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Firefox is already running, but is not responding. The old Firefox process must be closed to open a new window.

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  • 3 have this problem
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  • Last reply by Dunehunter

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When trying to open a link from another app ie outlook, I get the msg: Firefox is already running, but is not responding. The old Firefox process must be closed to open a new window.

When trying to open a link from another app ie outlook, I get the msg: Firefox is already running, but is not responding. The old Firefox process must be closed to open a new window.

All Replies (3)

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Hi mdonpineo,

Certain Firefox problems can be solved by performing a Clean reinstall. This means you remove your Firefox program files and then reinstall Firefox. This process does not remove your Firefox profile data (such as bookmarks and passwords), since that information is stored in a different location.

To do a clean reinstall of Firefox, please follow these steps: Note: You might want to print these steps or view them in another browser.

  1. Download the latest Desktop version of Firefox from mozilla.org (or choose the download for your operating system and language from this page) and save the setup file to your computer.
  2. After the download finishes, close all Firefox windows (or open the Firefox menu New Fx Menu and click the close button Close 29).
  3. Delete the Firefox installation folder, which is located in one of these locations, by default:
    • Windows: (Note: Check both folders.)
      • C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox
      • C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox
    • Mac: Delete Firefox from the Applications folder.
    • Linux: If you installed Firefox with the distro-based package manager, you should use the same way to uninstall it - see Install Firefox on Linux. If you downloaded and installed the binary package from the Firefox download page, simply remove the folder firefox in your home directory.
  4. Now, go ahead and reinstall Firefox:
    1. Double-click the downloaded installation file and go through the steps of the installation wizard.
    2. Once the wizard is finished, choose to directly open Firefox after clicking the Finish button.

More information about reinstalling Firefox can be found here.

WARNING: Do not use a third party uninstaller as part of this process. Doing so could permanently delete your Firefox profile data, including but not limited to, extensions, cache, cookies, bookmarks, personal settings and saved passwords. These cannot be easily recovered unless they have been backed up to an external device! See Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles.

Please report back to say if this helped you!

Thank you.

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I was using Firefox without any problems but in a single profile scenario. As soon as I created another profile, I would get the error message indicated above, each and every time I click a link in my email program where it should be launching the link in one of the Firefox windows.

Chrome will launch it in the window that was last used if you have multiple profiles, but in Firefox it is broken.

I do have one of the profiles marked as the default. One of the profiles started automatically after rebooting my PC but I had to start the 2nd one manually using the profile manager page.

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It won't let me delete the software; says there's a file open.