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[Fixed] Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey Portable do not correctly alert that a local instance is running

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September 16, 2015 - 11:15am
#1
John T. Haller
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[Fixed] Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey Portable do not correctly alert that a local instance is running

Firefox Portable 40.0.2, ESR 38.2.0, Beta 41, Dev 42, and Nightly 43 fail to properly alert that another copy of Firefox is already running after they have been run once. This is due to the launcher using the parent.lock file within the profile as an indicator of whether that profile is currently in use. This file used to serve that purpose but no longer does. The launcher needs updating to use a system-wide mutex the way 7-Zip and other custom launchers do, as well as PAL.

UPDATE: I've confirmed the same change in the parent.lock file to be the case with Thunderbird and SeaMonkey as well. I'll be updating them on next release.

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September 22, 2015 - 7:55pm
John T. Haller
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Fixed in Firefox Portable, all channels

This is fixed in the following Firefox Portable versions:

Stable 41.0 on 2015-09-22
ESR 38.3.0 on 2015-09-23
Beta 42 on 2015-09-24
Nightly 44 on 2015-09-24
Developer 43 on 2015-09-28

The fix will roll out to other Firefox channels and Thunderbird and SeaMonkey as new versions are released.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

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September 28, 2015 - 9:54am
John T. Haller
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Fixed in SeaMonkey 2.38

This is now fixed in SeaMonkey Portable 2.38

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

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September 30, 2015 - 1:00pm
John T. Haller
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Fixed in Thunderbird 38.3.0

This is now fixed in Thunderbird Portable as well with today's release.

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October 12, 2015 - 9:17pm
furlong_p
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Possible bug

Could that change be the reason why I can't any longer run portable Firefox next to my stationary one, using --no-remote?

Works beautifully with Loader 1.7.11, not at all with 1.8.0. I guess there's no reason it shouldn't allow multiple Fx versions running if the --no-remote parameter is given to each portable.

Edit: Scratch that, looks like it needs AllowMultipleInstances=true now.
Edit2: Does not even work with that setting, I'll stay at Launcher 1.7.11 in this case.

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October 12, 2015 - 9:18pm
(Reply to #5)
John T. Haller
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Same as Before

It's always been the case that you needed to just set AllowMultipleInstances, it's just that the launcher didn't work right before if the .profilelock file existed.

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October 12, 2015 - 10:57pm
(Reply to #6)
furlong_p
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Even if I insert that line

Even if I insert that line into my Portable Firefox and start with --no-remote (using a batch file) it still complains if the stationary Firefox is running.

With Loader 1.7.11, I can start any Portable Firefox as long as I pass --no-remote to the Launcher.

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October 13, 2015 - 12:46am
(Reply to #7)
John T. Haller
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AllowMultipleInstances

You just have to place AllowMultipleInstances, it passes -no-remote automatically. Be sure your FirefoxPortable.ini is formatted properly and in the right location (next to FirefoxPortable.exe). You can also disable the splash to ensure it is being seen.

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October 13, 2015 - 1:53am
(Reply to #8)
furlong_p
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Success

At last. Now it works, no idea what was wrong before. Thank you.

As you mentioned the splash screen, there's another way you could make the Portable Firefox versions unique (about:config):
distribution.about
distribution.id
distribution.version

Example: http://i.imgur.com/fPSfFCw.png

I'm doing that myself to quickly see what Portable Firefox version I'm in, currently. Just a suggestion.

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