Firefox 3.0.5 will not start

I downloaded Firefox 3.0.5 to my Acer Inspire laptop, running XP SP3, and it worked for a few times...until it didn't. The process loads into the Task Manager at about 9.5Mb and subsequent ones, be they Safe Mode, or what have you, come in at about 1/2 of that. Presumably then, the process is indeed running, but it is not able to be seen. Lovely!

I have been searching for ways to troubleshoot it but most require access to ether Firefox Safe Mode or else the Profile Manager. I've no luck on either score. The few people who I've contacted online have said that it is the latter that is likely the true culprit. If so, then the profile is indeed locked. I've also tried finding the [ xpicleanup.dat ] file to delete, to no avail either.

Would someone be able to write me back privately to suggest a bug fix?
This appears to be a wonderful forum but I've been at this a number of evenings already with all the searching that that involves...

Thank you for your expert attention to this. I appreciate any advice
you may be able to offer.


Steve Segore
Albany, NY, USA

 

Have you tried to terminate the process in the Task Manager. 9.5 MB is only a small fraction of MB needed for Firefox to show up (it takes me nearly 70 for it to show up).
If you don't terminate the process, first, you are not going to be successful with any attempt.

 

back to you...

Yes, indeed I have tried that every time I fail to launch Firefox. It goes away
immediately after one dialog box warning me that it will go away.

This is the weirdest problem I've ever seen. Firefox has been so seamless over the past two years I've used it in XP.

Thank you for any help you can give. I'm just using IE7 (sigh...) in the meantime.

Steve
Albany, NY, USA

 

Your profile seems to be corrupt. I had the same problems a few times.

Just create a new profile with profile manager and set it as default - do NOT move any files from old profile to new profile.

 

OK...next problem.....

the command

firefox.exe -profilemanager or equivalently
firefox.exe -p

gives me the same problem....a spinning hourglass and then nothing. Checking Task Manager the Process for what is probably Profile Manager (4.6Mb) appears.

I feel like I'm going in circles.

If you can help further, please chime in. I'm impressed that this reaches all the way to
Inida!

Thank you so much for your time.

Steve
Albany, NY, USA

 

Run chkdsk /f on your hard disk. There could be a file problem too. Then try creating a new profile again.

 

still no luck

Title says it all. Is there any way you know of to kick this up to a level where they would give advice about registry entries or other advanced topics of the like?

Regardless, I appreciate your time and the thread. I hate to say, "Thank goodness for IE" but it does act as a sort of stop gap measure in this case.

Thanks again.

Steve Segore
Albany, NY, USA

 

It does not seem to be that you try to create your profile, correctly, If you get the profile manager, by whatever means, you should see the default, as well as the newly named profile.The situation is different if you use the PortableApp. In such case, the profiles are not listed in All Programs|Mozilla Firefox, nor you get a Profile Manager.
So, how do you make any change?

 

Hi Westside:

I think we are talking past one another.

I have not been able to get a Profile Manager to come up at all.
I had not even known it existed before encountering this problem.
When I try to get one by running

firefox.exe -ProfileManager or
firefox.exe -profilemanager

the same thing happens as when trying to launch Firefox. Absolutely nothing
visible but yet a record appearing in the Task Manager as firefox.exe. I've
tried to monitor the size of each instance of this but the results are inconsistent. When I try to launch the executable, usually the file size is listed at 9.6Mb and when I try to do so with the Profile Manager it is considerably smaller.

If you know a workaround to get a Profile Manager to appear, please let me know. I've tried everything I know of and have seen many things online that are repeating what I've done already. I'm not aware of anything entitled PortableApp but perhaps you can clue me in on this as well.

Regardless, this is a very helpful exercise in trying not to have it happen again, and I do appreciate your time and patience.

Steve Segore
Albany, NY, USA

 

Perhaps an uninstall & install of FF would do the trick.

 

After all that has been said and done, I agree and after un-installing I would use Windows Explorer and delete every file I could find in reference to Firefox and then run every register cleaner I had readily available prior to reinstalling Firefox and I think for good measure I would again download and install a fresh version of FireFox.

If one goes to the trouble to uninstall, it is not that much more trouble to clean everything up and start over.

My 2 Cents, Ray

 

As I said before, I use portable firefox .
Doing this obviates the use of the profile manager. Since the portable programs are designed for a flash drive, one must designate an installation folder (not needed if there is no flash drive). I am using Win98SE, and I have the program on the Desktop. Then, I send the shortcut to the same desktop. And, I use the shortcut.
It is next to impossible to troubleshoot some cases, since I am using a different method to get to Firefox, so I defer to the other guy's suggestions.

 

You might try uninstalling something like NETZERO and checking the directory with REGEDIT
and when uninstalling NETZERO you are the only user.

This WORKED for ME......

SANDRA, Mid-West, USA

 

If you have had, or had Netzero, it may be a good suggestion, although I don't know why, but most people never had Netzero in their computer.

 

Hi, guys. I just fixed this same issue, no launch after update to 3.0.5 and unable to get to profile manager. I uninstalled, deleted FireFox from C drive and Recycle Bin, LEFT THE REGISTRY ALONE, copied all 3.0.5 files from another PC and bingo, back in business. Hope that helps.

 

[COLOR="bla[B][/B]ck"][/COLOR]Well, it was one of the programs on the ACER laptop when I bought it and magically installed..........


WhiteVerveVixen, Mid-West, USA