Firefox won't launch for no obvious reason

[manyelski]

Hi, so I am using firefox as browser who is supported by my online banking and have a bunch of certificates, add-ons and online signatures installed by my bank. For no reason today Mozilla refused to start, it does no even launch, just plain no signs of life. I do not want to re-install because I will have to do all the work again (signatures addons certificates.) so any ideas why and how to fix it?

 

[treekram]

Open the Terminal app and type in the following:

open /Applications/Firefox.app

Press the return key and see if comes up with an error message. You can also try the following - it's probably the same:

/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin

 

[Gregg2]

In your post, just before "for no reason" you've given the reason.

 

[treekram]

In trying what I suggested in post #2, they do have different results. I noticed the "firefox-bin" command had 3 error messages, even though Firefox opens without a problem and it works, so these can probably be ignored:

plugin-container[___:_____] *** CFMessagePort: bootstrap_register(): failed 1100 (0x44c) 'Permission denied', port = 0x____, name = 'com.apple.tsm.portname'

plus a couple relating to the CFPasteboardClient

 

[manyelski]

So with the first suggestions, nothing happened in the Terminal, except the Firefox awkwardly jumping up and downs as if to start and it did not. The second one was -
M.M.$ The patch directory path is not valid for this application (/Users/M.M./Library/Caches/Mozilla/updates/Applications/Firefox/updates/0)

 

[treekram]

My guess as to what happened is that it's trying to apply an update but the files disappeared. Can you enter the following command in Terminal:

ls -l /Users/M.M./Library/Caches/Mozilla/updates/Applications/Firefox/updates

and post the results. This is a rare error. If you Google it (putting at least part of the error message in double-quotes), you get 3-4 results.

If you don't get any results, you just might have to re-install Firefox. It looks like it's expecting to apply the update but I don't see a way to tell Firefox not to do this. There's a way you can manually put the update files in this directory but it looks more complicated than re-installing, even considering the steps you would need to take to install the online banking software.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1154387

You can try running Firefox as another user or trying to setup another Firefox profile but if the modifications you applied to make it work with online banking is specific to the user you typically log in to, then you'd have to re-do the modifications for online banking anyway.

 

[treekram]

One more suggestion. You should do

ls -l /Users/M.M./Library/Caches/Mozilla/updates/Applications/Firefox/updates/0

My oversight - what's in the 0 directory is likely more important than what's in the updates directory. But it's useful to know what's in both. If there is nothing in the 0 directory and you have no other alternatives as to how to proceed, you can just try the following (if there is something in the 0 directory, post them and you should follow another course of action):

1) delete the 0 directory and try starting Firefox.

2) If that doesn't work, move the files in the updates directory (make sure it's Firefox/updates, not Mozilla/updates) to another directory (these may have gotten corrupted) and retry.

In order to view the files under /Users/M.M./Library, in finder, click on "Go" (at the very top), click on "Go to Folder ..." and type in /Users/M.M./Library/Caches/Mozilla/updates/Applications/Firefox.

 

[manyelski]

total 112

drwxr-xr-x@ 7 M.M. staff 238 Jul 12 12:17 0

-rw-r--r--@ 1 M.M. staff 51011 Jun 14 01:25 backup-update.log

-rw-r--r--@ 1 M.M. staff 698 Jun 17 12:10 last-update.log

My guess as to what happened is that it's trying to apply an update but the files disappeared. Can you enter the following command in Terminal:

ls -l /Users/M.M./Library/Caches/Mozilla/updates/Applications/Firefox/updates

and post the results. This is a rare error. If you Google it (putting at least part of the error message in double-quotes), you get 3-4 results.

If you don't get any results, you just might have to re-install Firefox. It looks like it's expecting to apply the update but I don't see a way to tell Firefox not to do this. There's a way you can manually put the update files in this directory but it looks more complicated than re-installing, even considering the steps you would need to take to install the online banking software.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1154387

You can try running Firefox as another user or trying to setup another Firefox profile but if the modifications you applied to make it work with online banking is specific to the user you typically log in to, then you'd have to re-do the modifications for online banking anyway.

 

[treekram]

It looks like there may be something in the 0 directory.

Follow the directions I have in post #7 and post the results.

 

[manyelski]

It looks like there may be something in the 0 directory.

Follow the directions I have in post #7 and post the results.

So i tried re-installing it and I still have the same problem...
[doublepost=1502355623][/doublepost]Fixed it, thanks so much to you and the others. Be well guys!

 

[NiteGoat]

So i tried re-installing it and I still have the same problem...
[doublepost=1502355623][/doublepost]Fixed it, thanks so much to you and the others. Be well guys!

So, I was having this same problem. Firefox just stopped launching with my Admin user account on my 2018 MacBook Pro (which I purchased less than 1 month ago), running Mojave. I tried every solution suggested; after combing the internet for 7 hours. Firefox would launch using my Guest user account just fine. But nothing would get my Admin user account to launch Firefox. I became so frustrated and desperate, that I even restored my MacBook from a Time Machine backup, which worked, until I quit Firefox and tried to open it again.

I finally typed /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -P into Terminal, per the mozilla Firefox support page, in an attempt to open Profile Manager. This did not open Profile Manager, but instead returned an invalid command and directed me to a hidden 'mozilla' folder in the hidden 'cache' folder inside the hidden 'Library' folder in my home/admin user folder. The 'mozilla' folder contained a couple of files which, I have no idea what they were. I deleted the 'mozilla' folder, and that fixed my issue. Firefox now works with my Admin user account, again.

 

[Tawhidish]

So, I was having this same problem. Firefox just stopped launching with my Admin user account on my 2018 MacBook Pro (which I purchased less than 1 month ago), running Mojave. I tried every solution suggested; after combing the internet for 7 hours. Firefox would launch using my Guest user account just fine. But nothing would get my Admin user account to launch Firefox. I became so frustrated and desperate, that I even restored my MacBook from a Time Machine backup, which worked, until I quit Firefox and tried to open it again.

I finally typed /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -P into Terminal, per the mozilla Firefox support page, in an attempt to open Profile Manager. This did not open Profile Manager, but instead returned an invalid command and directed me to a hidden 'mozilla' folder in the hidden 'cache' folder inside the hidden 'Library' folder in my home/admin user folder. The 'mozilla' folder contained a couple of files which, I have no idea what they were. I deleted the 'mozilla' folder, and that fixed my issue. Firefox now works with my Admin user account, again.

Thank you for posting your experience. Firefox wanted me to restart it to update and it stopped opening after closing it. Copying what you did helped me to fix it.