Start multiple Firefox (Portable) instances doesn't work using -no-remote switch

1

Having a running Firefox installed, I want to start Firefox Portable downloaded from heise. On Windows I'm running FirefoxPortable.exe -no-remote which was posted here, but always get the error: Another instance of Firefox is already running. Please close all other instances of Firefox before you try to start Firefox Portable Edition.

Things I tried: 

set MOZ_NO_REMOTE=1
FirefoxPortable.exe -CreateProfile test -no-remote
FirefoxPortable.exe -ProfileManager -no-remote

It's not a duplicate of this question since the author seems to start two instances of the same firefox installation (which also has the same default profile). In my case, I have a installed firefox instance (default profile folder %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles). The portable firefox seems to use the path Data\profile relative to FirefoxPortable.exe.

How can I start multiple Firefox instances? Is the -no-remote switch from the Firefox docs not working any more?

I'm using the latest portable version 65 of Firefox.

Daniel

Posted 2019-03-21T12:33:03.777

Reputation: 111

Possible duplicate of "Firefox is already running" with -no-remote

– Entropy0 – 2019-03-21T13:27:03.313

I don't see as a duplicate since he's starting another instance of the same firefox with the same user profile. Since I have a locally installed instance running and want to start firefox portable, the portable one is using a different profile located in Data/profile instead of %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles from installed firefox. – Daniel – 2019-03-22T08:23:08.493

Answers

1

Method 1 - Flags

After testing this myself, the solution provided in this answer does indeed also work for two different installations of Firefox: Edit: According to OP, this doesn't work on their setup. The second method does, however.

firefox -no-remote -profile "profile_path"

So if you already have a running instance of your regular FF running and want to also open portable, you'd do

FirefoxPortable.exe -no-remote -profile "Data\profile"

Conversely, to open the regular install with portable already running, you'd do

firefox.exe -no-remote -profile "%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles"

(Actually, I only tested using absolute profiles and I already shut down my Windows PC. You might have to replace %APPDATA% with the actual path.)

Method 2 - .ini

Another way to start multiple instances of FF portable is to add

AllowMultipleInstances=true

to the FirefoxPortable.ini in the same folder as the .exe (create it if it doesn't exist already) which, going by the documentation, automatically calls it using the -no-remote flag for you (Using this method does not guarantee the use of separate profiles though).

Entropy0

Posted 2019-03-21T12:33:03.777

Reputation: 226

Sadly this doesn't work, I get the same error about an already running instance. -profile seems to be ignored. Even when the folder doesn't exist like FirefoxPortable.exe -no-remote -profile asdf I get the same error, no message about the non-existing profile. – Daniel – 2019-03-22T14:39:53.350

Even AllowMultipleInstances=true in Other\Source\FirefoxPortable.ini doesn't change this. No difference if using the FirefoxPortable.exe without arguments or with -no-remote -profile "Data\profile". Also tried Data/profile as path and powershell as well as cmd. – Daniel – 2019-03-22T14:45:11.063

Ok my fault, I missed the readme which inform that Other\Source\FirefoxPortable.ini is only a example. We need to copy (or create) this file to the root directory where FirefoxPortable.exe is located. Now the AllowMultipleInstances=true parameter works, which seems also more comfortable since you can start firefox using the exe file without open a command-promt first. – Daniel – 2019-03-22T14:49:09.860

Asked: 2019-03-21T12:33:03.777

Viewed: 1 495 times

Active: 2019-03-22T15:58:40.183