Mozilla will not totally close when exiting & will not restart.

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ubuntu-bug firefox

Before reporting this or anything else as a bug in Ubuntu, please make sure to read https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs carefully, and remember to search for the bug first. There are at least two bugs that have been reported that resemble this, so you might be experiencing one of them. So in particular, see bug 693396 and bug 872714. Please also read the discussion in https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+question/174043.

Also, if you file a bug about this, then in this situation it is better to invoke ubuntu-bug with the PID of the running Firefox process while Firefox has been quit but is still running in the background, than to report it by running "ubuntu-bug firefox". Initiating the report by the PID will include information about the running state of the process, which is highly relevant to this bug. The instructions in this paragraph will make sense after you have read the ReportingBugs page.

To terminate the Firefox process from the Terminal, open a Terminal window (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run:

ps ax | grep firefox

You'll see a line that says something like "grep --color=auto firefox". Ignore that. Find the line or lines that have firefox or firefox-bin as the first word of the command. Whichever one that is (I believe it varies from version to version of Firefox), that's what you should terminate to kill Firefox. You can kill it by the PID number on the list, with

kill PID

where PID is replaced with that number. Or you can use

killall firefox

or

killall firefox-bin

to kill it by name.

If you do that and nothing happens, and you do it again and nothing happens, then you may need to kill it harder.

kill -KILL PID

Or:

killall -KILL firefox

Or:

killall -KILL firefox-bin

Using the -KILL flag makes it almost always work, but is rather harsher than killing without it, so you should try without it first. (When you kill with -KILL it gives the application absolutely no opportunity to perform any cleanup at all before it terminates.)

Rather than using the command line for this, you might also consider using the System Monitor. Some people find that easier.

I've also filed bug 872714 about this - and supplied info on the running processes... as suggested above.

Same issue here - play more than one clip from Youtube - Firefox-bin has to be ended rather than File/Quit closing the app down.

Runnign other Flash sites, such as Weightwatchers or abbey.co.uk - no probs.

Further to this - this affects my netbook, a Lenovo Ideapad S12 (NVIDIA ION chipset), but doesn't appear to affect my Thinkpad R61 (Intel graphics). Could be to do with hardware acceleration on Flash...

However, killing hardware accel on the netbook makes it impossible to view video content.

Alex -- that last suggestion is interesting. I am affected by (and subscribed to) bug 872714. I installed Lucid in VirtualBox to test the behaviour of a fresh install, and didn't experience the problem. On the other hand, all of the machines I have had trouble with have had NVIDIA graphics and are using the proprietary driver. That might support your thought of it being video related.

I just downgraded to Firefox 3.6.23 on my laptop with ATi graphics and the problem didn't show up. This definitely points to the problem being NVIDIA-specific. I've also confirmed that upgrading to Firefox 7 makes it go away. However for our deployment here we are trying to stick with supported Ubuntu packages as much as possible.

I also have NVIDIA as my graphics card.

steve s.

________________________________
From: Ryan Tandy <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2011 2:55 PM
Subject: Re: [Question #174159]: Mozilla will not totally close when exiting & will not restart.

Your question #174159 on firefox in Ubuntu changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+question/174159

Ryan Tandy posted a new comment:
Alex -- that last suggestion is interesting.  I am affected by (and
subscribed to) bug 872714.  I installed Lucid in VirtualBox to test the
behaviour of a fresh install, and didn't experience the problem.  On the
other hand, all of the machines I have had trouble with have had NVIDIA
graphics and are using the proprietary driver.  That might support your
thought of it being video related.

--
You received this question notification because you asked the question.

@Steve
Would upgrading to Firefox 7.0.1 be acceptable to you? This has been a successful workaround for this problem, for others who have tried it. To do that, you can run this command in the Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) -- make sure to copy it from https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+question/174159 and not from your email:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable; sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get -y upgrade

(When running that command, you may be prompted for your password. As you enter it, you won't see any placeholder characters, like *. That's OK, just type it in and press enter.)

probably not if it breaks other processes. Better that Mozilla backport the fix.

----- Original message -----
> Question #174159 on firefox in Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+question/174159
>
>        Status: Open => Answered
>
> Eliah Kagan proposed the following answer:
> @Steve
> Would upgrading to Firefox 7.0.1 be acceptable to you? This has been a
> successful workaround for this problem, for others who have tried it. To
> do that, you can run this command in the Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) -- make
> sure to copy it from
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+question/174159
> and not from your email:
>
> sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable; sudo apt-get
> update; sudo apt-get -y upgrade
>
> (When running that command, you may be prompted for your password. As
> you enter it, you won't see any placeholder characters, like *. That's
> OK, just type it in and press enter.)
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.

Any other fixes than upgrading to Firefox 7.  Will FireFox 7 upgrade itself once it's loaded like all my other programs?

________________________________
From: Alex Cockell <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2011 4:15 PM
Subject: Re: [Question #174159]: Mozilla will not totally close when exiting & will not restart.

Your question #174159 on firefox in Ubuntu changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+question/174159

Alex Cockell proposed the following answer:
probably not if it breaks other processes.  Better that Mozilla backport
the fix.

----- Original message -----
> Question #174159 on firefox in Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+question/174159
>
>         Status: Open => Answered
>
> Eliah Kagan proposed the following answer:
> @Steve
> Would upgrading to Firefox 7.0.1 be acceptable to you? This has been a
> successful workaround for this problem, for others who have tried it. To
> do that, you can run this command in the Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) -- make
> sure to copy it from
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+question/174159
> and not from your email:
>
> sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable; sudo apt-get
> update; sudo apt-get -y upgrade
>
> (When running that command, you may be prompted for your password. As
> you enter it, you won't see any placeholder characters, like *. That's
> OK, just type it in and press enter.)
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.

--
If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let us
know that it is solved:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+question/174159/+confirm?answer_id=8

If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to the
following page to enter your feedback:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+question/174159

You received this question notification because you asked the question.

@Steve
Assuming you install Firefox 7.0.1 from the firefox-stable PPA (instructions in post #8), it will be updated along with your other programs by the Update Manager, yes. It will not have to be updated separately.

I've installed Firefox 7.0.1 and things look good so far. Thanks

steve s

________________________________
From: Eliah Kagan <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Sent: Wednesday, November 9, 2011 11:15 AM
Subject: Re: [Question #174159]: Mozilla will not totally close when exiting & will not restart.

Your question #174159 on firefox in Ubuntu changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+question/174159

    Status: Open => Answered

Eliah Kagan proposed the following answer:
@Steve
Assuming you install Firefox 7.0.1 from the firefox-stable PPA (instructions in post #8), it will be updated along with your other programs by the Update Manager, yes. It will not have to be updated separately.

--
If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let us
know that it is solved:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+question/174159/+confirm?answer_id=10

If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to the
following page to enter your feedback:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+question/174159

You received this question notification because you asked the question.

If this problem is solved for you, then please mark this question as Solved. (That will not affect the status of the bugs linked to this question; they will remain open until they are fixed.)