Hi FirefoxHelpPlease,

(1) In that link you sent me, what is Windows MSI? Do I do the 'windows' or the 'windows MSI' one?

The MSI is for companies that block downloading EXE files. For home users, either is fine.

(2) And what is a 'full installer'?

The full installer is a complete installer. On some other download pages, you might get a very small installer that connects back for other files, which doesn't allow custom installation.

(3) And are you saying I should choose the customization option? But why, what would I customize? What would I choose to customize?

I suggest installing the ESR version into a different folder, for example,

C:\Program Files\FirefoxESR\

and that way you can test it out without having to disturb your existing installation.

Hi Jscher,

1. And I assume it doesn't matter if I do the 64 or 32 bit version?

2. And those 3 plugins that Firefox seems to load (OpenH264 Video codec; shockwave flash; Widevine), are fine, and I should ignore those? correct?

3. And I now have both versions opened. I can't close either one!! (ESR installed and opened fine). I just used task manager to close both. I'll restart and return.

4. Do I want to 'sign in' for this Firefox Sync thing?

thanks

Hi Jscher,

I'm going from bad to worse  : ( I'm sooo discouraged.

I had both versions opened. Couldn't close either. I ended task in task manager. rebooted.

I saw that 'parent.lock' thing was still there (Am I wasting my time deleting that all the time? it seems to help).

I deleted that parent.lock in the profile. (I think it was only in one?) I rebooted again. And now NEITHER ver. 70 nor ESR will open! grrrr

And now of course parent.lock is back in both profiles!

I would have to repeat (end task; reboot; remove parent.lock; reboot) if I wanted to try to open again.

by the way I read the ESR is less secure; is that true? or I don't need to worry about that?

And does the ESR get updated the same way as other versions?

what should I do?!

I'm not going to give up! And I'm happy and willing to work with you as long as you can and want to!

thanks

Boot the computer in Windows Safe mode with network support to see if that has effect in case security software is causing problems.

• https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/how-to-start-windows-in-safe-mode/
• https://www.7tutorials.com/4-ways-boot-safe-mode-windows-10

Do a malware check with several malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-caused-malware

Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware. All these programs have free versions.

Make sure you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.

• Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:
  https://www.malwarebytes.com/
• AdwCleaner:
  https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/
  https://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Removal-Tools/AdwCleaner.shtml
• SuperAntispyware:
  https://www.superantispyware.com/
• Microsoft Safety Scanner:
  https://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx
• Windows Defender:
  https://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/using-defender
• Spybot Search & Destroy:
  https://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
• Kasperky Free Security Scan:
  https://www.kaspersky.com/security-scan

You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.

• Anti-rootkit utility TDSSKiller:
  https://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/disinfection/5350

https://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/utility

Hi cor-el,

Thanks so much for joining in! I'm at my wits end.

sorry for delay: took a while to do all this!

This problem has still persisted in safe mode. (at least that was several days ago). And recently when I had just Firefox in safe mode, same issue.

Malwarebytes: I own the premium and have for a while; so it's always working; never had an issue; but I ran it manually; all fine.

AdwCleaner: I keep it on my desktop and run from time to time; ran it again; no issues.

Windows defender: ran and it was fine; and if I remember correctly; there was a longer higher level one? I did that; or it was one of the others that had a higher level longer scan; I did that.

Kaspersky: I own and always have running Kaspersky total security (everything I use is on the latest versions), and I ran the longest most comprehensive scan (which includes a rootkit); all was fine.

Microsoft safety scanner: I never knew about that one; thanks! I downloaded and ran that; that took a while. All fine.

Spybot Search & Destroy: https://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html; I couldn't find the free version to run anywhere! It kept wanting me to pay. And I find it really hard to believe after all of the above, that it would find something?

SuperAntispyware: https://www.superantispyware.com/; I've never heard of this; I was hesitant to do it. I'm really careful about what I download and run; but if you think it's really worth it, I'll do it?

I kept screen shots of many of the final scans above if necessary (to show all fine).

New info! this may help. In between all this, I came across this 'view reliability' thing in my computer. I ran that and took a screenshot.

Most of my issues over the past week or so have been with Firefox; but I did notice that Outlook had been closing more often than it ever did before; and also Chrome just recently started closing oddly. But would reopen fine. This was unusual for my computer.

So here's the view reliability report I got. (attached). And then I remembered that the other guy helping me (Jscher) asked when all this started happening; and that was around the same time, it coincides with that date I gave him.

