’t.

  4. Andy Says:

    I’m with Geri! I have windows xp and firefox wont start. I double click and get an hour glass and then nothing. I’m sure it is starting because I see it in windows task manager. The scary thing is that it is constantly starting and stoping and re-opening but ultimatly I never get the browser open. I have run anti-virus software and removed things but nothing has fixed this. Firefox is a valuable program to me because I run dreamweaver and always have lots of browser tabs open.

  5. Shaili Vaish Says:

    Hello,
    Really your site is very interesting,it gives my knowledge about many things.
    I am a beginner with Linux and i knew a bit of Unix.
    Can you guide me to get good information about linux kernel and filesystem.
    In my machine i have one problem also. I have fedora 7 in my machine,now a days it is becoming very slow.
    When i am checking top then it is displaying nautilus using 102% of cpu,how come it is possible?
    Please solve my problem, i will be highly great full to you people.
    Thanks and regards,
    Shaili Vaish

  6. vivek Says:

    Shaili,

    Please use our forum to get help about Linux related problems.

    HTH

  7. Allison Nighswander Says:

    Thank you so much for this tip. After searching for about a week I found this and it worked.

  8. David Rice Says:

    Thanks for the tip.
    I found a problem after installing Omnipage SE4 that came with a Canon printer. It tried to hook into Firefox. So I uninstalled it, then Firefox would not start.
    I’m using Windows XP so looked in Task Manager - sure enough firefox.exe was running. After killing the process all is well.

  9. gretta Says:

    HALOOOOOOOO!!!!

    I’ve added some add-ons which were flash pad or something and mozilla skins, then i got my mozill freezed and it didnt respond! I’ve uninstalled and installed several times but it couldn’t help me out of this trouble. I’ve also deleted what in the plugins folder were(in mozilla folder, program file).

    But once more time, it didnt give me any diffrences!

    I think this tutorial would work, but i dont know exactly where i should put those codes on.

    Can anyone tell me how?

    Thank u so much,
    Gretta

  10. vivek Says:

    Open terminal and type the commands.

  11. gretta Says:

    terminal? can you tell me where can i find terminal? sorry for my stupidness… ^^

  12. Will Sheppard Says:

    ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

    Vivek’s instructions in this post are for Linux machines only. They will definitely not apply to Windows users, and I’m doubtful if the second one even applies to Mac users.

    For Linux and Mac, the command “ps aux | grep firefox” must be typed in the Terminal.

    I have a Mac and I don’t see the ~/.mozilla/firefox directory at all.

  13. Leaman Crews Says:

    The affected directory for Mac is ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox.

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