Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Firefox already running error with multiple profiles and -no-remote set

  • 4 replies
  • 18 have this problem
  • 7 views
  • Last reply by sfBlackfox

I have created two profiles. One to run firefox 4 and one for firefox 3. I run both for testing puposes in a webdevelopment environment. The profiles are called firefox4 and firefox3 respectivally and these are the only profiles. I've changed the shortcuts to read path/to/firefox4/firefox.exe -P firefox4 -no-remote and path/to/firefox3/firefox.exe -P firefox3 -no-remote

I can now start both versions from there shortcut at the same time. But when firefox 4 is open (I want to use this as the default browser) and i click on a link in another program (i.e. a link in an email openened in thunderbird or from a twitter-app) I get an error: Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system.

I thought that with te -no-remote options problems like this should occur. Is there something I'm missing or is there a fix for this problem?

I have created two profiles. One to run firefox 4 and one for firefox 3. I run both for testing puposes in a webdevelopment environment. The profiles are called firefox4 and firefox3 respectivally and these are the only profiles. I've changed the shortcuts to read path/to/firefox4/firefox.exe -P firefox4 -no-remote and path/to/firefox3/firefox.exe -P firefox3 -no-remote I can now start both versions from there shortcut at the same time. But when firefox 4 is open (I want to use this as the default browser) and i click on a link in another program (i.e. a link in an email openened in thunderbird or from a twitter-app) I get an error: Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system. I thought that with te -no-remote options problems like this should occur. Is there something I'm missing or is there a fix for this problem?

Chosen solution

You can't use the -no-remote command for a Profile that is the "default browser / profile".

Read this answer in context 👍 2

All Replies (4)

Chosen Solution

You can't use the -no-remote command for a Profile that is the "default browser / profile".

Thank you both for your reply. The problem was fixed by removing the -no-remote option for the default version.

It really is a very simple solution. Firefox checks whether or not firefox is running in the processes. I noticed this at first when I named my installer firefox.exe. It could not install because it said firefox was already running however nothing more but the installer called firefox.exe was running. In other words, simply renaming the firefox.exe to somthing like firefox-v3.exe should not enable firefox to check if firefox is running, as the process name now is firefox-v3.exe :)

Not the safest solution though, but I reckon it should work (did not test between v3 and v4

Modified by sfBlackfox