# How to get rid of a dead Firefox process?



## aragats (Dec 22, 2018)

It's not a zombie, but I cannot kill it. 
Initially I quit Firefox, then tried to start it, it reported it's already running, after a while I was able to start it, however, that process remained in STOP state.
I tried killing it with no luck, then it was adopted by init after I killed its parent:
	
	



```
% ps xalp 6612
 UID  PID PPID CPU PRI NI     VSZ    RSS MWCHAN STAT TT       TIME COMMAND
1001 6612    1   0  20  0 1860164 606984 -      T     -  259:39.70 firefox
```
Thanks for ideas!


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## obsigna (Dec 22, 2018)

In cases where a `kill -KILL <PID>` (issued by root) did not work, I refrained to restart. In the last 10 years this happened perhaps 2 or 3 times to me.

In case you can repeat this stage in a reliable way, it would be good to file a PR, because `kill -KILL` is supposed to work unconditionally.


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## aragats (Dec 22, 2018)

I already tried killing with various signals including KILL, nothing helps.
Regarding the reproducing: it's a good idea, I'll try.


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## aragats (Dec 22, 2018)

Yeap, it is reproducible! Now got 2 of them:
	
	



```
% ps alx | grep firefox
1001  6612     1   0  20  0 1860164  606956 -        T     -    259:39.70 firefox
1001  9293  9257   0  20  0 1532816  291084 -        T     -      0:06.66 firefox
```
I believe, it has a connection with PR 233679. Although people report it was "solved" after upgrading 63->64, I see the same errors when launching `firefox` from a terminal.


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## Phishfry (Dec 22, 2018)

Have you tried `pkill -f firefox` ?


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## aragats (Dec 23, 2018)

Phishfry said:


> Have you tried  pkill -f firefox ?


I have, I guess, eventually it sends one of the signals anyway. If `kill -9` doesn't help, nothing will...

By the way, with a fresh Firefox profile I cannot reproduce that. However, it doesn't explain why it cannot be killed with my many-years-old profile.


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