the-edmeister's
Problem Solving Tips

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Problem:
When I attempted to start Firefox I saw a dialog box that told me I had to select a Profile. I selected Default and I was told, that Profile is in use and to select another; no other Profiles were shown, so I selected Create a New Profile. Now I want my extensions, my themes, and my Bookmarks back!

Cause:
This dialog box appears in Firefox 0.9 and 1.0.x versions, it was fixed with the release of Firefox 1.5 in November 2005. Newer versions display a dialog box that tells you what is wrong.
More than likely you had a hidden, running instance of Firefox.exe that was caused by Firefox 'crashing' or your Profile was 'hung-up' and Firefox did not close completely, which triggered the dialog to appear.


Solution:
1) kill all running firefox.exe processes
2) try to start Firefox normally
3) if no joy you will need to run the Profile Manager

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1)
Open the Windows Task Manager - Processes Tab
Ctrl plus Alt plus Del ( the MS 3-finger salute)
or Right-click the Taskbar and select Task Manager



click on the firefox.exe to highlight the Image Name
and then click on the End Process button.

There could be more than one running instance of firefox.exe,
so check the entire list twice and to make sure that you kill them all.

Close the Task Manager.

2)
Now, when you start Firefox you may see that
Select a Profile-dialog box;
if you do get that box, just select your Default Profile.


3)
If you didn't see the Profile dialog box,
you will probably still be running Firefox with your New Profile.
You will then need to open the Run or Cmd box
and run the Profile Manager from there
to get back into your original/Default Profile.



Still doesn't work for you ?
Sometimes a user still can't get Firefox to open
with the Profile of their choice, see the parent.lock page.

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#1 Rule to remember about Firefox:
If you see that Select a Profile- dialog box when launching Firefox;
you do have an instance of firefox.exe running within Windows!
Cancel the dialog box to close it
and open the Task Manager to kill firefox.exe.
Only then should you proceed to start Firefox!

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