Multiple Firefox Instances

bluetech · 10 Jul 2007 at 22:21

I would like to run several instances of Firefox. I am having trouble doing so.

I have set up Firefox like as you normally would. Then downloaded firefox portable that I have installed lots of extensions to that I dont want running in the normal firefox.

If I use Firefox and call up the portable version I get a message along the lines of "Another instance of firefox is allready running. Please close all other instances and launch Firefox Portable again".

Any help here will be abliged, thanks

Indy500 · 10 Jul 2007 at 22:23

Perhaps Portable doesn't support multiple instances?

bluetech · 10 Jul 2007 at 22:46

sr4470 said:
Perhaps Portable doesn't support multiple instances?

Is there a program that may be able to help?

Basically I would like firefox normal and firefox portable to run at the same time. Any ideas?

Thanks for your reply

Clarkey · 10 Jul 2007 at 23:04

You can't run multiple instances of any firefox. You can quite happily run as many windows as you want though.

bluetech · 10 Jul 2007 at 23:25

Clarkey said:
You can't run multiple instances of any firefox. You can quite happily run as many windows as you want though.

Thanks for that. Any idea as to why? It's odd as I thought the "portable" version would not use the same data files as the normal one. Thus multiple instances shouldent cause a problem.

tolien · 10 Jul 2007 at 23:39

Clarkey said:
You can't run multiple instances of any firefox.

Actually, you can - I'm doing it right now and have for some time.

You need to start both instances of Firefox with the -no-remote flag. Just edit the shortcut, and tag "-no-remote" to the end of the contents of the Target box.

Unless it's specifically been altered to use different profiles, you'll probably need to point each install at their respective profiles too, but if it works when they're separate you shouldn't have a problem.

bluetech · 10 Jul 2007 at 23:57

tolien said:
Actually, you can - I'm doing it right now and have for some time.

You need to start both instances of Firefox with the -no-remote flag. Just edit the shortcut, and tag "-no-remote" to the end of the contents of the Target box.

Unless it's specifically been altered to use different profiles, you'll probably need to point each install at their respective profiles too, but if it works when they're separate you shouldn't have a problem.

Thats almost done the trick BUT when I use normal firefox the launch the portable firefox I get the message. However if I use the portable firefox and then launch the normal firefox, it works. Very odd... any ideas? Thanks for the help!

tolien · 11 Jul 2007 at 00:03

Are you launching "normal Fx" with -no-remote? Are you sure they're both using separate profiles?

bluetech · 11 Jul 2007 at 00:33

tolien said:
Are you launching "normal Fx" with -no-remote? Are you sure they're both using separate profiles?

Yes to both of the questions. Any other ideas? I have been looking around and no joy

tolien · 11 Jul 2007 at 01:01

Reading this, it's the Portable Firefox launcher that's being stupid :rolleyes:

If you launch FirefoxPortable.exe with -no-remote, it passes the switch on (thanks, Process Explorer). But the launcher itself checks that there isn't a firefox.exe process already running (so, as in the link above, you can break the launcher by renaming it).

Edit: Gotcha! Copy Other/FirefoxPortableSource/FirefoxPortable.ini to the same directory as FirefoxPortable.exe, and edit it, adding (or changing, if the entries are already there):

Code:

AdditionalParameters=-no-remote
AllowMultipleInstances=true

and it should all work (or at least it did for me).

bluetech · 11 Jul 2007 at 02:15

tolien said:
Reading this, it's the Portable Firefox launcher that's being stupid

If you launch FirefoxPortable.exe with -no-remote, it passes the switch on (thanks, Process Explorer). But the launcher itself checks that there isn't a firefox.exe process already running (so, as in the link above, you can break the launcher by renaming it).

Edit: Gotcha! Copy Other/FirefoxPortableSource/FirefoxPortable.ini to the same directory as FirefoxPortable.exe, and edit it, adding (or changing, if the entries are already there):

Code:

AdditionalParameters=-no-remote AllowMultipleInstances=true

and it should all work (or at least it did for me).

YES! You are a genius... thank you!

Clarkey · 11 Jul 2007 at 02:40

well, I failed at this thread then huh

bluetech · 20 Jul 2007 at 18:01

Clarkey said:
well, I failed at this thread then huh

Lol, by the way guys just adding the true argument for multiple instances to that .ini with firefox portable has done it. The -no-remote switches are not needed.

Thanks for the help!