Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system.

15 September 2006

Tonight I accidently deleted my Firefox profile, thus it wouldn’t let me open Firefox, I kept getting the error mentioned above. This was because it was looking for a profile that no longer exists. Here is what I did to fix it:

I went to command prompt (start -> run –> cmd), then I changed directories until I was in: c:\program files\mozilla firefox\, from here I ran: firefox.exe -profilemanager

So it would be:

C:\program files\mozilla firefox\firefox.exe -profilemanager

This could be different depending on your configuration. After running that, the profile manager popped up. I deleted my old profile and created a new one, and I was good to go.

Hope this helps for anyone who might encounter this problem. Cheers.

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28 Responses to “Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system.”

  1. gabi Says:
    October 3rd, 2006 at 6:24 am

    It works .. 10x

  2. Shirley Says:
    October 18th, 2006 at 10:16 am

    OMG - thank you so much! I was having the same problem and this totally helped - thank you!

  3. rajesh Says:
    November 20th, 2006 at 11:20 pm

    thanks. i had the same problem in linux and yahoo returned ur site on search, followed ur steps and here i am browzing in firefox.

  4. Anthony Says:
    November 24th, 2006 at 9:42 am

    I was getting this error and found this site through Google.

    I tried your solution and it worked perfectly. The profile was the culprit. Thank you.

  5. DV Says:
    December 5th, 2006 at 1:00 pm

    Great solution! I’ve never had a problem with Firefox and then this happened. I believe it was caused by a virus because my Norton notified of a problem in the Profiles folder and then Firefox would not work. I think the virus renames your folder with that strange text string and screws everything up. Thanks again for your help on this issue

  6. Laura Says:
    December 17th, 2006 at 12:57 pm

    Thank you! This was exactly what I needed to know.

  7. ashbaugh Says:
    December 17th, 2006 at 1:03 pm

    You’re welcome! :)

  8. Manuel Says:
    December 27th, 2006 at 12:19 pm

    Thanks, you solved my issue.
    This should be added to mozilla knowledge base

  9. Mihaela Says:
    January 12th, 2007 at 3:51 pm

    Hey, thanks a lot! I had the same problem and I have used your solution :)..it worked, only that I did not delete my old profile, I want to recover some info…

  10. hmm Says:
    January 12th, 2007 at 4:15 pm

    wont work fo rme

  11. jake Says:
    April 8th, 2007 at 4:55 pm

    there is an easier way, if you do it that way you run the risk of loosing saved passwords
    hit ctrl+alt+del go to processes and click the image name bit at the to of the process list, then look for firefox.exe and right click then click end process, firefox will start up normally when you double click the icon after this, it saves having to create a new profile for it

  12. ashbaugh Says:
    April 8th, 2007 at 7:42 pm

    Jake: That didn’t work for me when I had this problem. Even with no processes running, starting Firefox would repeat the error until the solution I described. Thanks though.

  13. dzrien2000 Says:
    April 18th, 2007 at 2:24 pm

    thank you very much. We really appreciate

  14. PaddyK Says:
    May 19th, 2007 at 1:25 pm

    Had same problem - found this site via Google search and Bingo it worked ! Thank you.

    Likewise even if I shut the process via Tsk Manager - it still did not work. This tip did what it !says on the tin” for me . .

  15. Daniel Says:
    July 6th, 2007 at 6:15 pm

    For those still having problems, try this:

    http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-fix-firefox-is-already-running-error/#comment-108044

  16. Jon Says:
    August 17th, 2007 at 10:52 am

    I ran into this in my Domain with AppData folder redirection. this was a shared account and I would get the error if another computer had firefox open. If I closed on the other computer it would work fine. I used this solution to move the profile to “C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\local settings\application data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\%username%”

    Hope this helps any Admins

  17. nikita ramchandani Says:
    August 26th, 2007 at 1:02 am

    thank you so much. this helped a couple of times.

  18. Brian Says:
    August 31st, 2007 at 9:54 am

    this worked great, thanks for posting.

  19. Sasha Says:
    September 20th, 2007 at 2:15 pm

    Thanks a lot :)

  20. Alex Says:
    October 4th, 2007 at 10:47 am

    Thanks a lot man ! It worked like a charm !

  21. Andrea Says:
    October 16th, 2007 at 10:14 am

    I had this problem when my profile was changed from local to roaming. Your solution worked!

  22. Liquid Soap Says:
    October 17th, 2007 at 10:05 pm

    Thanks.I don’t know if you still read the comments section but any idea why this works?

  23. Ch0wn Says:
    November 7th, 2007 at 3:45 pm

    Awesome, i had this problem.. now solved 5Stars!

  24. Luce Says:
    November 27th, 2007 at 3:41 am

    Yeah! This did do what it said on the tin, thanks very much.

  25. Jeyaraj Says:
    December 29th, 2007 at 12:30 pm

    Bang…. your trick worked… Thanks for the tips

  26. sYiDee Says:
    April 15th, 2008 at 11:25 am

    i’m not having the error. the mozilla firefox windows open normally but isn’t responding for a long time.

  27. A.R.M.Irfan Says:
    May 1st, 2008 at 10:57 pm

    I got the same error too.This solution worked for me well too.Thanx a lot.

  28. LEE-SCOTT Says:
    June 16th, 2008 at 2:43 am

    YEAHHHHHYYYYY! FINALLY FireFox is killed and I can use it again! Such a simple task fixed my months of problems of trying to use FF!!!
    thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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