Hey halpmehplz,

Have you tried starting Firefox in Safe Mode? Hold down "shift" while Firefox is starting up. If the crash doesn't happen in Safe Mode, you should read Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems.

There is also a lot of useful stuff in the Troubleshoot Firefox crashes (closing or quitting unexpectedly) Knowledge Base article. If you've recently upgraded, you might want to check out this article as well.

Hopefully this helps!

Thanks for trying, but Safe Mode doesn't work. I went through all of the help pages before posting on here, but nothing worked...

I found the first crash report. Could this help fix it? https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/a980a93f-c662-4d02-b3ed-a5e542120217

Well done for finding that. I checked some of the Crash IDs you reported, and they are not totally consistent. Out Of Memory crashes presumably may have more than one cause. Try to create a new profile, then try to start the new profile in safe mode and with the default themes. See also http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox#Create_a_new_profile relating to profile creation

The main cause of the crash with the ID you find seems to have been resolved. Please post back with the crash IDs that you obtain in safe mode in a new profile. Better still post the links to the Crash Reports. Note when you try to obtain crash reports if there is no report found first time try again a few minutes later the database may have to process and retrieve data and sometimes finds no results first time but works ten minutes later.

• Report for CrashID: a980a93f-c662-4d02-b3ed-a5e542120217 (as your own post above)
  • Signature: mozalloc_abort | mozalloc_handle_oom | moz_xrealloc | nsTArray_base<nsTArrayDefaultAllocator>::EnsureCapacity | nsUrlClassifierStore::ReadPrefixe
  • related bug702217
• Report for CrashID: d08bdf30-5bc1-4db7-87d2-e39662120217
  • Signature: mozalloc_abort | mozalloc_handle_oom | moz_xmalloc | nsZipItemPtr_base::nsZipItemPtr_base
  • no bug shown as related
• Report for CrashID: 5064f514-67f1-4185-a0c9-3f71b2120217
  • Signature: mozalloc_abort | mozalloc_handle_oom | moz_xrealloc | nsTArray_base<nsTArrayDefaultAllocator>::EnsureCapacity | nsUrlClassifierPrefixSet::AddPrefixes
  • no bug shown as related

With Windows users I sometimes suggest they use Firefox portable, as an additional browser, but that is not an option on a Mac.

Presumably you do not have other crashing browsers or applications it is only firefox.

I'm unable to launch the profile manager. When I type it without "bin", it launches Firefox, which then crashes again. Am I typing it in wrong? Or is there a deeper issue here?

Here are the problem details:

Process: firefox-bin [62359] Path: /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin Identifier: firefox-bin Version:  ??? (???) Code Type: X86-64 (Native) Parent Process: launchd [72]

Interval Since Last Report: 6263 sec Crashes Since Last Report: 10 Per-App Interval Since Last Report: 0 sec Per-App Crashes Since Last Report: 9

Date/Time: 2012-02-18 13:02:45.737 -0500 OS Version: Mac OS X 10.5.8 (9L31a) Report Version: 6 Anonymous UUID: 032208F9-6A7E-49D4-AF34-FF82EEC77911

Exception Type: EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP) Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000000 Crashed Thread: 0

Dyld Error Message:

 unknown required load command 0x80000022

Sorry I do not use or understand Mac s all I can do is mention the linked

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager#Accessing_the_Profile_Manager

Did you remember to add -profilemanager when using
/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -profilemanager

Yes, I did have the -profilemanager bit. It still is not coming up. On a side note, I tried opening Firefox under a different user account on my computer, and it worked fine, so can I assume at this point that it is a problem with my profile post another question concerning access to profile manager?

P.S. I also tried accessing the profile manager on the other user account and had no luck...

Posting another question about how to acccess profile manager on a Mac may be one way of getting an answer. (I did post about this in another of our forums, so no doubt someone knowledgeable about Mac s will post here soon).

The fastest method may be to ask on Mozillazine, http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=38

Discussion of profilemanager is probably not a mainstream topic in this forum, it is considered too technical for some reason.

On a side note, I tried opening Firefox under a different user account on my computer, and it worked fine, so can I assume at this point that it is a problem with my profile 

Assuming you use the same or similar sites that is probably a good indication that something is wrong with your Firefox installation

• Profile - yes it could well be a fault with the profile, that is why we are trying to create a new profile
• Program Files - I do not have the necessary understanding of a Mac, I do not know whether it is possible that a Mac uses separate program files for each user account, if it does then that is something else that could be a problem as well or instead of a profile problem.

Thank you so much for trying to help. I ended up combing through my folders and removing every sign of Mozilla and Firefox I could find. Then, I tried reinstalling it. The program kept crashing. I deleted everything again, restarted my computer, logged on to the account that worked, and reinstalled Firefox. I returned to my own account and (finally!) I could use Firefox again without any crashes. Of course, all of my settings, addons, and bookmarks are gone, but I kept most of my most important sites on a bookmarking website, so at least I have that going for me... I hope that everyone else who has had this issue finds a less drastic and drawn out solution. Thanks again to everyone who attempted to solve the issue. I really appreciate the time you took.

Unfortunately there are; if not less drastic; certainly better ways of achieving this.

Sorry I did not post the info earlier as I had hoped you would get access to the profile manager. Had you made a copy of the profile folders and files it should have been possible to use that information. It is also almost trivially easy to backup bookmarks.

So for the benefit of others reading this thread

• backing up and restoring bookmarks
• backing up your information
• basic troubleshooting_8-make-a-new-profile
  (long scrolable article, and it warns not to delete a profile)
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Firefox#Clean_reinstall
  (another long article mentioning re-install options)

What is usually the safest and easiest method, even if only as a first step is to create a new profile. (Although considered even more advanced it is also possible to do that manually, or without that particular profile manager - at least I have done that on Windows systems, but do not have that knowledge about a Mac)

Are you now able to create new profiles if you need to, or is that still a problem ?

Also any possibility you have backups of your profile anywhere e.g. Mac's Time Machine ?
that may contain useful info