That is not a normal situation launching from a temp folder, although I do not know the reason for that, but would guess it may be malware related, or because of some very odd installation or setup.

The multiple plugin containers could be due to an known bug (soon to be fixed Bug 633427) whereby when you clear history/cookies Firefox opens copies of plugincontainer.exe even for disabled plugins.

Others may give you a better answer, but the multiple plugincontainers may be an expected problem, the starting from a temp location I would be suspicious of.

Have a look at

• is my firefox problem a result of malware
• and a typical post from the-edmeister /questions/914980#answer-302372

Hi John, and thanks for replying. I'm really not leaning towards it being a malware problem since it only just started happening after upgrading. I'm also thinking it may be a logging issue with the antivirus and not firefox, because like I said, in task manager the firefox running is located in the proper directory, the directory my antivirus says it's launching from is the same where temporary setup .exe's would go to run for downloading/upgrading firefox. So I'm not really sure what the problem is, even when exiting firefox it says it exits from the same temp directory it starts, even though task manager shows it running in the mozilla directory in program files.

So even though it may not actually be a problem, I'd like to confirm that there isn't something I need to do to get it launching correctly. Other than that problem firefox seems to be working perfectly fine, so most people I'm sure wouldn't even notice, I just happened to see this and it confused me.

Just an observation not a solution. Did you ask this question with the same computer? Your system details are still showing Fx 3.6.26.

Did you accept an update or did you download a new Firefox because of the version jump? Perhaps the download hasn't installed properly. If other problems become apparent you may need to do a clean install - Download new version>Uninstall old version(s)>Install new version, retaining your preferences etc.

You have re-installed firefox 3.6 That will be the latest version 3.6.25 or whatever,so why should it be running in a temp location, and why should it be upgrading?

I do not have firefox 3.6 on a Win7 machine only on XP I may install firefox 3.6 on Win7 over the coming weekend, but I would be rather surprised to find it will be launching from temp directories.

On the other hand it seems conceivable malware could cause that sort of symptom, see for instance:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox.exe_always_open

Now add the fact that you seem to have discovered this due to an AV log, and that makes me very suspicious. I am no expert, but can not off hand, think of a more likely explanation for your problem.

I reinstalled 3.6 after I was having problems with 10. I already tried another reinstall and it does the same thing.

Earlier I received a firefox message that a new version of 3.6 was available (3.6.26) so I upgraded. I saw then in the log that firefox was launching as firefox.exe moz-callback or something, so i decided just to upgrade to the newest version of firefox, that's when I started seeing it launch from the improper directory.

The log I am reading from simply shows ALL .exe's that have launched and closed in order, showing it's location path, and what program opened/closed it. The temp directory and the random text string.tmp file it shows it's launching from is a random folder created by firefox during the installing and setup process. Firefox itself starts and exits perfectly fine and doesn't continue running in the background. I'm thinking it's either a logging problem with the AV's execution history log or something was wrong during installing, even though it happens each time I reinstall.

Sorry I am not familiar with the detail of the installation procedure, maybe I misunderstood:

according to an antivirus log, kept launching from a temp directory like appdata\local\temp\(randomtextstring).tmp\nonlocalized\firefox.exe instead of its normal program files

to mean that Firefox continues to start that way each time, rather than only doing so when you update.

Yes, according to the log that's how firefox starts each time I run it, even if i run firefox from the mozilla directory, regardless task manager shows that the firefox.exe running is located in the mozilla directory, even though the log shows it running from some temp directory.

After searching through the entire appdata folder I was unable to find that particular .tmp anywhere, I'm thinking maybe it deleted itself as it should have and for some reason my AV log still shows it launching from there, but I'm still not sure. I've done multiple reinstalls and it still shows the same thing. I'm wondering if it has to do with the temporary setup.exe wanting to launch firefox after installing. I unchecked the option and opened firefox manually but i still see it opening from there, a .tmp file which apparently doesn't even exist anymore.