Firefox Won't Open

[John Varela]

After wipe of drive and reinstallation of Ventura by the Apple Store, and migration from Time Machine, Firefox won't launch. It's there, but it won't open. Click the icon and the icon moves as if it were going to launch, but the app doesn't open. If I were to reinstall Firefox, would it find and sync with my settings and Bookmarks?

 

[DeltaMac]

"...the icon moves as if it were going to launch..."
Do you mean the Firefox icon in your Dock? Or, are you double-clicking the app itself?
What happens if you click on the Firefox app (just single-click to select it), then type Cmd+o ?

 

[John Varela]

"...the icon moves as if it were going to launch..."
Do you mean the Firefox icon in your Dock? Or, are you double-clicking the app itself?
What happens if you click on the Firefox app (just single-click to select it), then type Cmd+o ?

I mean that the icon in the Dock moves right and then bounces back, followed by nothing happens.

Alternatively, clicking on the Firefox entry in a list causes a reaction as if the icon had exploded. And again, nothing else happens. Holding Cmd-o same thing.

Maybe all I really want is assurance that it is safe to reinstall Firefox to the iMac. Note: Firefox works on the iPad iPhone and I don't want to take a chance of screwing that up. If I were to do that, would Firefox find my bookmarks etc?

John

 

[John Varela]

Correcting typos and omissions: "iPad and iPhone", and "If I were to reinstall Firefox to the iMac, would it find..."

 

[DeltaMac]

You could drag and drop a fresh download of Firefox, to replace the app where you are keeping it. You can make sure about that location by right-clicking on the Firefox icon in your Dock. You will get a dropdown menu. Choose Options, then "Show in Finder".
Open your Force Quit window--It's under your Apple menu.
While that window is open, try to launch Firefox. Does Firefox appear in that Force Quit window? Give it a few seconds. Does it continue to show there as an active app?
But, before you do that--Another troubleshooting tool would be to open Firefox in troubleshoot mode. Hold your Option and Command keys, then double-click the Firefox app. Then, click the Open button on the window that appears. That will launch Firefox in a relatively limited way.
Do you get a Firefox window, at that point?
Or, you can do the same launch of Firefox, with the Option-Command keys, and choose the "Refresh Firefox" button. When you do that, it will also tell you that you won't lose your bookmarks or passwords, but it will disable extensions that you use with Firefox, and also reset customizations that you may have made to your Firefox. That may be what you need to get Firefox working again.

 

[John Varela]

You could drag and drop a fresh download of Firefox,

Actually, I couldn't do that because I have gone to Mozilla several times over the last few days and tried to download a current copy of Firefox and it won't download. Nothing happens when I click on the button. I tested to see if this is a Net problem and had no trouble downloading a game from the App Store. I have no idea why there is this problem.

to replace the app where you are keeping it. You can make sure about that location by right-clicking on the Firefox icon in your Dock.

When I click on the icon in the Dock the icon bounces to the right and back and nothing else happens. Similar result when clicking on Firefox in the Apps folder.

Firefox works in both the iPad and iPhone. The problem is only with the Mac. I could download a copy of Firefox using my wife's MacBook. I just worry that the MacBook version may differ from the iMac version.

You will get a dropdown menu. Choose Options, then "Show in Finder".
Open your Force Quit window--It's under your Apple menu.
While that window is open, try to launch Firefox. Does Firefox appear in that Force Quit window? Give it a few seconds. Does it continue to show there as an active app?

But, before you do that--Another troubleshooting tool would be to open Firefox in troubleshoot mode.

Again; I cannnot open Firefox nor download it.

Hold your Option and Command keys, then double-click the Firefox app. Then, click the Open button on the window that appears. That will launch Firefox in a relatively limited way.
Do you get a Firefox window, at that point?
Or, you can do the same launch of Firefox, with the Option-Command keys, and choose the "Refresh Firefox" button. When you do that, it will also tell you that you won't lose your bookmarks or passwords, but it will disable extensions that you use with Firefox, and also reset customizations that you may have made to your Firefox. That may be what you need to get Firefox working again.

Thanks for trying.

 

[John Varela]

I don't know what I did, just poking around, but I suddenly find myself with TWO Firefox icons in the Dock, and one of them actually works!

The problem with the new Firefox copy is that it thinks it is a new installation and offers to import bookmarks, search engine, etc, from Google or Chrome, but not from the existing installation of Firefox.

I'm not sure where the meta data are stored -- I don't see them on either iCloud or Dropbox --, but they are available to Firefox as installed on both the iPad and the iPhone.

I have not yet deleted the old copy of Firefox from the Mac. Any suggestions about linking the new copy of Firefox to the data of the old installation?

 

[DeltaMac]

I think that your settings/bookmarks for Firefox might be lost.
But, as your system installation is very recent, and that your Firefox setup is important to you, that you might consider wiping the drive, reinstalling Ventura again, and (again) migrating from your existing Time Machine backup.

But, maybe all you need is to sync to your Mozilla account?
Open Firefox on your "new" Mac, then open Settings (under the Firefox menu).
On the left side of that Settings window, click "Sync"
On the Sync window, click "Sign in to sync..."

I hope that gets your Firefox working for you.

 

[John Varela]

That seems to have worked.

 

[John Varela]

Thank you very much for your help.

Checking around, it appears that I do have all my bookmarks back. That was the important thing.

Some, perhaps all, settings are lost, and the format of the Firefox window seems to have regressed to some months? years? ago. It has the old separate Search window, and there doesn't appear to be any way to change the default browser from Google.

But I do have my bookmarks. Thanks again.

John