Firefox won't open because is already running

[Green_Lantern]

I am trying to use firefox but it sends a message that it is already running. I open the task manager and it doesn't show anything that looks like firefox in the process tab... I don't know and I would rather postpone reinstall it, what could possibly be?

 

[strawman]

Try closing anything that looks like plugincontainer as well.

If that doesn't work, reboot.

 

[Green_Lantern]

I tried to reboot already.

What exactly looks like a plugincontainer?

 

[strawman]

If you don't see it, it's probably not open. But if it were, it'd look something like this:

Two below firefox is the plugin-container that firefox uses to run flash, adobe air, pdf, and other content requiring a firefox plugin.

This blog post has a list of troubeshooting steps you might try to resolve this issue if it's not a running process:

http://grandstreamdreams.blogspot.com/2007/06/is-running-even-when-it-isn.html

1. Remove the lock file if it exists
2. Launch the firefox profile manager and use a different profile

 

[Zappit]

I've gotten this before. A reboot or shutdown has fixed it every time.

 

[Bowielee]

I've had this happen where it's persisted even after a reboot, however, shutting down the processes manually has always worked.

 

[jwhouk]

Firefox, especially if you've had it open for a long, long, LONG time (and with a lot of tabbed windows and extensions), tends to do this. The only way of getting around it is to open Task Manager and kill the process manually.