This isn't something Firefox would cause unless you are using Firefox portable on the flash drive or something like that. Have you reset firefox (potentially this could be an extension) Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings

I'm not sure what Firefox portable is, but I don't it or anything like it on my flash drives.

Then unless Firefox is accessing something stored on your flash dirves ( you didn't put you firefox profile there did you? or a picture Firefox is viewing, or anything like that? then this is unrelated.

Note you can just pull a flash drive out of the pc without safely ejecting it and it will work just fine, so long as you aren't using it.

The flash drives are in idle mode. As far as I know, Firefox isn't accessing something stored on my flash drives. I don't have my Firefox profiles on them. I didn't have a problem on the older versions of Firefox before version 17 and up.

I have just found this problem too on one of my machines - Windows 7 Pro 64 bit, running Firefox 18.0 (32 bit of course).

I have a number of add-ons and extensions but none of them should be accessing the USB drive, and FF is installed on the pc.

I keep getting the 'USB drive in use' message until I close FF - I've only just worked out that it was FF that was the problem.

Have either of you downloaded anything to those USB "devices" using Firefox?

If a "download" still appears in the Firefox Downloads window, Firefox will "keep track" of that download as long as it is in the Downloads window. You can "clear" that one download and see if that was causing the USB "device" to appear to be "in use". Note, you may need to restart Firefox after clearing that download from the Downloads window to stop the "in use" message.

Like I said, I didn't have a problem before Firefox version 17 and up. I do everything I did before, too. I cleared the cache and cookies often and I cleared the downloads window after I'm done downloading.

I don't have to download anything from Firefox at all and still get the problem. If I just plug in the USB device and click safely eject, but I can't.

I have the same plug-ins and extensions as I did in version 16 and below.

Same here.

If I start Firefox, go to a web-page, then insert the USB drive, look at a folder in the USB drive using Windows Explorer without having done anything else with FF at all, then try to eject it, I cannot. As soon as I close FF, I can.

I found the culprit using Process Explorer. It's RecordingManager.exe which is part of the RealDownloader 1.3.0 extension from RealNetworks inc. I could see it was referencing my USB drive letter, though have no idea why it was.

Killing off the RecordingManager.exe process while leaving FF running meant I could now eject the USB drive.

Disabling the extension in FF prevented the problem from re-occurring.

This is obviously a bug. I have the same problem every single time when trying to eject from USB. The culprit is 'Realplayer recording manager' showing up on task manager. The only way to tackle this issue is to: 1.) close the program under task manager manually every time, 2.) disable RealDownloader 1.3.0 extension from FF add-ons, 3.) Stop using Firefox!

I'm getting real tired of this browser!

Please contact RealPlayer, they develop their own add-on and Firefox isn't responsible for what it does.

I didn't have a problem with this prior to 18.0.2.

It's still Realplayer's issue, possibly they don't probably support Firefox 18. But since this is something that disabling/uninstalling realplayer fixes, it's obviously their software causing the issue

I have the same (USB eject) problem using the ' RealNetworks Download and Record Plugin for Internet Explorer', which, when enabled, shows in TaskManager as 'recordingmanager.exe'. Disabling the plugin or killing the process or closing the IE browser fixes the USB eject problem.

Also the same behavior with Google Chrome and the RealDownloader extension.

This is NOT a FireFox issue, it IS a Real Player issue, and unfortunately the folks at Real Player are either unaware or uninterested in fixing this defect.

the solutions are:

1. Use Task Manager to kill "recording manager.exe" every time you want to eject a disk (I have not tested disabling the PlugIn)

Or

2. Uninstall Real Player

I am inclined to remove All Real Products as there are other issues of degradation in the product making it undesirable.

Blaming FireFox for Real Player's Crimes is not the solution.

^^I disabled 'real downloader' on FF extensions and use RealPlayer alone with no problems. I can always turn it back on if I wanted to d/l or convert a video from say...youtube.

The 'Real DownLoader' was the only thing I really wanted. Also, I have a problem with developers which write code which behaves such as 'recordingmanager.exe'; and,,, the there is an issue with preferences in 'Real Player', it keeps changing my 'Library | File Locations' to the default which is unnacceptable.

I am in the process of removing all Real products from the systems I support, I am not inclined to force poorly written code to work properly.

Were Real NetWorks to offer a method of communicating such defects, and then resolve them, I would feel differently.

If you only want the 'Real Downloader' feature, consider using the Firefox add-on 'Video Downloadhelper', which accomplishes the same basic task.