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Parent.lock file not being released on firefox close

  • 3 replies
  • 10 have this problem
  • 11 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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I'm old school and still use Dropbox to sync my FF profile. Recently updated to FF 25, and now when I close firefox Parent.lock remains locked/ in use even after I close firefox. the only way to free the file is to kill the process tree.

I'm old school and still use Dropbox to sync my FF profile. Recently updated to FF 25, and now when I close firefox Parent.lock remains locked/ in use even after I close firefox. the only way to free the file is to kill the process tree.

All Replies (3)

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Note that current Firefox releases do not remove the parent.lock file.
The time stamp of this file is used on startup and compared with the last successful start (pref: toolkit.startup.last_success) to make it possible to detect a failed startup and offer to start in Safe Mode or Reset Firefox.

Use "Firefox > Exit" (Windows: Firefox/File > Exit; Mac: Firefox > Quit Firefox; Linux: Firefox/File > Quit) to close Firefox if you are currently doing that by clicking the close X on the Firefox title bar.

See also:

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cor-el, are you saying to use the File-Exit rather than the X in the upper-right to prevent this issue?

Troubleshooting my issue where closing Firefox does not close as it shows running in the Task Manager and prevents me from being able to reopen Firefox, I never tried the File-Exit as I always use the X in the upper right-corner.

When I reviewed the official pages, one thing listed was the profile lock may be causing Firefox from being unable to reopen. But I noticed that's just a result, not the root issue. Firefox isn't closing properly and that's why the profile lock remains.

My issue appeared immediately after upgrading to 25 from 24. 24, and previous versions from years ago, did not give me this issue. A new profile and eliminating extensions one by one did not fix my issue. Safe mode with no extensions at all is about the only way it works correctly in 25, which doesn't help. A clean install of 25 didn't fix it either.

Here's my issue: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/976260?esab=a&s=&r=1&as=s

Another, recent, issue from another member with 25 also: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/976289?esab=a&s=&r=0&as=s

Is there a bug with 25 causing this?

Modified by Turbocpe

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Using File > Exit is always the best way to close Firefox properly. Using the close X will make Firefox first close the window and then possibly quit the Firefox program in case no browser windows are left.

Does using File > Exit have any effect?

Did you check for other causes of possible hangs?