476956 - Incorrectly shown "Another instance of firefox is already running, please close it etc...." warning

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 278860

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[B Ford]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

I wiped my profile by deleting the contents of my profile folder ( C:\Documents and Settings\<loginname>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\21ucxm7u.default ) but left the folder itself in place. I then started up Firefox expecting a generic profile to be re-created for me but I get the message "Another instance of firefox is already running, please close it etc....". Firefox.exe is not in the process list in task manager. This happens consistently.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Shut down Firefox
2. Delete the *contents* of your profile folder (i.e. C:\Documents and Settings\<loginname>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default
3. Start Firefox


Expected Results:  
Firefox should have used the existing folder to create a generic user profile and continue loading instead of displaying the error and exiting.