Cannot open Firefox after closing her.

[Bob Goodwin]

Phil Meyer wrote:
> Dotan Cohen wrote:
>> Recently, I've found that I'm unable to open Firefox after I close the
>> program. I close Firefox with the X button on the Title bar. When I
>> try to open it again, I am confronted with this:
>> Firefox is already running, but not responding. To open a new window,
>> you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your
>> system.
>>
>> I've looked in /.mozilla/firefox/profile but there is no lock file.
>> Also, typing jobs at the command line shows me no jobs- not even
>> things that I know are running such as Opera and Kmail.
>>
>> This problem is reproducable: I reboot, and I can open Firefox.
>> However, after close, it will not reopen. How can I kill Fx so that I
>> can restart it, without shutting down?
>>
>> Dotan Cohen
>>
>> http://what-is-what.com/what_is/css.html
>> http://technology-sleuth.com/long_answer/what_is_hdtv.html
>>
>
> This is typical of a plugin problem -- it doesn't let the browser 'end'.
>
> As others have suggested, look at the process list and kill any 
> running firefox programs, then start it again.
>
> Also, examine what plugins you are using at what sites you visit, to 
> determine what it is that is 'hanging' firefox.  The mplayer or xine 
> plugins can get into a mess where one of them does not complete, so 
> subsequent instances of that plugin wait on the audio device to become 
> available, thus causing firefox to not ever complete its exit.
>
> I should add that at my house we haven't seen this behavior for quite 
> some time now.  The mplayer and xine and firefox folks have made lots 
> of improvements in that last year.
>
> As yourself, open a terminal and run:
>
> $ ps | egrep "mplayer|firefox"
>
> and kill any processes (PID) that show up.
>
> Substitute whatever plugin name you wish.
>
> There is a GUI tool for process control that my wife used to use, but 
> for the life of me I cannot find it or remember what it was.
>
> Good Luck!
>
>
When it happens here I do -

rm /root/.mozilla/firefox/0u7yhbtw.default/.parentlock