[Modified Friday, Aug 21st 2009 by claude]
If you encounter the 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.", it implies that your profile is already in use.
The most common cause of this error is that your Mozilla application did not shutdown properly. It might still be running in the background or it might have closed abnormally, without deleting the lock file.
To avoid conflicts, Mozilla applications (Firefox, Thunderbird) are designed to allow only one copy of the application to access a profile at the same time. This is done by checking for the existence of a lock file when it starts. If a lock file is found, the application exits with an error message; otherwise, it creates a lock file in the profile and removes it when the application is closed. If the Mozilla application terminates abnormally, the lock file might not be removed, thereby preventing you from using the profile.
To solve the problem, remove the lock file(s). In Windows, the file is named 'parent.lock' and in Linux, you must delete two files: 'lock' and '.parentlock'.
In Windows, the file should be located in G:\Mozilla\FireFox or G:\Mozilla\Thunderbird. If your files are hidden, go to My Computer->Tools menu->Folder Options->View tab->"Show hidden files and folders".
In Linux, the file should be located in ~/.mozilla/firefox.
If you cannot find a folder named 'Firefox' in G:\Mozilla, you may be using an old path.
1. Go to C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR_LOGIN_NAME\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles.ini, replace the line 'Path=...' with this line 'Path=G:\Mozilla\FireFox'.
2. Create the following folder: G:\Mozilla\FireFox.
3. Re-launch Firefox.
You should now be able to use your browser. A similar procedure is used for Thunderbird.
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