Dec 30

If Firefox does not open after you update it on your Mac, do this

Mac Stuff, Tips and Tricks Add comments

If your Firefox browser suddenly does not open after updating it, then most likely your Profiles folder has been corrupted.

First, you’ll need to backup your Bookmarks if you have any.

Make sure Firefox is completely closed before you do any of the actions that I list below (there is no black arrow under the Firefox icon at the bottom of your screen in the Dock).

Here’s how to back up your Firefox Bookmarks:

  1. Click on the Finder in the bottom left of your screen in the Dock
  2. Click on your Home folder (it will have your name, or whatever you named your user, with a picture of a home next to it); make sure you click on that and NOT your hard drive
  3. Click on the Library folder (you may have to double-click; it depends on how you view your folders; you just want to open it)
  4. Click on the Application Support folder
  5. Click on the Firefox folder
  6. Click on the Profiles folder
  7. Click on the folder named xxxxxxx.default (the x’s stand for various characters)
  8. Drag the bookmarks.html file onto your desktop (eventually put this where you back stuff up; maybe email it to your gmail account, if you have one; great place to backup files that are under 10MB in size)
  9. Keep bookmarks.html on your desktop until we finish here

Now that you’ve backed up your bookmarks, you can delete the Firefox application and your Firefox folder inside Application Support. So, to delete the Firefox folder inside the Application Support, follow steps 1-4 above and then drag the Firefox folder that is inside the Application Support folder into the trash.

NOTE: Again, make sure you are in the Library/Application Support folders of your Home folder, NOT of your hard drive. The Firefox folder will NOT be in Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support.

Now go into your Applications folder and drag Firefox into the trash. Then, go to GetFirefox.com and download the latest version of Firefox. After you download the .dmg file, double-click on it. It will open the disk image. Then just drag the Firefox icon in the disk image into your Applications folder.

Try opening it. It should work. If it does, great. Now lets get your bookmarks back into Firefox.

Completely close Firefox (Firefox>Quit Firefox).

Follow steps 1-7 above and drag the bookmarks.html file on your desktop into the folder inside your Profiles folder (it should be called xxxxxxx.default where the x’s are various characters). It will ask to overwrite the existing bookmarks.html. If it doesn’t, then you are not putting it into the correct folder. Say YES to overwriting the existing bookmarks.html file.

Now you should be good to go. Open Firefox and check out your bookmarks. If they are there, you are free to surf again!

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written by Ian Brown


15 Responses to “If Firefox does not open after you update it on your Mac, do this”

  1. 1. Elbert Wisterman Says:
    February 10th, 2010 at 10:19 am

    wow this is an excellent post, defo bookmarking and visiting this site again.

  2. 2. Jessica Says:
    February 18th, 2010 at 5:05 pm

    Thanks for your post; I was able to get Firefox back up and running again. One problem though – despite meticulously following your instructions, down to the overwriting w/ my bookmarks.html file, my bookmarks are not in my new Firefox app. My bookmarks are vital; so if you could, please, offer me some support on this issue, I would greatly appreciate it. I haven’t deleted anything from my computer yet, maybe that will help.

  3. 3. Jessica Says:
    February 18th, 2010 at 5:21 pm

    Nevermind – fixed it with Firefox support. Cheers.

  4. 4. Ian Brown Says:
    February 24th, 2010 at 4:36 pm

    Thanks, Elbert.

    Glad you were able to fix it so quickly, Jessica! Sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier, but I’ve been extremely busy lately. Did you just import the backup file of your bookmarks to fix it?

  5. 5. Ian Brown Says:
    February 25th, 2010 at 5:41 pm

    Here was Jessica’s answer:

    “Yep. I had saved my most recent backup file onto my desktop also, so I put that into the firefox folder and then imported it from the firefox bookmarks menu. Cheers.”

    Thanks, Jessica!

  6. 6. JJ Says:
    March 8th, 2010 at 9:25 pm

    Can you please be specific on which bookmaks.html file you have to backup?
    I have ‘bookmarks.html’ but I also have ‘bookmarks-1(through)25.html’ files. And I also seem to have a ‘bookmarkbackups’ folder with more bookmarks.html files.

    Like everyone else, bookmarks are essential to me.

    Thank you.

  7. 7. Ian Brown Says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 2:02 pm

    Hi JJ,

    Follow steps 1 – 7 to find it. It’s just called bookmarks.html. Basically you just want to click on your HOME folder (on the left in Finder), and then you want to navigate to the following path:

    LIBRARY>APPLICATION SUPPORT>FIREFOX>PROFILES>XXXXXXXXX.DEFAULT

    (the XXXXXXX’s before “.DEFAULT” will be a string of numbers and letters; each default folder for each profile will be different)

    In that folder you’ll find the bookmarks.html file. To confirm it has all of your bookmarks, drag and drop it to your desktop while holding your OPTION key (you should see a green ball with a white “+” appear when you do this; this means it’s going to COPY the file vs. just moving it).

    Then, double-click on the bookmarks.html file you just dragged to your desktop and it will open up in your web browser (the software that views websites) as a web page. Go through the links on that page and make sure it has all of them. If it does (which it should), then that’s the one you want!

    If not, then check out the other bookmarks.html files in that folder. You can check the “date modified” for each file and choose the most recent one. To get the date modified, either change the way you view folders to LIST VIEW so the “Date Modified” column appears, or just hold the CTRL key, click on the file, and select GET INFO. It will tell you the “Date Modified” date there. Choose the one with the most recent date. But it should just be the bookmarks.html file.

    Good luck!

  8. 8. Jack Says:
    April 11th, 2010 at 9:13 pm

    This worked. Firefox is running again

  9. 9. monika Says:
    May 8th, 2010 at 1:01 am

    thanks a million for your help – firefox working again :)
    nice and easy instructions to follow – Thanks

  10. 10. Ian Brown Says:
    May 8th, 2010 at 6:59 pm

    Glad it worked for you, Jack.

    Thanks. You bet, Monika. ;)

  11. 11. andhapp Says:
    June 16th, 2010 at 1:55 pm

    FYI, after installing a newer version of Firefox I copied all the files from the older Firefox/Profiles/xxxxx.default folder to the new one and I have got all my add-ons and bookmarks and tabs back.

    andhapp

  12. 12. Ian Brown Says:
    June 16th, 2010 at 2:34 pm

    Thanks, andhapp. I appreciate your input!

    Ian

  13. 13. Lara Says:
    July 6th, 2010 at 5:53 am

    Excellent site! Was having problems with Firefox as well – now it’s fixed. :-) Thanks.

    Lara

  14. 14. Ian Brown Says:
    July 7th, 2010 at 12:11 pm

    Thanks! Great! Love to hear that.

    You bet, Lara!

    Ian

  15. 15. Carmel James Says:
    July 30th, 2010 at 4:11 am

    I was helping a friend with her oldish mac laptop, and after updating firefox it wouldn’t open at all. We followed your instructions but it still wouldn’t open. When I looked, I noticed that the new installation didn’t create a new firefox folder in the Application Support folder. I tried it twice, and restarted the computer, but it wouldn’t put that folder there, and it wouldn’t work of course. Have you got any idea of what could be wrong here?

    PS, this is a great blog, and I thought your instructions were very clear. Such a shame they didn’t work for us.

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