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My mac says the program is already running but I cannot tell that is true, so it will not load

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  • 2 have this problem
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  • Last reply by Toad-Hall

PatienceCleary
PatienceCleary
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go into applications to try & run the program but says it is "not responding" and another message that comes up says it is already open so cannot open!

go into applications to try & run the program but says it is "not responding" and another message that comes up says it is already open so cannot open!

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Toad-Hall
Toad-Hall
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Sounds like Thunderbird did not shut down correctly, or maybe you shutdown computer before the exited Thunderbird could complete the process. If this is the case then there may be a 'parent.lock' file present.

Try this: Access your 'profile name' folder and delete the 'parent.lock' file. note in a mac this could be called '.parentlock'. 'Profile name' folder is usually called 'xxxxxxxx.default' where the x's are letters and numbers.

Remove the profile lock file

  • "parent.lock" (Windows),
  • "lock" and ".parentlock" (Linux), or
  • ".parentlock" (Mac OS X)

For Mac OS X: You need to use a free utility like Onyx or Maintain to turn on visibility for invisible files to show ".parentlock". This file contains no information, and deleting it will unlock the profile.

Profile folders are located here:

  • ~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/<Profile name>/

The tilde character (~) refers to the current user's Home folder, so ~/Library is the /Macintosh HD/Users/<username>/Library folder.