After an improper shut-down (say power failure) Firefox and Open Office have orphaned lock-files that in the case of Firefox prevent it from re-starting even though there is obviously no current instance running. This may be a firefox bug as well but since Open Office has something similar I figured I'd file it here as an init script for 'cleaning up orphan lockfiles' might be a good idea. A normal user would have difficulty with this and would end up creating a slew of new firefox profiles instead of correctly resolving the issue.
*** Bug 153219 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
The same problem applies to Mozilla Thunderbird on a crash, usually a power failure in my case, Thunderbird leaves a lock file. I have never experienced this problem with OpenOffice.org I'm not sure that this needs an init script. My thoughts are that if we know when the system was rebooted then if the lock file in these apps is older it is clearly stale and should be ignored and refreshed with a new lock file. This still occurs on FC4 - I'll check on FC5 as soon as I've upgraded that user's computer.
Fedora Core 3 is now maintained by the Fedora Legacy project for security updates only. If this problem is a security issue, please reopen and reassign to the Fedora Legacy product. If it is not a security issue and hasn't been resolved in the current FC5 updates or in the FC6 test release, reopen and change the version to match. Thank you!
Can you please check the latest distro/package? (fc6 & fx-1.5.0.10)
I have not experienced this problem in a long time. Currently running fc6 with fx-1.5.0.10, tb and OOo. So it seems like it has gone away.
This bug is long since fixed in Firefox. I suggest this one is closed now.
Distribution against which this bug was reported is no longer supported; could you please reproduce this with the updated version of the currently supported distribution (Fedora Core 6, or Fedora 7, or Rawhide)? If this issue turns out to still be reproducible, please let us know in this bug report. If after a month's time we have not heard back from you, we will have to close this bug as CANTFIX. Setting status to NEEDINFO, and awaiting information from the reporter. Thanks in advance.