Then I went in to check for updates and clicked on ‘view update history’ and I see that “Feature update to windows 10, version 1903’ was done then. It says “successfully installed on 10/22/19”. Do you think that any of this Firefox stuff (and/or maybe recent outlook/chrome smaller stuff) could possibly have anything to do with that update? I’ve never had trouble with updates before. But I read this was a HUGE update.

And from what I understand I don’t have a choice; the version before 1903 will not be updated, so it won't be safe to use it soon? So don’t I have to have version 1903? And if it said successfully installed; isn’t it ok?

Then went into (I've been reading too much stuff) look at ‘restore’ stuff’. ?? But I don’t have any restore points; (that I can see?) not sure that it would even help. Or that it would matter because I can’t be on an earlier version if the earlier windows version won’t be getting updates.

I hesitate to even mention all this because Firefox has been the real issue; and if it were the update, then wouldn’t other things be not working? Or be worse? Why would version 1903 pick on Firefox?

thanks so much!

are we at a dead end?

thanks....

Hi,

I just don't know if the powers that be are done with this thread; and if I have more questions to start a new one? or busy, or are done  : )

either way, please let me know.

thanks for all our help

If I understand the status:

• Firefox 70 won't start: gives the message "Firefox is already running, but is not responding."
• Ending the processes in Task Manager and deleting parent.lock are not sufficient to allow you to start Firefox
• Firefox may start after the above PLUS 1-2 Windows 10 reboots
• Once running Firefox won't quit

Troubleshooting:

• Safe mode doesn't work much better
• New profiles do not help beyond 1-2 sessions
• There are no crash reports
• AV/malware scans clean
• Extended Support Release of Firefox 68 behaves similarly

It's very puzzling.

Task Manager

When you use the Task Manager, could you go to the Details tab and look for any instances of firefox.exe listed there that may be hidden and not affected by ending the task on the Processes tab?

Launcher Process

Firefox 68 introduced a new "launcher process" to help better insulate Firefox from DLL injection. This causes problems with some security software. The timing of when this problem struck your Firefox doesn't really point to this being the problem, but we might need to look into it at some point.

Some Windows change?

You could research the KB numbers of what was installed around the time this started to see whether any of them is known to be a problem for Firefox.

Hi Jscher,

thanks for getting back to me; and since I've posted I have good and bad news!

So instead of pausing Kaspersky Total Security, I actually uninstalled it; but I chose the option where I saved something, options? In case of future install? And I can’t believe the difference in everything! So, apparently, some/most of the issues were related to when I upgraded to version 1903, and right after that I guess Kaspersky didn’t like version 1903, but never told me.

Firefox: So Firefox stopped crashing (after Kaspersky unisntalled)!! So I uninstalled the 68ESR Firefox version. Reinstalled version 70. So far so good. It’s been opening and closing fine!

I spent some time trying to figure out first if the 64 bit should go in a different folder from c:\program files\mozilla firefox; or if it should go in the program files(x86) folder. I learned that the Program Files (x86) is for 32 bit stuff. So it is in the regular Program Files folder.

And: not that Chrome crashed a lot, but it isn’t anymore. And Outlook hasn’t crashed or gotten hung up as it was doing that 10 times a day before! So this is going on maybe 24 hours now? So this is good new! Task Manager, details has no firefox when it's closed.

but now I have a new issue:

Updates So after all that; with rebooting in between everything, I tried doing a regular check for update in settings; as I’ve always done. It’s still stuck on the 11/3/19 for some reason. And instead of saying you’re updated; like it always did before, I get this error. It says: Error encountered: We ran into a problem while connecting to Windows Update service. We’ll try to connect again later, or you can select Retry now. I don’t know what to do about that now?

task manager why do I have two “Windows host process (Rundll 32)” files that are there. Both say publisher: Microsoft. Both enabled. One says ‘startup impact’: high and one says low. Why/how are there two? Is that ok?

I also see that in task manager, details: these 2 things are ‘suspended’; are they supposed to be? SearchUI.exe PID: 8232; and ShellExperienceHost.exe PID: 14260 Is that ok? If not, what should I do?

Restore Point I can’t ‘keep’ a restore point. I can create it fine. BUT if you go back in there to see it 3-5 min. later; it’s gone and there’s a message saying there are none! There’s plenty of room allocated (I increased it to 18% and did it). It still doesn’t keep.

