And I can't get into IRC either! help me, help me!

System restore? This is assuming you use XP. You have admin rights on the computer?

Cry?

Are you using XP? Do you have a restore point that you can go back to?

Did you uninstall using the Control Panel/Add and Remove option (assuming you're using XP, that is)? Did you uninstall everything, reboot, and then try reinstalling just FF?

Okay, I just discovered system restore and I'm going to try it now. Wish me luck!

are you finally ready to switch to linux?

If everything works out, maybe just install the google apps that you really want, instead of that damn pack. Install them one at a time and make sure everything's copacetic between each install. Good luck!

It didn't work. I system restored back to yesterday, when everything was working fine, and still no FF. This is biting, big time.

I can't imagine wtf else it would be besides that stupid google shit. It was fine this morning.

I uninstalled and reinstalled, no joy in mudville. Now it doesn't even give me that stupid error message, it just does nothing when I click on FF; when I right click & ask it to open it does nothing. AVG says there are no viruses. I am going to give up and go to bed now. Please please please let it work in the morning! Also any other hints & help, please leave for me to read then. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckity fuck.

I had a similar problem when I tried to update Firefox some time ago and found that I could not make it work no matter what. I ended up copying all the files from the program files folder (Firefox only, of course) on another computer onto mine and it worked fine again. Unfortunately, I am now stuck on version 0.8 until I get around to doing a rebuild of the system. Sometimes life just sucks like that.

"are you finally ready to switch to linux?"

...because when an app misbehaves, mygothlaundry wouldn't even think that she could fix it. That might work.

It's funny that people recommend System Restore. I've never used it and I turn it off as soon as I've installed. It would probably better if I used it.

mygothlaundry, a DLL related to the Google stuff is still being loaded, that's why you can't finish the uninstall and why reinstalling Firefox isn't helping.

Here's what you do:

Try the Google uninstall again. When it's done, whether or not it completes, go to the directory under "Program Files" and try to manually delete the Google directory and everything within it. If it fails to delete a specific file, that's your problem.

Do the same thing with Firefox, after first copying anything like your bookmarks that you don't want to lose. Specifically: do the uninstall and after it finishes, go to the directory under "Program Files" and manually delete the Firefox directory and everything in it. It may fail to delete a file, and that will be your problem file.

There's a little utility called MoveOnBoot that can move or delete files at boot that are locked before the OS loads them. But a little trick I use is that the lock usually doesn't prevent a rename via Explorer, so I just add "_BAK" to the file's extension and then reboot and then delete.

After you've really got everything deleted, then do a reinstall of Firefox.

It'S MOST LIKELY YOUR PROFILE

You need to start FF from the command line.

Do a Start|Run, type cmd in the little box, hit ok

This opens up a "DOS window"

In that window, go to the FF directory by typing
cd \Program Files\Mozilla Firefox
and then hitting enter

Then type
firefox -p
and enter

This will bring up a dialog which allows you to create a new profile.

Do so.

From then on, you can start FF the way you normally do.

If you need stuff from your old profile (like bookmarks, extensions), we can discuss recovery tomorrow.

What ortho said. I was gonna post that last night but my *own* Firefox gave me some grief. ;-)

Borked profiles are responsible for >75% of Firefox issues. When Google Pack installed, it wanted to insert the toolbar or something, right? So it dug into your userchrome.js or wherever and hosed your profile in the process.

You can test this by starting Firefox in "safe mode" (from the start menu -- not rebooting Windows). If that works, then it's your profile.

If it does NOT work, then you should uninstall Firefox *and* delete the folder it was in before reinstalling. It's always possible something old is hanging around in there from the beta days or some such, though I haven't experienced such problems in eons.

I tried all of this and none of it worked. Every time I even get into that dos window and start trying to make it run or look at my profile or start in safe mode or anything (I went to the firefox wiki & tried all their commands too) it pops up with that "firefox.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close, sorry" window and that's that.

kmellis, when I did system restore it wiped all the google stuff, or at least I can't find it anymore. If the ff profile is borked that should have fixed it too, though. I don't know wtf is going on.

Okay. I FIXED IT!!!! *does happy dance*

stilicho had it right - I had to go in and find every.single.firefox related folder - and there were several dating back a couple years - and manually delete all of them and then I reinstalled and . . . so far, it is working! Yay oh yay! Bookmarks are gone, I guess forever though which is sad, but at least I have FF back & soon chatzilla & IRC too.

Holy fuck! My bookmarks are back too! *does dance of joy*