Annoying firefox crashes in Ubuntu

Hi,

This is for those who would like a quick fix for the annoying firefox crashes in Ubuntu/Linux.

Firefox sometimes refuses to start saying that another firefox is already open. Sometimes Ubuntu might create an error while shutting down saying that "firefox-bin" is not responding. The problem lies with the "lock" and ".parentlock" files that were not deleted by firefox when closed.

This is just a bunch of rudimentary commands that are to be put into a file. Click the file and the problem goes away.

First a bit of searching is required. Go to your home folder and make sure hidden files are shown. Go to ".mozilla/firefox" and locate the profile folder. I'm not sure what name it chooses. It will be the folder which has the files "lock" and ".parentlock". Remember the profile name.

Secondly, (for lazy people like me) create an empty file on your desktop and paste these commands. Make sure you replace your profile folder with the correct name that you just found out. Make sure you save the file with ".sh" eg: "diefirefoxdie_reload.sh"

killall firefox-bin
rm -f ~/.mozilla/firefox/your profile folder/lock
rm -f ~/.mozilla/firefox/your profile folder/.parentlock
firefox

I would like to put in a little explanation for newbies like me. "killall" is used to kill the processes in the "Process" tab of your "System Monitor" a.k.a "Task Manager" for those from MSWindows. "firefox-bin" is the process name. Killall will terminate all instances of it. "rm" is like the "del" command in windows. "~" stands for your home folder. The last line "firefox" is optional (only if you want to open firefox again). For me it serves as a check to see if the problem persists.

Now that the file is saved, you need to make it executable a.k.a. "click and run". Go to terminal and type:
cd ~/Desktop
chmod a+x diefirefoxdie_reload.sh

This makes it executable. To see if it worked, right click the file and go to the "Permissions" tab. The "Allow executing file as program" should be checked. If it doesn't work then add "sudo" before the "chmod" line.

Go to the file now and double click it and choose "Run".

Enjoy!