I am using Mozilla 1.6. Out of nowhere I got the profile manager screen saying "Mozilla cannot use the profile "Ray" because it is in use. Please choose another profile or create a new one." So it won't launch Mozilla w/o a new profile which has none of my bookmarks or settings. How can I get it back to where it was?

Just click Cancel

When you try to click the Mozilla icon (or run "mozilla"), it is attempting to run a completely new instance on Mozilla, but you can only have once instance running under a certain profile. You only have one profile normally because that's the default and few people need to set another up.

So if you want a new window, just go to File --> New Window in Mozilla.

If you closed Mozilla completely and it is still popping that dialog up, something is wrong. You probably have to force kill mozilla like:

Thanks. I restarted and it was ok.

I do also have this problem coming up now and then (not that often but anyway - it should be possible to get rid of that annoying thing).

It will probably disapeare when I restart X, but that is not a solution.

I run FC2 test-3 right now but the same issue appeares under FC1.

When i try to do like it said under this thread, I only got the message: "...no process killed"

and this command only gets this answer.
ps aux | grep mozilla
root 2572 0.0 0.1 4728 736 pts/1 S 11:20 0:00 grep mozilla

Anyone knows how to end this problem (finaly)?

I occasionally get the same thing. This workaround from Sun is my answer:

If your system crashes or shuts down accidentally while Mozilla is running, Mozilla fails to clear the profile lock file. After you reboot your system and launch Mozilla, a dialog displays the following warning:

Mozilla cannot use the profile because it is in use. Please choose another profile or create a new one.

Remove the file $HOME/.mozilla/<profilename>/<random>/lock as a workaround.

Thanks.

This thread is a bit stale, but there is an unanswered part of the question that can still be addressed. The problem (restated) is that if one mozilla instance exists, one cannot always launch another without running into the profile manager. One can always use ^n to make a new instance, but with some imagination one can conceive of situations where this is not a desirable solution. For example: suppose you have several mozilla's up, you receive mail with a url in it and try to auto-launch mozilla from within the mail. Sometimes it won't work, and ^n only gives you a new instance without picking up the url from the mail.

Here's how I got around it. It's a hack, but it does work. I am assuming you have /usr/bin/urlview and /usr/bin/url_handler.sh installed. In your home directory, create the file ~/.urlview and put the following line in it:

This will delete any existing lock files which prevents the profile manager from being activated.

-Jeff

To launch another instance of mozilla without being hindered by the profile manager, use the following shell script. Most of it comes from seawood@netscape.com in an ealier release, but adapted here for 1.6. Just plugin your <installation path>.

#!/bin/sh

#
# Variables
#
MOZ_DIST_BIN="<installation path>"
MOZ_PROGRAM="<installation path>/mozilla-bin"
MOZ_CLIENT_PROGRAM="<installation path>/mozilla-xremote-client"

check_running () {
$MOZ_CLIENT_PROGRAM 'ping()' 2>/dev/null >/dev/null
RETURN_VAL=$?
if [ "$RETURN_VAL" -eq "2" ]; then
echo 0
return 0
else
echo 1
return 1
fi
}

# check to see if there's an already running instance or not
ALREADY_RUNNING=`check_running`

# If there is no command line argument at all then try to open a new
# window in an already running instance.
if [ "${ALREADY_RUNNING}" -eq "1" ] && [ -z "$1" ]; then
exec $MOZ_CLIENT_PROGRAM "xfeDoCommand(openBrowser)" 2>/dev/null >/dev/null
else
exec "$MOZ_DIST_BIN/run-mozilla.sh" $script_args "$MOZ_DIST_BIN/mozilla-bin" "$@"
fi