Firefox Won't Start!

So you've downloaded and installed Firefox 0.8 and when you try to start it you get one of these messages:

Error launching browser window:no XBL binding for browser

Error message showing 'No XBL binding for browser'

This is happening because you have an incompatible extension installed from a previous version of Firefox, Firebird or Phoenix - such as Tabbrowser Extensions.

How to Fix

On Windows:

  1. Open My Computer.
  2. Open Local Disk (C) (or wherever your profile data is stored). (Show Me)
  3. Open Documents and Settings. (Show Me)
  4. Open the folder whose name is your Windows user name. (Show Me)
  5. Open the Tools menu and click Options... (Show Me)
  6. Click the View tab and ensure Show hidden files and folders is selected in the Advanced settings: section. Click OK to close the panel. (Show Me)
  7. A folder called Application Data should be visible. Open it. (Show Me)
  8. Open the Phoenix folder (Show Me)
  9. Open the Profiles folder (Show Me)
  10. Open the folder called default. (If you are using another Firefox profile, open the folder matching the name of the Firefox profile you are using.) (Show Me)
  11. Open the folder whose name contains a strange sequence of characters and a .slt extension. (Show Me)
  12. Find the chrome folder (Show Me)
  13. Rename the chrome folder to something else, like chrome-backup. (Show Me)
  14. Close the Explorer window and try and launch Firefox again.

If after this you get the same error, uninstall Firefox completely, and remove the folder you installed it into (e.g. C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox) completely, then reinstall Firefox.

On Mac OS X:

  1. Open your Home folder.
  2. Open the folder called Library
  3. Open the folder called Phoenix
  4. Open the folder called Profiles
  5. Open the folder called default. (If you are using another Firefox profile, open the folder matching the name of the Firefox profile you are using.)
  6. Open the folder whose name contains a strange sequence of characters ending in .slt.
  7. Find the folder called chrome and rename it to something else, like chrome-backup.
  8. Close the Finder window and start Firefox again.

On Unix:

  1. Open a terminal, and cd to ~/.phoenix/
  2. cd to the directory called default. (If you are using another Firefox profile, cd to the directory matching the name of the Firefox profile you are using.)
  3. cd to the directory whose name contains a strange sequence of characters ending in .slt
  4. Rename the directory chrome to something else by entering mv chrome chrome-backup
  5. Close the terminal, and restart Firefox.

Notes

You should never install a new version of Firefox over an old version, make sure to uninstall the old version first and remove the folder it was installed in.

Please be sure to read the release notes carefully before you install a release or post to our support forums, they contain helpful and critical information.

This problem should disappear in a future version of Firefox (hopefully 0.9) when extension incompatibilities will be dealt with automatically.