Firefox Won't Connect

[pop pop]

Here's a really weird one. I defragged today using PerfectDisk and now FF (1.0) wont connect (IE will). There are a couple of new tiny buttons next to "Help" that when I hover say "Check for Updates". Click and None can be found. TaskManager shows FF running in Applications and as a process. The FF screen is up but nothing is in it and all the other buttons are not responding.. Now, here's where it really gets weird. I uninstalled and reinstalled FF (not all files -- kept, so I thought, bookmarks, themes and extensions). Same thing nothing in the window. Next, I uninstalled all the way--everything; meaning after uninstall it says not everything is uninstalled, do you want to remove everything. So EVERYTHING should be gone. As a check I used Explorer--Mozilla folder gone. I went into a terminal window and did a command-line check--no Mozilla anything. I reinstalled and viola! Same thing including my same theme!

Any ideas? :mad:

UPDATE: FireFox safe mode works, not normal mode. :confused:

[jabarnutcase]

If it's working in Safe Mode, try adding one Extension or Theme at a time and see if the problem comes back.
Are all your originals still there under the tools/extensions/themes menu? Including the option to un-install them one at a time?

It would seem it's one of them-(maybe the most recent you downloaded) causing the problem.
Also the reason you didn't get rid of it completely is that it's pretty good at hiding here and there...sly like a Fox. :p

[Ironfistchamp]

I had something strange like this with MSN Explorer. I defragged my comp and when i had MSN Explorer wouldnt connect and its window was off screen. It kind of opened 5" away from my monitor. I uninstalled it then reinstalled it and nothing happened. What I had to do is get a reg cleaner and search for all things that relate to MSN and MSN explorer and delete them (making a backup first). I reinstalled it. It worked fine after that.

My mate had a problem with firefox and he just formatted his HDD. It worked but it was a very drastic measure. Dont do this until you have read and tried other ppls suggestions.

Hope it works.

[david eaton]

When you uninstalled Firefox, was the folder C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla removed? This contains the various settings, and when I had problems with Firefox, I found that this folder was not removed by the uninstall, and the corrupted configuration file was left behind. As it existed , it was not overwritten by the new install, so the problem remained. After deleting that folder, and reinstaling everything was OK.
Your bookmarks are stored there as an Bookmarks.HTML file. Copy this to a safe place before removing the folder. It can be restored later.

[pop pop]

I just read all this, thanks.

What I had already done was start in safe mode, get rid of all extensions, themes, and plug-ins. Well...really I only uninstalled them. I did not know where all the stuff was hidden (C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla ) and though uninstalled, the files remain. Maybe it's good that I didn't because If I had I would have deleted it all because it was 4:30 am and I was in a panic. Anyway, FF works normally right now. So it would seem that a theme, extension, or plug-in got whacked by the defrag. I've seen files get corrupted like that before but it was always by Norton SpeedDisk, this was "Microsoft Certified" PerfectDisk. I can't rule it out completely, but I don't think the theme, extension, etc is "buggy" or corrupted from a bad download because I run FF configured exactly the same way with downloads from the same location on multiple machines, and this happened right after the defrag.

So now I just have to proceed like jabber suggested, add them back one at a time till I find the bad boy. The suspect components are still in the C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla folder(s). Should I download and reinstall over top of them? Or delete them and then download and reinstall? Guess it doesn't matter but I don't want corrupted stuff hanging around.