652340 - Deleted profile directory misinterpreted as "Firefox still running"

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 278860

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, defect)

Description

[marcel.svitalsky]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0

I wanted to test something, so I started Firefox with --no-remote option and created new temporary profile directory on a temporary filesystem. When done with testing, I deleted the directory. After that Firefox wouldn't start, giving error message "Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open &c.", which was incorrect (there was no firefox process running).

I had to manually edit profiles.ini to sort this out.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Have FF running with your default profile.
2. Start the new instance with "firefox --no-remote -P" command.
3. In the dialogue window create a new, temporary profile, and start it, leaving "Don't ask at startup" checkbox checked as it is by default (alternatively uncheck it and in the step 5. pick the new, meantime deleted, profile).
4. Close both the instances and delete the temporary profile.
5. Start the FF with "firefox" command.

Actual Results:  
Error message saying that Firefox is already running and not responding, or if you've explicitly chosen the new profile, that it is in use.

Expected Results:  
Error message saying that the asked for profile no longer exists, and some offers of possible steps to rectify the situation.

Easy workaround is to edit profiles.ini file and delete information about the temporary profile there.

Comment 1

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

Bug 459638 is kind of related, the code dealing with profile-related edge cases just always fails the same way, and the error message isn't generic enough.

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

This will have been fixed in Firefox 14