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Firefox stopped launching and reinstall wont fix

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  • 5 have this problem
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  • Last reply by MeatRocket

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Firefox stopped launcing!

Clicking on the desktop icon freezes and the icon in the Mozilla folder does the same. No new extensions and no new updates,

Cannot run firefox.exe in Windows XP run to launch new profile wizard. Did an uninstall and reinstall and problem presists.

It continus to crash every single time ... please help

Firefox stopped launcing! Clicking on the desktop icon freezes and the icon in the Mozilla folder does the same. No new extensions and no new updates, Cannot run firefox.exe in Windows XP run to launch new profile wizard. Did an uninstall and reinstall and problem presists. It continus to crash every single time ... please help

All Replies (3)

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Create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problems.

See "Basic Troubleshooting: Make a new profile":

There may be extensions and plugins installed by default in a new profile, so check that in "Tools > Add-ons > Extensions & Plugins" in case there are still problems.

If that new profile works then you can transfer some files from the old profile to that new profile, but be careful not to copy corrupted files.

See:

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See also:


Did you remove the Firefox program folder (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\) after uninstalling Firefox to remove all possible remnant files?

Try a clean reinstall and delete the Firefox program folder (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\) before reinstalling a fresh copy of Firefox.

Download a fresh Firefox copy and save the file to the desktop.

Uninstall your current Firefox version, if possible, to cleanup the Windows registry and settings in security software.

  • Do NOT remove personal data when you uninstall your current Firefox version, because all profile folders will be removed and you will also lose your personal data like bookmarks and passwords from profiles of other Firefox versions.

Remove the Firefox program folder before installing that newly downloaded copy of the Firefox installer.

Your bookmarks and other profile data are stored in the Firefox Profile Folder and won't be affected by an uninstall and (re)install, but make sure that "remove personal data" is NOT selected when you uninstall Firefox.

If you keep having problems then also create a new profile.


--- Another possible cause is security software (firewall,anti-virus) that blocks or restricts Firefox or the plugin-container process without informing you, possibly after detecting changes (update) to the Firefox program.

Remove all rules for Firefox and the plugin-container from the permissions list in the firewall and let your firewall ask again for permission to get full unrestricted access to internet for Firefox and the plugin-container process and the updater process.

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I figured out this problem on my machine - I got tired of Flashplayer always taking up resources so I renamed the FlashPlayer & Plugin .exe files to .ex_. This made Firefox stop responding. I uninstalled/reinstalled several times not thinking about Flash. As soon as I renamed to .exe, FireFox worked. I guess it would've worked had I just disabled the Plugin inside Firefox also.