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Delete "Parent" File to Fix "Profile in Use" Error
Posted by Kevin Purdy at 1:00 AM on February 9, 2008
Long-time Firefox users will remember moments when, usually after a browser crash, they've been unable to restart Firefox, receiving an error message akin to "Firefox cannot use the profile "X" because it is in use." The CyberNet tech blog notes that you can delete a file or two named "parent.lock," ".parentlock," or, in the case of Linux, both "Lock" and ".parentlock," in your Firefox profile folder to solve the problem without having to restart the system. The CyberNet article has the goods on where to find your profile and which files to delete on which systems, and saves many of us a frustrating restart (or five).
Tags: firefox | firefox tip | how to
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
bougatsa
Posted 2:43 AM 9/2/08
I've never experienced this problem exactly, but instead, Firfox just stops working on a fairly regular basis, mostly after running for a long time. When I try to close the app to restart, I still to kill the process 9 times out of 10.This is true on a variety of different systems over the years and it even feels like a carry over from the netscape era. Never had this problem with IE and, as far as I can tell, no other apps that connect to the web experience connectivity interruptions.
Anyone else have this and know a solution?
bougatsa
Browzilla
Posted 5:43 AM 9/2/08
I used to get this all the time on Windows, it was such a pain.
However since I've bought a Mac and started using Camino, it hasn't happened, thankfully.
However, for those users who get this frequently, perhaps someone could write a script to automate the removal of these files?
I'm no good with Windows scripting, but something like
kill firefox
delete parent.lock etc
run firefox
Doesn't seem like it'd be too hard to throw together.
Browzilla
SeanOHara
Posted 7:43 AM 9/2/08
The times I've encountered the problem it's been because the previous instantiation didn't stop running when it crashed. All you have to do is pull up task manager and force Firefox to close completely.
SeanOHara