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My desktop icon for firefox when double clicked wont load the browser?

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by cor-el

knplee
knplee
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My firefox browser wont load when clicking the desktop icon...i have uninstalled and reinstalled ( i have done this 3 times) and it will work for a day then it doesnt work again. Im at my witts end and im about to go back to IE.

My firefox browser wont load when clicking the desktop icon...i have uninstalled and reinstalled ( i have done this 3 times) and it will work for a day then it doesnt work again. Im at my witts end and im about to go back to IE.

All Replies (4)

cor-el
cor-el
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  • Top 10 Contributor
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Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance).

  • Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe mode start window or otherwise make changes.

A possible cause is security software (firewall,anti-virus) that blocks or restricts Firefox or the plugin-container process without informing you, possibly after detecting changes (update) to the Firefox program.

Remove all rules for Firefox and the plugin-container from the permissions list in the firewall and let your firewall ask again for permission to get full unrestricted access to internet for Firefox and the plugin-container process and the updater process.

See:

See also:

knplee
knplee Question owner
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i think i figured it out, at least for now. I installed Adobe reader about a week ago so i could retrieve my w-2's, and i dont think Fire fox liked it. I uninstalled Adobe reader and fire fox and then reinstalled fire fox and all seems to be well again. We will see...Thanks

emily33
emily33
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How am I supposed to open Firefox in "SafeMode" when my issue to begin with, is that Firefox WONT OPEN? I've tried clicking on the "safe mode" button just to see if it would work, but it dosen't. And of course holding the shift key down isn't doing anything either. 

  This happened to me once before and I ended up un-installing and re-installing Firefox, but I don't want to have to keep doing that. Any suggestions?

Please help :-)

cor-el
cor-el
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You can use one of these to start Firefox in Safe mode:

  • On Windows, hold down the Shift key while starting Firefox with a double-click on the Firefox desktop shortcut
  • On Mac, hold down the Options key while starting Firefox
  • Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled

Try to boot the computer in Windows Safe mode with network support (press F8 on the boot screen) as a test to see if that helps.