319802 - browser will not launch

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Edward Volkman]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)
Build Identifier: 

Was browsing Southwest Airlines when browser crashed.  It would not relaunch. I took the following steps: 1) rebooted my computer; 2) reloaded Firefox from my saved setup file; 3) used system restore to take my computer back ten days; 4) used add/remove to remove Firefox from my computer; 5) used IE to go to Mozilla and download Firefox.  The problem remains; when I launch the browser, it appears to launch and a Mozilla Central screen briefly (less than a second) appears and then disappears.  The problem appears to be exactly what is described in the Yahoo news article by Montalbano on Friday, December 9th.
All other programs on the computer work.  IE, Netscape and Netzero all launch, and run without problem.  The only thing I haven't yet done is to launch Firefox on another computer.
Obviously, I can use another browser and work unimpeded.  But I like Firefox; in fact, I love it.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Attempt to launch browser.
2.
3.

Actual Results:  
As described above.

Expected Results:  
Launched browser.

After some tedious digressions, I hooked up to Earthlink via a dial-up connection on my laptop, and on that machine with that connection I had no trouble launching Mozilla.

Comment 1

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Probably a profile clean-up will help.
Close Firefox, restart your computer, click Start -> Run -> and type: %appdata%
Open the folder Mozilla and delete everything in your profile EXCEPT for
the following files: bookmarks.html, prefs.js, user.js, cookies.txt,
history.dat, hostperm.1, signons.txt, key3.db and the folder chrome. 
Then start Firefox.

Comment 2

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Please first try the Firefox safemode (using the safemode entry in the windows startmenu) and if that doesn't work locate your profile (via the steps in comment #1) and delete history.dat, compreg.dat and the cache subfolder.

Comment 3

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Reporter, are you still seeing this issue with Firefox 3.6.x or later in safe mode? If not, please close. These links can help you in your testing.
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+Mode
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles

Comment 4

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.x or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). If you continue to see this issue with the newest firefox and a new profile, then please comment on this bug.