Firefox problem I cant seem to find a fix for

[Kemosabe13]

I have followed you people over here from Freedomlist and you have given me advice that kept this VERY non-technical person going in the past and I am back.

It has been a long while though and my ID while it is out here, email I used is no longer available (Poetworld maybe?) so cant get old password mailed so had to create a new ID here.

OK, first off, this is on a 20+ year old machine (I got from work when I retired) running XP and I know it is NOT supported anymore but it plays SO NICE offline with all my old 32 bit printers, scanners, camera and games and it has FREE Word on it that I still use to create descriptions for my online listings.

It only has 512 ram and is Very SLOW if used online but only use it
occasionally online for quick research.  I KNOW that many here are NOT big fans of using a machine running XP online already here So dont beat me up that I should
trash the machine because as long as it works with Free WORD, and plays nice with my old equipment that I still use, I am keeping it around until it dies completely.

Anyway, I was online and the machine froze up (It does that occasionally, offline or online) and I had to power it down (as I usually do when this happens) by holding the power button in.

So next day, I power it up and it says something is corrupted and it went thru
CHKDSK to fix whatever it had to.  Everything else works fine (including
being able to get into SeaMonkey) but when I try to get into Firefox, I get the following warning box.... (And even in SAFE MODE).

Firefox Already Running, You must first Close or Restart.

Well Restart did not work, even after I ran TFC cleaner and Ccleaner
utilities and did a google search on this and while many say  to
open Task Manager and look under Processes and close Firefox there,
IT IS NOT THERE in the list to close out.

I tried UN-installing Firefox and RE-Installed it to no avail.  Had to install a newer version of Firefox than the old one I originally had on the machine.
Thank heavens that I also have SeaMonkey loaded as a emergency browser to
be able to even get on the net on this machine but it is just a bit too
different for me as I was really familiar with Firefox and would rather use that as a browser (but SeaMonkey is OK in a pinch, just not what I am used to).   It keeps asking me EVERY TIME to save Passwords (which I dont want to do) but it saves ID's anyway (which I dont care for either).

I also did try downloading PaleMoon, Version 28 installer, a 34MB download for me as I see there are fans here for it but it downloads but it dont install so only thing working now is SeaMonkey.

IE is not an option anymore since it is just too bloated for such an old slow processor with limited ram.

I am NOT real technical and you guys (and gals) have helped me before but is Firefox going to be forever dead on this machine or is there something else SIMPLE that I can do?  I only look online maybe TWICE a day so will check back to see if any suggestions perhaps sometimes this afternoon or maybe tonight.

Thanks in Advance.

[plodr]

Do you know what version of FF was on it?
What is the current version you tried to install and had problems with?

My notes tell me that FF 52.9 is the last version to work on XP. You might be able to get it here
https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/

When you say it doesn't install - explain what happens. Any errors? If so, exactly what comes up?

The last version of Palemoon that supports XP is v 26. But someone has cleaned up recent versions of Palemoon to work on XP. The latest version is called MyPal and was released on 8 Feb. 2020. I have it installed on the XP computer that goes online about every 6 months. It worked okay the last time I tired it.
MajorGeeks is a safe place to download it https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/mypal.html
Choose either of the last two of 4 download links that say MajorGeeks. The first two point to Github. I try and avoid Github for 2 reasons: it can sometimes be very slow to download and malware has been in some downloads from there.

[Corrine]

Something to keep in mind for down the road when you are forced to replace the PC is that you can use various Office programs free online.  See Free Microsoft Office for the web, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Start using Word. 

[Kemosabe13]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Plodr,
The Firefox version originally loaded was 34.  Tried 34 (and 42 and both had error
messages that it could not be complete).  Got FF 43 to load but SAME problem that firefox was already running and needs to close. 

I am aware that 52 is last XP FF version as that is what is on my OTHER XP (newer 14 Y/Old) machine but have other issues with that version (with adblockPlus) on that machine (But it seems AdblockPlus is the problem as the issues started after I installed AdblockPlus, but that is a different problem I will tackle at another time (perhaps with your help)) so was hesitant to load it on the slower older machine I am dealing with here but since 43 dont fix the issue, will try FF52 tomorrow when I am fresher.  43 dont work so I got nothing to lose but I think something is stuck even after the corrupted whatever was fixed with ChkDsk.

