liztull

Q: Firefox won't Force Quit?

I'm trying to update OS X, and haven't been able to Force Quit Firefox...It doesn't show up in the Force Quit dialog box, or in Activity Monitor. I've tried Killall in Terminal (killall -9 firefox-bin), and Terminal tells me there are no matching processes to be found. But when I try to restart my (mid-2015) Macbook to update, it tells me Firefox is preventing me from shutting down. I've tried to start Firefox from Finder and from the dock, and nothing happens, not even in Safe mode. Can someone please help?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Oct 27, 2015 7:43 AM

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Q: Firefox won't Force Quit?

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  • by gnomen,

    gnomen gnomen Apr 21, 2016 6:08 AM in response to seocam
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 21, 2016 6:08 AM in response to seocam

    Could be.  I have had the problem for some months.  As discussed in the bugzilla link, at first I thought it was a one-time glitch which would clear up with the next release from either Apple or Firefox.

     

    I am running OSX 10.11.4 and Firefox 45.0.2.  In all I have 3 iMacs and 2 Macbook Pros in the house.  It only seems to occur on my main iMac, even though all are up to date.  My main iMac is mainly distinguished by having a 3Tb Fusion drive which caused a lot of problems back in the day.

     

    Lately Firefox has started quitting unexpectedly when I close one of the tabs.  Seems to be a random event so difficult to reproduce.  But when it crashes I have the same problem of not being able to restart Firefox or shutdown the Mac -- again, not every time.  As someone said, it is a very annoying bug.

  • by seocam,

    seocam seocam Apr 21, 2016 6:31 AM in response to gnomen
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 21, 2016 6:31 AM in response to gnomen

    Interesting... in my case both macbooks and my mac mini had the problem. After performing a clean install in the mac mini the problem was solved. As I didn't have the time to do it in the macbooks they still affected.

     

    Do you use development tools? Python tools, Android or arduino drivers? I'm starting to think this might be caused by the interaction of FF with some software + the yosemite to El Capitan update.

  • by gnomen,

    gnomen gnomen Apr 21, 2016 7:41 AM in response to seocam
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 21, 2016 7:41 AM in response to seocam

    No, I do not use any development tools.  Other apps which may be running include Mail, Calendar, Word, Outlook (rarely), iTunes, Pure Music, Lightroom.

     

    My development days are far behind me.  These days I am no more than a power user.

     

    I like Firefox and the concepts of community around it, so do not want to leave.  But I will eventually run out of patience, I suspect.

  • by TheWildRover,

    TheWildRover TheWildRover Apr 21, 2016 8:04 AM in response to gnomen
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apr 21, 2016 8:04 AM in response to gnomen

    I'm still getting this, despite my thought that it had been fixed by removing MacUpdate Desktop.

     

    For me it still only affects Firefox, and no other app, and I get the problem if anything tries an auto restart of FF, such as an update, or an installed or updated Add-on. If I manually quit it, it's fine.

     

    As well as my previous CLI tips for restarting the Dock, I have found that you can force a Restart by using 'sudo reboot' in the Terminal too (assuming you still want to do a restart anyway, it just save a bit of typing).

     

    I must admit I can remember when exactly this started to happen now, although I'm fairly sure it has been since upgrading to 10.11.

  • by gnomen,

    gnomen gnomen Apr 27, 2016 2:04 AM in response to TheWildRover
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 27, 2016 2:04 AM in response to TheWildRover

    Just happened again today, with the update to 46.0.  Instead of clicking on 'Restart Firefox to update' I tried quitting the program and then starting it again from OSX.  When I did this the update worked successfully.  However, when I quit Firefox it did not quit properly and required a hard shut down of my system.  Same upgrade, on my identically configured laptop, no problem.  Go figure!

  • by seocam,

    seocam seocam Apr 27, 2016 4:51 AM in response to gnomen
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 27, 2016 4:51 AM in response to gnomen

    In both computers you had installed Yosemite and then performed the upgrade to El Capitan? Did any of them came with El Capitan pre-installed or had a clean install instead of the upgrade?

  • by gnomen,

    gnomen gnomen Apr 28, 2016 7:21 AM in response to seocam
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 28, 2016 7:21 AM in response to seocam

    Both were upgraded to El Capitan.  Does that make a difference?

  • by seocam,

    seocam seocam Apr 28, 2016 8:15 AM in response to gnomen
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 28, 2016 8:15 AM in response to gnomen

    It could make difference. In my case all systems updated to El Capitan (3) are suffering from this bug while clean installs are not affected.

    In your case it's half.

     

    I'm suspecting that  the upgrade process might be breaking something in Firefox or vice-versa.

  • by dialabrain,

    dialabrain dialabrain Apr 28, 2016 8:38 AM in response to seocam
    Level 5 (6,716 points)
    Mac App Store
    Apr 28, 2016 8:38 AM in response to seocam

    FWIW, it's more likely that something was installed that is causing an issue with Firefox. That would explain why a clean install doesn't affect it. It's not the upgrade process.

     

    One thing users could try is create a new Firefox profile.

  • by TheWildRover,

    TheWildRover TheWildRover Apr 28, 2016 9:44 AM in response to dialabrain
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apr 28, 2016 9:44 AM in response to dialabrain

    I've had this problem continuously now even after re-installing 10.11 to a clean install, as well as more than once deleting and reinstalling Firefox from scratch.

     

    It's still the only app that this happens with, even other browsers work fine.

     

    Cheers

     

    Andy

  • by seocam,

    seocam seocam Apr 28, 2016 3:00 PM in response to dialabrain
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 28, 2016 3:00 PM in response to dialabrain

    I've tried to create a new profile and to reinstall Firefox and none of them worked for me. I even search for all files/directories containing moz or firefox in the name and erased. Nothing worked.

     

    In my case the El Capitan clean install fixed the issue (at least for now).

     

    Same here TheWildRover, Firefox seems to be the only app affected by this bug.

  • by seocam,

    seocam seocam May 2, 2016 4:44 PM in response to seocam
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 2, 2016 4:44 PM in response to seocam

    Apple found the problem (at least in my case). If I stop the "Rapport Trusteer Endpoint Protection" and restart Firefox the problem stops to happen. Basically If the service is running when Firefox is started than I get the problem again.

     

    Rapport is required by my bank (Banco do Brasil) to access the Internet Banking as other major banks around the world.

  • by billhorvath,

    billhorvath billhorvath May 5, 2016 8:33 AM in response to seocam
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 5, 2016 8:33 AM in response to seocam

    I use Rapport as well, and I'll be you're correct that it's the source of the problem.

  • by gnomen,

    gnomen gnomen May 5, 2016 9:32 AM in response to billhorvath
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 5, 2016 9:32 AM in response to billhorvath

    I used to use Rapport but switched to another browser for banking (since Firefox has been unstable).  I cannot find it in my present Firefox set up, when I went to test your suggestion.  Maybe I am missing where to look for it -- where do you find if it is installed?

     

    Thanks for your help.

  • by seocam,

    seocam seocam May 5, 2016 9:49 AM in response to gnomen
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 5, 2016 9:49 AM in response to gnomen

    gnomen if it's installed you will find it in your System Preferences. It's calledTrusteer Endpoint Protection. You need to stop it and than start Firefox.

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