Firefox task starts but no window is displayed OS X 10.10.4
When clicking on the FF logo in the task bar the task starts in Yosemite but the browser window is not displayed. I have had to make Safari the default so that I can use the web and so that web links activate when clicked. I have re-installed Firefox several times but no change. I have removed just about all plist items I can find for FF and shutdown and restarted several times but I can't fix the problem. Any suggestions.
Chosen solution
Is Firefox hidden when you start it? If not, try a clean reinstall: 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.
- 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.
- After the download finishes, close all Firefox windows (or open the Firefox menu
and click the close button 
).
- Delete the Firefox installation folder, which is located in one of these locations, by default:
- Windows:
- 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.
- Windows:
- Now, go ahead and reinstall Firefox:
- Double-click the downloaded installation file and go through the steps of the installation wizard.
- 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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Chosen Solution
Is Firefox hidden when you start it? If not, try a clean reinstall: 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.
- 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.
- After the download finishes, close all Firefox windows (or open the Firefox menu and click the close button ).
- Delete the Firefox installation folder, which is located in one of these locations, by default:
- Windows:
- 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.
- Windows:
- Now, go ahead and reinstall Firefox:
- Double-click the downloaded installation file and go through the steps of the installation wizard.
- 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.
Try to update to Firefox 40 if you currently still use Firefox 39.
Are you running Firefox in a VM (virtual machine) environment?
You could be seeing this bug:
- bug 1180688 - On OSX 10.10 yosemite VM everything renders as black or white except popups/panels
You can try to evaluate this code in the Browser Console (Firefox/Tools > Web Developer).
Services.prefs.setBoolPref('layers.offmainthreadcomposition.enabled', false);
Services.prefs.setBoolPref('layers.acceleration.disabled', true);
Paste the JavaScript code in the command line and press the Enter key to evaluate the code. You can toggle devtools.chrome.enabled to true on the about:config page to enable the command line.
You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I'll be careful" to continue.