Why does Firefox say that it's already running?
When you start Firefox, you may receive a message that Firefox is already running. This can be caused by one of two things:
- Clicking the "WWW" Firefox icon multiple times - Firefox may take a minute to load on slower machines, and clicking it repeatedly will cause this error.
- Logging out before quitting Firefox.
To remove the lock file, do the following:
- Ensure that you are not actually running Firefox on your current machine or any other Athena workstation. If so, quit Firefox.
Type the following command:
joeuser@athena:~$ find $HOME/.mozilla/firefox -name lock | xargs rm - Restart Firefox by typing "firefox" at the athena% prompt or clicking the icon in the panel at the bottom of your screen. Please click the icon only ONCE and then wait for Firefox to start.