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#1 2009-01-20 20:41:32

qweac
Member
From: Norway
Registered: 2008-05-27
Posts: 44

" Firefox is already running but is not responding"

Hi! I got a very frustrating problem. When I launch Firefox I pretty often get an error telling me that "Firefox is already running but is not responding...", and that I have to shut down the other Firefox-session before I can start a new one. The problem is that the previous session is already closed, but in "System Monitor" Firefox seems to be running anyway. When I manually close it from "System Monitor", I can start Firefox normally. Why? How can I fix this?

I'm running Firefox 3.0.5-1. I have also tried the nightly build in AUR, but I still got the problem. I don't think the problem is related to flash or java, because the problem can occur even when closing Firefox with no tabs open at all. But I'm pretty much a linux-noob, so what do I know.

Thanks!

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#2 2009-01-20 21:42:24

josomebody
Member
Registered: 2008-06-20
Posts: 190

Re: " Firefox is already running but is not responding"

Open a terminal, type 'ps -x'. You'll get a list of processes running with pid numbers to the left of them. type 'kill [firefox's pid#]' and check again with ps -x. If the firefox process is still there, type 'kill -9 [firefox's pid#]', and It should totally go away then.


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#3 2009-01-20 21:56:48

qweac
Member
From: Norway
Registered: 2008-05-27
Posts: 44

Re: " Firefox is already running but is not responding"

Thanks, but I manage to close the non responding Firefox session with "System Manager". Closing it in terminal would have just the same effect? The problem is that this happens so often, and I'm sick of having to do this all the time. I want Firefox to close properly, so that it will start properly the next time I want to use it.

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#4 2009-01-20 22:06:17

Wintervenom
Member
Registered: 2008-08-20
Posts: 1,011

Re: " Firefox is already running but is not responding"

killall firefox would have worked, too.

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#5 2009-01-20 22:13:05

skottish
Forum Fellow
From: Here
Registered: 2006-06-16
Posts: 7,942

Re: " Firefox is already running but is not responding"

It's been established how to stop Firefox after it half crashes, but the crash itself is what qweac is looking for.

From my experience this is caused either by buggy add-ons or plug-ins, bad Javascript code that Firefox handles poorly, or bugs in Firefox's Javascript engine. I personally haven't seen this happen in a long time, but I would consider the add-ons and plug-ins problem first. It's a hard problem to track unless you intend to run Firefox in a debugger.

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#6 2009-01-20 22:56:06

X/ax
Member
From: Oost vlaanderen, Belgium
Registered: 2008-01-13
Posts: 275
Website

Re: " Firefox is already running but is not responding"

I see it happening frequently. Mostly in conjunction of flash failing (no sound, shocky movement), at which I first try to stop firefox (because that fixes the flash issue)
The only resolve I have on it is the good old pkill -9 firefox and just go and restart firefox.
I've been having that issue a really long time now, and I always traced it back to flash... (In my case)


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#7 2009-01-20 23:57:18

Wintervenom
Member
Registered: 2008-08-20
Posts: 1,011

Re: " Firefox is already running but is not responding"

Flash or Java is always the culprit in my case.

Last edited by Wintervenom (2009-01-20 23:57:30)

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#8 2009-01-21 00:52:13

aport
Member
From: San Diego
Registered: 2008-02-20
Posts: 99

Re: " Firefox is already running but is not responding"

Firefox sure likes to crash... a lot.

killall firefox does the job.

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#9 2009-01-21 01:28:52

sand_man
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-06-10
Posts: 2,164

Re: " Firefox is already running but is not responding"

i use
pkill firefox
is there a difference between pkill and killall?


neutral

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#10 2009-01-21 01:31:58

skottish
Forum Fellow
From: Here
Registered: 2006-06-16
Posts: 7,942

Re: " Firefox is already running but is not responding"

I don't see the crashing that other people see, but I don't use many add-ons (extensions) either. I have only oldbar, Flashblock, and a US English dictionary. I don't remember the last time that I had Firefox crash.

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#11 2009-01-21 01:35:20

Ranguvar
Member
Registered: 2008-08-12
Posts: 2,544

Re: " Firefox is already running but is not responding"

NoScript prevents lots of crashes smile

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#12 2009-01-21 07:08:35

dav7
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-02-08
Posts: 674

Re: " Firefox is already running but is not responding"

Firefox frequently bugs out here, likely because my RAM and HDD are slow (and I don't have a lot of both). I'm using FF 3.1b2 so I should probably expect more issues, but I don't have many extensions either.

FF only crashes sometimes; more often than not when I close a tab that had something Flash-related in it the entire browser will hang. Upgrading to Flash 10 didn't help, either, IIRC - I think I got another hang shortly after I did the upgrade. I don't exactly remember though.

Last edited by dav7 (2009-01-21 12:12:06)


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#13 2009-01-21 08:12:59

qweac
Member
From: Norway
Registered: 2008-05-27
Posts: 44

Re: " Firefox is already running but is not responding"

My problem is not caused by extensions. I had the problem before I even installed one extension.

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#14 2009-01-21 18:48:53

liquibyte
Member
Registered: 2007-11-11
Posts: 91
Website

Re: " Firefox is already running but is not responding"

The mplayer & flash plugins are the culprits.  More the flash though.  The mplayer likes to run away occasionally though.  Oddly enough, after the 64 bit version I have less of the crash but still running issue.

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#15 2009-01-21 18:55:42

fwojciec
Member
Registered: 2007-05-20
Posts: 1,411

Re: " Firefox is already running but is not responding"

aport wrote:

Firefox sure likes to crash... a lot.

I don't remember the last time I had a firefox crash.  I guess this is the downside of having community extensions for an application -- when they cause firefox to crash people blame firefox for it...

qweac wrote:

My problem is not caused by extensions. I had the problem before I even installed one extension.

Then my guess would be the gtk theme you are using, or something in your ~/.mozilla folder...

Last edited by fwojciec (2009-01-21 18:57:39)

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