The error is the system Restore box, it says “No restore points have been created on your computer’s system drive. ….” So I haven’t disabled those 2 things yet. How can I fix this restore point issue?

Event Viewer issues: The most recent error (and now; after most recent reboot) is Error, source: Esent event ID: 455 category: logging/recovery and there are a lot of warnings: all source: DistributedCOM; event ID: 10016; category: none.

Yesterday, but not today, I see there was an SNMP error; event id 1500.

Could the errors and warnings be causing me to not be able to update Windows and/or keep a restore point?

Again, thanks as always!

jscher2000 said

• Firefox 70 won't start: gives the message "Firefox is already running, but is not responding."

@ jscher2000 :

Two users having the same problem in this thread :

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1272635

And another one here :

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1272531

And another :

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1272576

Could this be related  ?

But I don't have the problem anymore since I uninstalled Kaspersky! Maybe they all have Kaspersky?

but if you can comment on any of the other stuff; that would be great! thanks.

FirefoxHelpPlease said

But I don't have the problem anymore since I uninstalled Kaspersky! Maybe they all have Kaspersky?

Thank you for bringing that up  !

I just asked the others if they use Kaspersky; one never knows .....

I myself do have Kaspersky, and have had the same issues with fire fox. I am going to uninstall kaspersky and see what happens. let you!!

ok so I finally got kaspersky deleted and ff browser opened right up. it hasn't done that for two days. closed the browser and looked in task bar and firefox was not there. looks like Kaspersky was the problem with there updates. a big THANK YOU TO ALL THAT HAVE HELPED OUT ON THIS PROBLEM!!

I had the problem for over a week and spent about 40 hrs on it! Finally uninstalled Kaspersky. Then Firefox ok.

BUT if you go to 'settings', 'update security', are you able to do an update? I can't now!

and I can create a restore point, but it won't keep.

what about others?

thanks!

I have tried everything listed at one point or another, NOTHING will fix Firefox, the problem start with the release of version 70, so unless someone for Firefox actually reads these post nothing is getting fixed. I submitted a Bugzilla report also. I am hoping the the upcoming release will correct the problem, I cannot even get into ff no matter the suggestions, my FF appears white. sort of looks like i will have to find a new browser, right now believe it or not I am using AOL:) at least it works

Moderator:

Hi, so now that i finally got firefox 70 working after 10 days (!), what is the best way to get my bookmarks and stuff back?

When I updated to Windows version 1903, and then firefox wouldn't work; before I uninstalled it, and during troubleshooting, I put several folders on my desktop:

One says: 'old firefox data'. In it are folders with these names:

6c791e1k.default-release (I think a new 2nd profile created during troubleshooting) ?

em5m4n3s.default-1511999024572 (maybe an original profile??)

51bduq8k.10-30-19 (probably a default I created during troubleshooting) ?

I also see a folder I created on the desktop called: original firefox profile In it i see: 'bookmarkbackups' folder; and in there are about 15 files. Is each one a complete set? do you only look at the latest?

I see 'browser extension data'. What's that? do I need that? it says "light plugin" what's that?

also in there: screenshots@mozilla.org ?? what's that? undo close tab? webcompat@mozilla.org? what's that

and many other files

But what's in profiles besides bookmarks?? should I even try to use one of these?

or if all I really care about are bookmarks, should I just import them from my Chrome?

what's the best way to proceed?

thanks!

I'm not a moderator, but you can restore a bookmark backup file using the Restore menu (Choose File..., point Firefox to the old folder):

Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer

That completely replaces whatever bookmarks you have now. If you want to preserve those, you can export them before using Restore and then either refer to them in the HTML document (open in a tab) or import the HTML document to add them to the new set.

• Export Firefox bookmarks to an HTML file to back up or transfer bookmarks
• Import Bookmarks from an HTML file

Hi Jscher,

thanks! I meant you when I said moderator!

So because I had to uninstall and reinstall Firefox 70, is there a chance that the lastest bookmark backup back on 10/23 when I was having trouble, could be corrupted? Is it safe to use that backup?

or am I better off getting them from my chrome?

and what else is saved besides bookmarks? Do I really need anything else from a backup?

thanks

Usually you have several backups to choose from, so if you are not comfortable with a more recent one, try an older one. The creation date should be coded into the file name.

If you want to try importing from Chrome, this article has the steps: Import bookmarks and other data from Google Chrome.

For the other files, it depends. This article describes what they are in case any sound important: Recovering important data from an old profile.