Odd problem with firefox

Fanny Cradock

Up until yesterday firefox was running perfectly on my system, as it had been for many a month. just before i went to bed i closed down oblivion and tried to open the browser, but it wouldnt open. odd i thought, but i assumed that a restart would sort the issue. well, it hasn't.

when i open firefox it appears in the task manager (using less than 20mb ram which i think is odd) but not on the screen. the really odd thing is that the other two user profiles that are active on this computer (neither of which have admin privileges) can use firefox without any issues. i've tried reinstalling the latest version, yet it made no difference.

The only things ive changed on my computer since yesterday was the uninstallation of NOD32 and the installation of Avast! though i hardly think that this could cause any issues.


any suggestions?


OS: Xp home

irlrobins

Have tried running FF in it's safe mode? In case it's an extension that is causing a problem?

This is worth a read.

gerky

did u try right clicking it in task manager and click maximise cud also try clickin bring to front and switch to

thetourist

you should export your bookmarks, backup your extensions and reinstall it - unless you have tons of tweaks done it will be quicker than faultfinding
should only take you a few minutes

Fanny Cradock

i cant even start the thing in safe mode. again, it appears in the processes section of the task manager (not in applications) but not on screen. safe mode does work on the other user profiles and i've reset everything there - still no joy though.

i've done a full uninstall, including deleting the mozilla folder (luckily i still have all the bookmarks, profiles, etc. in the recycle bin) and i've cleared the registery, cash, history etc. using CCLeaner. at this stage it is a fresh install, meaning there are no extensions.

thanks fo the link, irlrobins. unfortunately, many of the suggested courses of action require firefox to open. i'll have to spend a bit more time looking through it thogh. i hate having to use IE, maybe i'll switch to opera in the meantime. ohhh, how i miss my extensions.

thetourist

something pretty serious then....
if it was me then i would

• uninstall again
• get a registry cleaner ( you can download a triall of tune up utilites ) and run it
• download the microsoft installer cleanup utitity and use it to remove any instance of firefox from the list ( this may be a bit of a waste of time but it's not too hard to do and it might sort the problem out )
• presuming you're using xp then get your windows disk, put it in the drive, cancel out of the installer program and type sfc.exe /scannow in the run box and let it finish ( takes about 25 mins and fixes up your windows system files )
• download a new installer file for firefox
• you could do a defragment and error check of the main drive at this point if you wanted ( maybe overkill )
• reinstall with av and firewall software turned off

if that doesnt work then you could try it all over again with an older version of the firefox installer ( maybe 1.4 or something like that - you can get old versions of firefox somewhere on the net if not on the firefox site itself )

if you still get nowhere then i would be thinking there was something wrong with the pc ( eg virus, corrupt windows etc )

kippy

Is system restore an option?

angelofdeath

does

win+r
firefox.exe -profilemanager

do anything, can you run it with a new profile?

edit://nm, just read your last post:)