Firefox crashes at startup (no safe mode or profile manager; mal-ware free)

Before we begin, "install Chrome" is not the correct answer =]

The STRANGEST thing happened this week. I'm using a profile I've perpetuated for 3-4 years. I wanted to start clean and have a fresh slate. So, I uninstalled my installation of Firefox.

Well, now, whenever I try to install firefox (8, 9, or 10), after installation Firefox will not start up. I click the icon, you can see it starting up, and then it disappears. No crash reporter, no crash reports in %appdata%. It won't start up in Safe Mode (-safe-mode, or -safemode, or -safe). None of this applies that I can tell: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Fi ... t&r=0&as=s Firefox crashes - MozillaZine Knowledge Base I have tried all combinations of clean installing, rebooting, running from windows safe mode, scanning for viruses/malware (Windows MSE, MalwareBytes, SuperAntiSpyware), and deleting every bit of data left over in */appdata/ I can find for FireFox.

I CAN get Firefox to start up with the "-profile manager" tag at the end (not -p OR -profilemanager, note the space...I believe this forces it to run that profile, even though it doesn't exist), however, it does not load up the Profile Manager, and when I try to visit a site, it crashes, and as far as I can tell, no crash reports are created. It does not create a profile or anything on my hard-drive. In fact, it doesn't look like it's getting far enough to recreate any of the directories I deleted before clean installing.

It is interesting to note, FirefoxPortable runs just fine, I am even running my previous profile with a simple copy/paste of my old profile folder. It runs just fine, except I think it's marginally slower. I'm fairly adept at troubleshooting. I've scanned the web for hours looking for a solution that works. Perhaps I've some registry corruption, but I'm not THAT savvy or knowledgeable on where to look for corruption. If this is the case, CCleaner's reg-cleaner did not fix the problem.

ANY ideas are welcome. I love using FF and my gamut of extensions.

Thanks!

P.S. I have a hunch this might be a Windows permissions issue...the problem with this hypothesis is that I'm running with UAC turned off completely. I've tried disabling firewalls & whatnot as well.

Windows 7 x64 HP

 

Firefox is just one Mozilla browser. While you're figuring out the Firefox issue, you might want to try SeaMonkey, which supports many, probably most, of the same extensions.

Turning off UAC and the firewall isn't going to solve this problem, and quite frankly, I think you could do better than MSE. Yes, the best paid Internet Security suites are still better than MSE, but they aren't free.....nothing in life is.

 

I'm having trouble understanding your proposed solution.

I'm willing to install another browser, in fact, I have and am running portable firefox, but it's sub-par performance-wise.

Turning off UAC is not something I did to try and fix the problem, UAC has been off. The reason I mentioned this is that I believe this is a problem with permissions, and the usual "run as administrator" probably doesn't apply.

 

I only suggested SeaMonkey as it uses most of the same Mozilla extensions, and you can have an iteration of SeaMonkey open at the same time as Firefox. Install it as a PortableApp, if you wish. It's just another Mozilla browser. I personally have had 5 or 6 browsers installed at one time. That doesn't mean that I'm obliged to use all of them, or any of them in particular.

As far as the "sub-per performance" of Portable Firefox, you do realize that the a flashdrive might have NAND memory, but it doesn't have SSD performance. Some thumbdrives are slower than others. If you want to, you can even run PortableApps from your primary HDD.

I don't suggest that any user should leave UAC off. It's a modest security measure on the part of Microsoft, although many users felt it was intrusive when it was introduced with Vista. I've never liked the actual implementation of UAC, even with Windows 7, but I wouldn't turn it off, much in the same way that I don't suggest running any Linux distro with every user as root.

 

Not a Firefox user, but you could try using Revo Uninstaller (it's free, you don't need the Pro version) to remove your existing Firefox installation and every registry entry/file associated with it and see if that'll work. The fact that Firefox Portable works fine seems to indicate that there's some persistent setting that's been messed up.

 

@SemiExpert
I actually am running Port FF off my SSD already. I've been around the neighborhood a while and understand UAC a little more than the average user. I have reasons for having it disabled, like driver signing. I currently run Comodo and defense +, which has similar functionality.

@Midnight, thanks for piping in =]

I actually have been running Revo to uninstall Firefox since the first uninstall. Beginning to wonder if Revo borked a registry entry or something in the first place.

I think the ROOT of the problem is this, the inability of Firefox to create a Profile directory here:
\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla

 

Well, the problem is they don't exist, there were never created, at least as of the last writing here in this thread.

I have partially resolved the issue. After manually sifting through my registry and deleting a few keys, I was able to get Firefox to boot up and write a profile into the Roaming/Firefox directory, but it's buggy as all get out.

I'm going to defer this for now. I may just clean install after tax season and get rid of a bunch of other muck I'm dealing with.

Thanks

 

Have you tried this suggestion from Mozilla?

Uninstalling Firefox - MozillaZine Knowledge Base

cheers ...

 

Oh yeah, been through all that jazz.

In fact, they updated that page due me =] (the part about Revo)

 

having a bit of trouble trying to read through your post.

did you delete /roaming/mozilla yet? I don't mean deleting its contents, i mean the actual folder called 'mozilla.'


anyhow, from what I understand:
-you have firefox 10 installed
-you click on the icon to start the program
-nothing happens

lets stop right here...did the firefox.exe process startup?

you're not trying to boot up from your old profile are you?

also, what the hell is '-profile manager'? in all my years with firefox, i've never seen that cmd argument before. you said '-p' doesn't work?

EDIT: ah, i accidentally scrolled past one of your posts. what do you mean by 'buggy as all get out'?