The PaleMoon, Version 28 installer, a 34MB download, I did not get a choice to take a earlier version and since you said V26 is the last for XP, since this one is higher, perhaps that is why it does nothing.  No error message, just does nothing when I click on it.  I think I got 28 from either Cnet or FileHippo, dont remember.
Will seek out the V26 of PaleMoon. 
Perhaps IF I can get PaleMoon to install and like it better than SeaMonkey, I can
just ditch Firefox on this machine.

SeaMonkey does seem that is is much faster though than Firefox was.
Again, I only have 512 Ram so need something that is not a memory hog.
I am hesitant to purchase more ram on a 20 year old machine that can go any time now.  Not even sure if they even sell the old memory (Pc100 I think).   Surprised it lasted as long as it did already.

Corinne,
I have Open Office on the OTHER (Newer 14 year old) XP machine I have but IF I
use it to open up the word docs I create on the 20 year old original machine that I
am now having the FF problem with, it seems to mess up some of the HTML text
and dont copy/paste well into my online listings.  I think the word version I have on the older XP machine (from work) is maybe word 97 as it was originally a Win-98 machine that work Updated with XP for me when I retired and sold it to me. 
Best $20.00 I ever spent.

Thanks again and will keep you updated on my progress.

[Kemosabe13]

Quick Update
Mypal version on majorgeeks is Mypal 28.8.2
Looks to be the same size as the Palemoon 28 installer that does not extract.
Same size download too. 

BUT Mypal did extract but got error message that it would not load because it

REQUIRES a PROCESSOR with SSE2 Support (whatever that is).

Seeking V 26 to see if that will work (if and when I find it).

[Kemosabe13]

Latest Update

Well, I UN-installed FF 43 and ran TFC and Ccleaner to get rid of residuals, rebooted and tried to install FF 52.9.  Got the same message that I got with the Mypal 28.8.2 that it would not load because it REQUIRES a PROCESSOR with SSE2 Support (whatever that is).

I have been trying to find a version of Mypal V26 without any luck.  I did see that on Github (that you did not recommend) that they had older versions but only went back to 28.0.something.

So bottom line, looks like FF is kaput on this machine and all I can use is SeaMonkey that I need to get way more familiar with (like it or not).

Again, thanks for the input.

[Corrine]

Not that I would recommend it, FF 45.0.1 from March, 2016, is at www.oldversion.com.  MyPal and PaleMoon aren't there.

[plodr]

Let me look. Someone at another forum said Maxthon, based on IE, I think is supported on XP.
I just checked and yes, this one runs on XP
https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/maxthon_cloud_browser.html

Perhaps with all the bells and whistles it would be too much browser.

You can't do much if the processor is too old for a more modern browser.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I found this

If your computer has a processor older than Pentium 4, Firefox version 49 and above is no longer supported.

When I went looking to see what requires a processor with SSE2 support meant.
So you would not be able to run anything above FF v 48.

[plodr]

The very first version of MyPal was v 28.0.1  So if you got an error, MyPal is a no go on the very old XP cpu.
Source: https://github.com/Feodor2/Mypal/releases?after=28.6.0

[Kemosabe13]

Well, Thanks for trying Guys and Gals.
Yes it is a very old unit from work before Y2K.
Not sure what processor as it was a custom build for work.
Speed is 700 megahertz which was probably fast in the day.
SeaMonkey seems to work OK on it for now
so lets put a fork in this and call it done.

I am going to start another new thread tomorrow about hopefully a simpler issue
I am having with my newer (Ha 14 years) XP machine that Does run Firefox 52.9
but has a different sort of issue.

[Lost.]

You could do search for the Firefox program on your xp computer(if you delete it you will likely lose your short cuts and passwords) than run a register cleaner Ccleaner.

Just a thought

You can get many firefox version from here https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/