Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

On Windows 7 Enterprise OS, Firefox failed to start when upgrading to any higher versions after 6.0.2

  • 2 replies
  • 6 have this problem
  • 7 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

kummetac
kummetac
more options

Hi Please can you help me with this?

Currently I am running Firefox version 6.0.2 on my Windows 7 Enterprise OS Desktop. When I try to update Firefox, installations completes successfully. However when trying to launch Firefox, browser window is not opened. It was showing a 'Firefox failed to start' error message for versions before 11. For the latest version i.e 11, no error messages are displayed. When trying to launch application, no browser window is opened, but I can see Firefox process running in Task Manager. I tried to do a clean install by removing all add-ins and also deleting Firefox folder under program files. It did not solve the problem.

Thanks Chandra

Hi Please can you help me with this? Currently I am running Firefox version 6.0.2 on my Windows 7 Enterprise OS Desktop. When I try to update Firefox, installations completes successfully. However when trying to launch Firefox, browser window is not opened. It was showing a 'Firefox failed to start' error message for versions before 11. For the latest version i.e 11, no error messages are displayed. When trying to launch application, no browser window is opened, but I can see Firefox process running in Task Manager. I tried to do a clean install by removing all add-ins and also deleting Firefox folder under program files. It did not solve the problem. Thanks Chandra

All Replies (2)

user633449
user633449
more options

Ok, well let's try going straight to what the problem probably is, a corrupted profile.

Can you please read https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Managing-profiles, and create a new testing profile? Start Firefox 6 up using the new profile, then close it. After you've done that, upgrade to Firefox 11, and try starting, again using the new profile. If everything works, then you just had a corrupted profile, and you can read Recovering important data from an old profile, which explains how to transfer your data from your old one to your new profile.

Let me know if this helps!

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

Another possible cause is security software (firewall) 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.

See: