Firefox will not open but process runs
Suddenly I can't get Firefox to open - process runs in task manager but no window comes up at all. Have been using it on this system for a long time with no issues. It isn't the process already running issue which most of us know.
Have tried uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox to no avail. I have no other monitor connected and desktop is not extended to an imaginary monitor where it may be opening. Running on Windows Vista.
The problem started when Firefox hung / crash / froze trying to run a video applet on a website (bbc.co.uk).
Is this an issue with any kind of known resolution or must I find a new browser after years being comfortable with Firefox?
Alle svar (2)
I have exactly the same problem with both Firefox and Thunderbird, under my Windows Vista OS. However, I can get both running using the following cumbersome method. In the Task Manager right click the entry firefox.exe in the process window. Choose "Properties" from the drop-down list and then choose the "Previous Versions" tab. In my case it showed a so-called "shadow copy" dated about four weeks previously and when I selected this and clicked "Open" then Firefox opened normally, though rather slowly. Unfortunately this does not solve the problem because after Firefox is closed the same problem recurs next time I try to open it. However, if the "Restore" button is available (it was not for me) in the "Previous Versions" window then you might be able to restore an older but working copy. You can also get to the "previous versions" window by right clicking the firefox.exe file in the installation folder (usually C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\ ).
This is a really unfortunate development in Firefox and Thunderbird that will force people to abandon them and move to equivalent Microsoft products that do not have these problems. Mozilla developers please act on this problem urgently.
I have solved my problems with Firefox 7.0.1 running on Vista Business OS - actually two problems: Firefox first started opening very slowly taking up to a minute, and then it stopped opening at all except as a process. I previously tried every fix I could think of or could find on the Internet: uninstalling, re-installing, opening in safe mode, closing and eventually uninstalling programs that might conflict such as anti-virus programs, disabling services that seemed suspicious, scanning my system for hardware and software problems with SciSoft Sandra, and so on.
The fix was to uninstall Firefox and then delete in the registry (using the program regedit.exe provided by Microsoft) most entries for Firefox (especially those in HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE), then reinstalling Firefox. It now opens in a couple of seconds.
Cleaning the registry is something I had to do a lot in the "old days" but I thought that it was a thing of the past, or something that could be handled by a registry cleaning program. I was wrong.