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Firefox only opening in Windows Safe Mode

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  • Last reply by Grizzo

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Hello,

Recently, my Firefox has stopped opening and immediately closes upon start-up. The window asking if I would like to start in troubleshoot mode briefly flickers on the screen a few seconds later, and I am unable to start it in troubleshoot mode. I also have this problem with Google Chrome, but not with Microsoft Edge, which still works fine. I also downloaded Opera and I found that Opera works fine as well. I have tried various solutions I found online and none of them have worked yet. However, when I started Windows 11 in Safe Mode, Firefox still wouldn’t open initially but this time it did let me open troubleshoot mode, which I was able to succesfully start. In troubleshoot mode, I turned off hardware acceleration and all my extensions, and once I exited troubleshoot mode, Firefox was able to start normally in Safe Mode. However, I do not know if hardware acceleration or the extensions actually caused the issue because even if I turned them back on, Firefox continued to run normally in Safe Mode. Once I exited Windows Safe Mode, however, Firefox still continued not to open, and I still couldn’t access troubleshoot mode. Using the shift key trick to open Firefox in troubleshoot mode doesn’t work either. I would appreciate any help I can get with this issue.

Hello, Recently, my Firefox has stopped opening and immediately closes upon start-up. The window asking if I would like to start in troubleshoot mode briefly flickers on the screen a few seconds later, and I am unable to start it in troubleshoot mode. I also have this problem with Google Chrome, but not with Microsoft Edge, which still works fine. I also downloaded Opera and I found that Opera works fine as well. I have tried various solutions I found online and none of them have worked yet. However, when I started Windows 11 in Safe Mode, Firefox still wouldn’t open initially but this time it did let me open troubleshoot mode, which I was able to succesfully start. In troubleshoot mode, I turned off hardware acceleration and all my extensions, and once I exited troubleshoot mode, Firefox was able to start normally in Safe Mode. However, I do not know if hardware acceleration or the extensions actually caused the issue because even if I turned them back on, Firefox continued to run normally in Safe Mode. Once I exited Windows Safe Mode, however, Firefox still continued not to open, and I still couldn’t access troubleshoot mode. Using the shift key trick to open Firefox in troubleshoot mode doesn’t work either. I would appreciate any help I can get with this issue.

Chosen solution

Your Microsoft account may have parental controls enabled which limits what browsers you can use, try creating a new local user account.

Also try renaming firefox.exe to something else but note that this will break DRM protected videos.

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You can do a malware scan, just to be sure.

You can use the MSConfig program or the Autoruns utility to see what software is getting started (be careful with disabling services).

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Thanks for the reply. I have already scanned for viruses and malware and nothing has come up. I'm not sure what you mean by seeing what software is getting started, so I would appreciate it if you could elaborate. I have already done a clean boot and Firefox still will not open in a clean boot environment.

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Chosen Solution

Your Microsoft account may have parental controls enabled which limits what browsers you can use, try creating a new local user account.

Also try renaming firefox.exe to something else but note that this will break DRM protected videos.

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zeroknight said

Your Microsoft account may have parental controls enabled which limits what browsers you can use, try creating a new local user account. Also try renaming firefox.exe to something else but note that this will break DRM protected videos.

Thank you, the parental controls issue was exactly it. I have had this account since childhood and while most of the restrictions have since been removed, I recently had to go into Microsoft family settings to remove one that I had forgotten to remove, and in the process I may have accidentally enabled blocking unsafe browsers. I appreciate the help!