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My firefox is running in the background, unvisible. It will not allow me to uninstall/ reinstall because it says it is running. I cannot create a new profile because it says that firefox is running? How do I fix this??

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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I have tried restarting my computer, tried uninstalling, tried reinstalling but it always tells me that Firefox is open and running. When I select the task manager, there is no "firefox" under process. I have tried checking to make sure that the "read only" box is not checked under the profile properties. it seems like my only option now is to create a new profile. However, the profile manager won't even come up because it says firefox is running in the background. So frustrating!

I have tried restarting my computer, tried uninstalling, tried reinstalling but it always tells me that Firefox is open and running. When I select the task manager, there is no "firefox" under process. I have tried checking to make sure that the "read only" box is not checked under the profile properties. it seems like my only option now is to create a new profile. However, the profile manager won't even come up because it says firefox is running in the background. So frustrating!

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Do a clean (re)install and delete the Firefox program folder (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\).

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

Uninstall your current Firefox version if possible.

  • Do NOT remove personal data when you uninstall the current version or you lose your bookmarks and other data in the profile folder.

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

  • It is important to delete the Firefox program folder to remove all the files and make sure that there are no problems with files that were leftover after uninstalling.

Your bookmarks and other profile data are stored elsewhere in the Firefox Profile Folder and won't be affected by a reinstall, but make sure that you do not select to remove personal data if you uninstall Firefox.

You can force Firefox to create a new default profile if you remove the profiles.ini file.

You can find that file here:

C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\

The "Application Data" folder in XP/Win2K and the "AppData" folder in Vista/Windows 7 are hidden folders.