Hi gang,
I am having trouble getting a second instance of FF to run, I have set the .ini file appropriately and it's being read as the splash screen is now disabled but I can not get a second instance to run.
Here's the strange part, with my Task Manager up I start another instance of FF and I can see the second copy listed for about three seconds then it goes away, almost as if it's told to terminate, no error messages or warnings of any kind. I read several other posts concerning the .ini file but nothing that lead me to a resolution.
I am running Portable version 3.6.6, are there local config settings in FF itself that should be looked at?
Thank you,
Paul.
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I noticed in Task Manager that if I keep "AllowMultipleInstances=false" then I see:
firefox.exe
FirefoxPortable.exe
AND I am able to run multiple instances of FF by starting FirefoxPortable.exe as normal.
But if I set "AllowMultipleInstances=true" then I see:
firefox.exe
AND I am NOT able to run multiple instances of FF by starting FirefoxPortable.exe but with one instance running I can go into the App folder and start a second instance by using firefox.exe directly.
Weird but I'll take it.
Paul.
I'm not sure what you've got going there that isn't working correctly, but if you are running firefox.exe directly, you are losing the stuff that makes it portable.
Don't know if that that's important to you, but I wanted to be sure you understood you'd be leaving stuff behind on the host computer.
neutron1132 (at) usa (dot) com
That isn't what that setting is for.
The AllowMultipleInstances=true is basically so you can run several independent copies of Firefox simultaneously. The key point is that they should be running against different profiles
If what you want is to have multiple Firefox windows open at once, that you can use for different purposes, then what you do is
1) run Firefox normally
2) press CTRL-N to pop up a whole new window.
You should never run Firefox from the app folder instead of from the launcher, as this will break portability for the app and risk leaving things behind.
Equally, it is a known and unavoidable issue that running it with AllowMultipleInstances=true will also break some portability and leave things behind on the local PC.
The behaviour that you are seeing in Task Manager is correct and normal. For a single instance, the launcher stays around to clean up after exit, but with multiple instances, it can't since it cannot know when the instances that it should wait for are done, compared to other instances, so the launcher exits immediately, at the expense of losing some portability.
Let me clarify, I do NOT normally run FF directly from the App folder, give me a little credit. I was testing, trying to understand why when the AllowMultipleInstances=true I can NOT run multiple instances and when it is set false I CAN.
See, the results from my testing are backwards from the expected results:
False is allowing multiple instances
and
True is preventing multiple instances
With that in mind has anyone else found this to be the case?
Multiple instances means different copies of Firefox with different profiles. Multiple windows means you run FirefoxPortable.exe again and another window pops up. With multiple instances enabled, you can run another different copy of Firefox at the same time (different profile, maybe a different version) where you normally can not, BUT you lose the ability to spawn a new window with FirefoxPortable.exe.
With multiple instances turned off, you can run FirefoxPortable.exe again and get a new window. But if you launch a different copy of Firefox, it won't launch, it'll just hand things over to the already running version and spawn a new window of it.
That's what multiple instances means. It's intended for advanced users to run multiple copies of Firefox with different profiles at the same time, which is not normally possible.
Incidentally, the ability to spawn a new window while in multiple instance mode should be working in 3.6.7. If it is not, it is a limitation of Firefox itself.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Ok, now I understand. Thank you for the explanation.
If you want to use one profile but want to log into the same website twice (with two different accounts and hence two different cookies) then use something like the MultiFox add-on.
Although I must confess, that I haven't actually confirmed portability of this add-on. I believe it just creates files/folders within your current profile, so it shouldn't be an issue.
Keep up the great work guys