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When trying to open a link in another program and FF is running, am now getting error message that Firefox is running.

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  • Last reply by Victory

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Running FF 55.0.3 (64 bit) on Windows 10 and have used FF as my default browser for years with no issues. Starting a week ago, if Firefox is running and I click on a link in any other program (e.g., Outlook, Adobe, etc) I get the error message:

  "Firefox is already running, but is not responding.  The old Firefox process must be closed to open a new window." 

In the past, clicking on these links has always resulting in the url opening in a new tab/window in the current Firefox session. This problem does not exist if I switch to Chrome as my default browser.

Running FF 55.0.3 (64 bit) on Windows 10 and have used FF as my default browser for years with no issues. Starting a week ago, if Firefox is running and I click on a link in any other program (e.g., Outlook, Adobe, etc) I get the error message: "Firefox is already running, but is not responding. The old Firefox process must be closed to open a new window." In the past, clicking on these links has always resulting in the url opening in a new tab/window in the current Firefox session. This problem does not exist if I switch to Chrome as my default browser.

Chosen solution

This can happen if you have started Firefox with the -no-remote command line switch. In that case you can't open external links in Firefox with a double-click and you would have to drag the link in a Firefox tab.

If you have a MOZ_NO_REMOTE environment variable then remove this variable and do not change its value to 0 because that doesn't work (Firefox checks for its existence and not the value).

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Seçilmiş Həll

This can happen if you have started Firefox with the -no-remote command line switch. In that case you can't open external links in Firefox with a double-click and you would have to drag the link in a Firefox tab.

If you have a MOZ_NO_REMOTE environment variable then remove this variable and do not change its value to 0 because that doesn't work (Firefox checks for its existence and not the value).

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Thank you ! I had read those links several times, but did not know how to find the environment variable to remove it. A bit more searching did the trick.

I was having trouble with LastPass add-on last week. Their support had me create a new profile. Somewhere along the way, I remember making a change to allow me to view both profiles simultaneously. After getting LP running correctly, I could not recall the changes I had made. A full uninstall and reinstall of firefox did not help. Everything appears to be back to normal now. Thanx again.