Firefox not opening in Vista

Having recently moved up to a Vista PC I am suffering from an intermittent but annoying problem. After I've logged into Vista and I've started my internet connection I then try to open up Firefox which, on a regular basis, won't open - I get the Vista revolving blue circle for about 10 seconds then nothing. I have my PC on pretty much every evening and this problem normally occurs at least once a week, sometimes more. Normally a reboot followed by another try sorts it out but tonight I have rebooted four times and the glitch is still present, luckily I also have IE7 on the machine to fall back on. Another forum has suggested turning off Java, which I did a couple of weeks ago, but this doesn't seem to have made any difference. I'm running Firefox version 2.0.0.11

 

Try un-installing it and then re-installing FF. If you have bookmarks export them to save them, just in case
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Sorry I should have mentioned in my original post that I re-installed FF a few weeks back when I first started having this trouble. I'll do it again but I can envisage the problem returning. Having said that how can I export my bookmarks anyway if I can't get FF to open?

 

While in FF, click "Bookmarks", then click "Organize Bookmarks", then click "File" (in the new window) , and last click "Export". Then browse to where you want them to go and make a note of where they are. (I always use Desktop so I don't have to hunt down locations) To put them back, do the same but click import instead.

 

And I aplogize for mis-reading your post. To get to the Bookmarks, goto Start>Search, type in bookmarks.html, and click search everywhere. Then just drag it to your desktop.

 

Thanks to Musksnipe and Halo for the responses. In reply to Halo's comments - I admit that I havn't checked Problem Reports & Solutions in Control Panel. I do not have any Firefox add-ons. The one time I tried to start FF in safe mode it still wouldn't open. I'm using McAfee's firewall but even if that was blocking it surely it would block FF 100% of the time? The problem I'm having tends to be intermittent, although this latest episode is proving more troublesome to overcome.

Since my original post I have discovered that even though a FF browser won't open it is showing in Task Manager as running. I am unable to stop it in Task Manager using the End Process button and I have to reboot the PC to have another attempt at opening FF - sometimes it will work, sometimes not. In desperation I re-installed FF last night and was able to get working again but I am convinced the problem will re-occur as it has done so in the past.

I have also posted the problem on Mozilla's support forum so hopefully between here and there I may get a solution.

 

I, too, am also experiencing this problem with FF and can get into IE7 with no problem. I have Vista Home premium on a HP laptop and using AntiVir. Restarting seems to help. I also have IOBit Smart Defrag installed. When I boot up the laptop and I'm off doing something while it boots up, and if the laptop is idle long enough and I click on FF it doesn't come up. The Task Manager will show that Defrag is doing it's thing; ending the FF process will not occur.

I'll have to check out on re-installing, though, using the "Run As an Administrator" and see if that makes a difference. But I'll keep an eye on this thread to help me out as well.