We're sorry to hear that your Firefox seems to be crashing when you open it. Please perform the following steps to give us a crash report ID that helps us find out more about the cause of the crash.

1. Press the following shortcut to get a Run window: [Windows] + [R]. This should bring up a window that contains a text field.
2. In that text field, enter %APPDATA% and press Enter. An explorer window should open.
3. From that explorer window, double-click on the Mozilla folder, then double-click on Firefox and then on Crash reports. Double-click on submitted.
4. Now, you should see a list of files that contain reports. Go to View > Arrange Icons by > Modified to get the most recent files at the top of the window.
5. Open the most recent 5 files with a text editor and copy the IDs.
6. Paste each ID with bp- into the reply window on the forums.

Thanks in advance!

You can find more information and troubleshooting steps in the Troubleshoot Firefox crashes (closing or quitting unexpectedly) article.

Hello feer56, Following your directions I don't find "submitted" in Crash Reports folder; I guess because I restored the PC to a previous state, as I said, the old crash reports are no longer on my machine. They are, however, in your possession; about six were submitted before I did the system restore. Is there any reference number, maybe a MAC address, I can send you to help you find these?

Meanwhile, I've restored my default profile and can probably restore the others too. But I don't know whether I can now do an upgrade. My four profiles are listed but each iteration opens the same "naked" profile. Except, as I said, I have restored the default with all my addons, plugins, bookmarks, and so on. No doubt I can likewise restore the other three. Baring any further ideas from you I'll likely do all the restoring and then try the upgrade again. Or, alternatively, do a clean install, if possible, then upgrade, then restore profiles. I wonder if having such a highly customized install of Nightly affects the upgrade process. For instance, I can open each profile in its own window, that is, run them all at the same time...a truly great feature.

I'm not sure how to proceed.

Thanks sir.

Hi Nighter,
You may expect Nightly to crash but it is unusual that you should have trouble in uninstalling it. Normally the most you need to do is remove the program folder and files for that particular install.

You should be able to find out the latest about Nightly on Mozillazine.

• http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=23

I have a 64bit running ok on Linux, & just successfully updated it to 28.0a1 (2013-11-25) not that it helps you on Windows 32 bit Nightly.

Good that you backed up your profiles. I guess you have only been using Nightly for a few days if restoring to Nov 21 lost the profiles. Firefox is not too fussy about the profile location, if you can link to them they should be usable. It is important however to always use empty folders for profiles, and certainly not to nest them within other profile folders. Removing profiles normally removes all the folder content. It is actually good practice not to rename or delete profiles if you are in any doubt whatsoever about what you are doing. Just delete the shortcuts.

Apparently at present you are using Firefox 26 currently that would be a Beta. (Since about 29th October, next version change about 9th Dec)

Have you tried reinstalling, using a clean profile and starting in safemode. See

• Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recovering_a_missing_profile#Using_the_Profile_Manager_to_recover_a_profile
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_multiple_profiles_-_Firefox
• Note when doing a clean install it is normal to remove the program folder, but of course with multiple custom installs it is more a case of using an additional new folder. Do NOT reinstall nightly into an existing folder unless it is empty.
  • See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Firefox#Clean_reinstall
    & Troubleshoot and diagnose Firefox problems_5-reinstall-firefox

Presumably you have other working versions of Firefox available. You certainly should not rely on Nightly as your primary day-to-day browser. I tend to use Aurora as my default & main browser but I have other versions and channels installed and available.

If Nightly crashes submit the crash reports and follow up on the Mozillazine forum. Meanwhile use another version.

Do not worry about the old crash reports. The reinstalled Nightly will either work or not. If it crashes it will generate crash IDs and you may report those new ones to us. You will not find a crash report without the crash ID.

Crashes IDs from safe mode and a clean profile with all plugins disabled are the best type for attempting solving crash problems. Also of course with Nightly changes and updates are frequent.

Personally if I have to use Windows I always try to avoid using restores unless it is an OS crash. I always know I will lose something on a restore.

john99, My lack of reply is due to other, non computer related activities. I really do appreciate your response and will get back to this soon. Thank you.

Did you try if it is possible to start Firefox in Safe mode by holding down the Shift key?

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

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe+Mode

feer56, john99 and cor-el,

Problem solved. Here is what I did:

Finished restoring profiles with browser open normally, not in safe mode to see if it would work as designed. Opened About Nightly and clicked on check for updates Downloaded 34.8 MB Restart browser to update Window opens checking compatibility Default profile opens without asking which profile Now running 28.0a1 Checking three other profiles Stealth profile opens in separate process Banking profile opens in separate process Google profile opens in separate process

Everything seems to be intact. Interesting exercise but I don't know why it didn't work without restoring the computer to the state it was in on Nov. 21. If this happens again I will use the safe mode as recommended above. Thank you.

Glad it is working again.

Obviously you use and backup multiple profiles. You & any other readers of the the thread may be interested in these articles.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_multiple_profiles_-_Firefox
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Testing_pre-release_versions#Installing_multiple_versions
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Profile_Manager
  • Note there is a standalone profile manager available
    Downlaod from ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/utilities/profilemanager/1.0/

john99, I am certainly glad you posted about the profile manager. That will help. I've been doing this manually. Thanks.