Cant Kill tobedeleted Firefox Zombie Process
I cant start firefox. I think its because of this zombie process that persists through reboots. I have been trying to kill this process that shows up as firefox.exe and always has the same PID, I am the OP here: https://superuser.com/questions/1590386/cant-kill-task-windows# I tried disabling Mozilla Maintenance and Default Browser Agent, and I tried to find the task from tobedeleted itself but I cant. It persists through reboots and I cant start firefox. The process is called nsqB412.tmp (if I look in properties, in task manager under details it goes by firefox.exe) and it lives in a folder with all these other little .tmp files. I have tried reinstalling and uninstalling firefox as well
All Replies (5)
Did you try to remove this folder when booting the computer in Windows Safe Mode with network support ?
- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/how-to-start-windows-in-safe-mode/
- https://www.7tutorials.com/4-ways-boot-safe-mode-windows-10
Do a malware check with several malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.
Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware. All these programs have free versions.
Make sure you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.
- Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:
https://www.malwarebytes.com/ - AdwCleaner:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/
https://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Removal-Tools/AdwCleaner.shtml - SuperAntispyware:
https://www.superantispyware.com/ - Microsoft Safety Scanner:
https://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx - Windows Defender:
https://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/using-defender - Spybot Search & Destroy:
https://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Kasperky Free Security Scan:
https://www.kaspersky.com/security-scan
You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.
- Anti-rootkit utility TDSSKiller:
https://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/disinfection/5350
FredMcD said
Firefox starts automatically when I restart Windows {web link}
I cant unfortunately, firefox wont open.
cor-el said
Did you try to remove this folder when booting the computer in Windows Safe Mode with network support ?
- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/how-to-start-windows-in-safe-mode/
- https://www.7tutorials.com/4-ways-boot-safe-mode-windows-10
Do a malware check with several malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware. All these programs have free versions.
Make sure you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.
- Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:
https://www.malwarebytes.com/- AdwCleaner:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/
https://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Removal-Tools/AdwCleaner.shtml- SuperAntispyware:
https://www.superantispyware.com/- Microsoft Safety Scanner:
https://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx- Windows Defender:
https://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/using-defender- Spybot Search & Destroy:
https://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html- Kasperky Free Security Scan:
https://www.kaspersky.com/security-scanYou can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.
- Anti-rootkit utility TDSSKiller:
https://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/disinfection/5350
Thank you, I dont think it was a virus, I think it was an intermediate step in patching/instillation that went wrong. But booting into safe mode worked, thank you!
Start Firefox in Safe Mode {web link}
A small dialog should appear. Click Start In Safe Mode (not Refresh). Is the problem still there?