hmm, very strange.

the ps -aux should have shown it if it was running, sounds like a lock file that did not remove correctly. Or possibly a freak issue. I would 99% of the time say no reboot is needed, but at this point it would be quicker to try. If the problem continues afterwards it may be something else causing the problem. I know yum-update will get stuck on sometimes, but should not effect firefox.

I've rebooted many times ... .parentlock is there, even before I try to start Firefox.

I think I will reformat everything and install Linux on a new blank partition, but first, as a test, I will create a new user and see what happens. If you're interested, I'll let you know!

Thanks to all for your help!!

yes i'd like to see how it turns out, I use fedora as well and am always interested in new problems people are having.

I've made a new user, and the problem is gone. Of course, this is quite normal, because the .parentlock file is in the home directory of another user now.

But! When I open Firefox for the first time as a new user, it shows all my favorites that I had created as the old user. It has all my old greasemonkey scripts! How can that be??



Sorry, I'm a Mandriva user ;-)

This is a summary of a very long thread in the newbie forum: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...onding-635051/

= I had the famous "Firefox is already running" error.
= ps did not show any processes like firefox* or mozilla*
= I did find a .parentlock file in my home directory, which, according to answers in many forums, "should just be deleted"
= deleting the file was not possible, even not as root
= because I didn't want to live without Firefox, I decided to create a new user
= when I opened Firefox as the new user, it knew that I was new because it asked me if I wanted to import things from my Windows partion. I said NO.
= but, after having opened Firefox as a completely new user, it had all the bookmarks from the old user, even all the greasemonkey scripts were there, and working ...

Is it normal?

It is happening and those commands do not always fix the issue. It tries to open for a few seconds and then dies out, then the next time I try to open Firefox up it says it is already running? I tried to make a different user and get the the same results.

I'm digging further, and see that the problem is not limited to Firefox. All the documents that where in /home/OLDUSER/documents are also in /home/NEWUSER/documents. They are owned by root, but my newuser can open them, change them and save them again...

I don't know if you've already formatted, but did you check /var/log/messages (or dmesg) for any strange messages about possible problems with the filesystem?

Although not identical to your problems, some folks have received the same sort of error about not being able to delete files they ought to on Western Digital MyBooks, and it seems it was because the filesystem was corrupted. Solutions varied, but generally running a fsck on the relevant partition seemed to sort out the problem. This is the link the the thread I found on it: http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/forum...ybook-we-i-1tb

Same profile (system-wide)?

It is inheriting the files from the root-user directories, I think.

have you tried to uninstall the application with the software manager?

Something similar.

/home/USER1/My Documents
/home/USER2/My Documents

etc. all link back to /live/media/My Documents

/home/USER1/.mozilla/firefox.profile
/home/USER2/.mozilla/firefox.profile

etc. all link back to /live/media/.apps/FirefoxPortable/Data/profile

As long as your the only user, there is no problem. But when there are more ... :-(

Yes.

/home/USER1/My Documents
/home/USER2/My Documents

etc. all link back to /live/media/My Documents

/home/USER1/.mozilla/firefox.profile
/home/USER2/.mozilla/firefox.profile

etc. all link back to /live/media/.apps/FirefoxPortable/Data/profile

As long as your the only user, there is no problem. But when there are more ... :-(

Did you install from the live (one) dvd?

This is not a real multi user distro, and is made so people can get a good look and feel of mandriva one.

If you haven't already, switch to the official free version. It's a full distribution.

Also, have you tried to set up separate profiles for "mozilla-firefox" in root, user1, and user2?

You could also setup your bookmarks into user-name folders, that way user2 is not flooded with user1's files. A bit of segregation, but no real privacy.

see how you go.

ps, have you set up your urpmi/smart package repos, if not try easy-urpmi on the web.

you may get away with an upgrade, but I think the live cd has set the stage and it will be messy to change it on the run, I would get a copy of official free and reinstall, I have a separate partition for /home, so I won't have to format it when /root is formatted. (it's usually /usr and /root that gets formatted by default during an install.)

cheers, Glenn

My Documents is a Windows folder (directory). My guess is that any user account you set up for your Mandriva Flash drive will 'inherit' the contents of your Windows partition. I also suspect that you have Firefox installed in the Windows partition. Is it possible that the Firefox on your flash drive is detecting the Firefox configuration from your Windows partition and is using it? I do not think this is a security issue since the Flash drive is not copying anything from your Windows partition to the flash drive. A good test may be to use the flash drive on a different computer and see if the links remain the same, or change on the other system (e.g.: does Firefox still work on another system? Does it still have the same bookmarks?)

HTH,

Yes, I was planning to do so.

No, I haven't tried that, but it's a good idea. I will switch to the complete distribution, but it's always nice to have the flash stick "for the road".

Thanks four your valuable help!