OK, weird thing happened with my Firefox. Any ideas?
 

Been using Firefox for around 6 months, no problem.

When I logged on today, and tried to open Firefox like I always do, a box popped up and said I needed to create a profile.

Hmm, never done that before. I tried clicking the box away, but it persisted. Could not open firefox. Finally I gave up and created some kind of "default" profile.

It then opened me up to a Google homepage. All my bookmarks are erased. Cookies seem gone, too, as I have to reenter passwords on all my sites.

What's going on?!?

(and is there any way I can get my bookmarks back?!? I had a ton of them that would be hard for me to find again. :( )

You have an instance already running, although it may be hung. FireFox won't let you start multiple instances like Netscape would.
Do the right-click on the task bar/processes/end-process drill

Thom, thanks for the info. Sounds like this is non-fatal and I can get my bookmarks back?

I have to confess, I don't understand a single word in your post! (Other than I do know how to do a right-click!)

I'm a computer retard. Could you lead me through it a little more slowly?

Don't worry, like the rest of us, you'll soon stop trying. :D

JP

Ok. I'll type slower :)

When you start FireFox, the first thing it does is checks to see if it's already running. You can't have 2 or more copies of FF running with the same *profile* (I should have been more clear). I think this is so it can keep the bookmarks and stuff straight, but the techie in me says why not just flock the whole mess...

Anyway, sometimes the browser gets hung up, for example if you have a plugin for video or flash that crashes. You will have a copy of firefox running, even though you *thought* you closed it. You have to do the right-click thing to find it and kill it.

Right click on the task bar. Select "Task Manager" then select the "Processes" tab. Find firefox.exe in the list, then click "end process" and "OK' when it whinges at you. After that, re-start FireFox and you should be where you started, with bookmarks intact.

OK, that I can follow.

Did it, but it didn't work. When I re-start FireFox, it takes me to my "new" Firefox.

Oh this is a pain in the ass and I've had it happen to me and I write code all day long:

click:
start->run.
Type: firefox.exe -profilemanager and press OK.

Now you should be able to select your old profile. If that doesn't work then it's corrupt.

More here: http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/profile

/marv albert voice on/

YESSSSSSSS!

/marv albert voice off/

That did it, thanks a bunch!

Old dog += new trick

just for the archives, netscape and mozilla screw with the profiles as well since they all seem to use them from the same place.