Pale Moon forum

Hi all,

on the USB stick I always take with me on my bunch of keys, I recently installed PM portable to be able to access webpages not working correctly in standard MS IE (sadly, the default on many public computers, like at university).

I installed PM portable according to the instructions, and then copied over the user folder from my standard desktop installation. I tried it on my own PC, and everything works fine.

When I next tried it on a different PC (no matter if my brother´s PC or a public one at university), PM portable displays the PM portable loading window, but then an error message pops up: "Palemoon is already running, but not responding. To open a new window ..." (the message you get when multiple instances of PM are run, but not tolerated;shortened here for brevity). Clicking OK, PM simply aborts.

I figured, maybe it´s something in the user folder I copied over. So, I made a second install, completely clean this time, and tried again. Work on my PC, aborts the same way on any other PC.


What´s going on here?

Cheers, Markus


PS: System info:
Operating system: Win7pro on the computer the PM portable installation was created with; Win7 and Win8 on other computers;
Browser version:PM portable, latest available version
32-bit or 64-bit?: PM: 32; OSes: all 64
Theme: Standard theme in virgin installation, "Pale Moon" in customized one
Installed add-ons: None in virgin installation; Customized: "Download YouTube Videos as MP4 1.8.3.1-signed", "DownThemAll! 2.0.18.1-signed", "MinimizeToTray revived (MinTrayR) 1.1.2"; I know, some of these add-ons are not officially supported, but give me no problem on the desktop install
Installed plugins: None in virgin installation; Customized: Java, Shockwave, MS Silverlight

You don't copy the whole user folder just the contents of your profile.
Run PM portable once on initial install to create a profile folder then replace the CONTENTS (not the actual folder) with your desktop profile contents.
Make sure your desktop PM is not running when you have the portable one open.

Hi ashdav,

sorry for the late reply, I have been busy with things for university this past week.

Thank you for the reply, I will try this later today. Will report back

Cheers, Markus

Doing the above helped the problem on SOME computers - but not all.

I´ll try again later, just in case I did something wrong again, but I´m not very confident that will help it.

Any more ideas?

Cheers, Markus

Follow up: I tried again with a completely out-of-the-box install (installed PM portable, ran it once, unplugged USB and tried it on another PC).

That, as well, produced the "Palemoon is already running" error.

What´s going on here?

Running any security software on those problem PCs?

Some run the same AV as the PC I make the PMportable installation on, Avira. Some, especially the public comps at university, run what-do-I-know-which AV

Yet, I don´t think he AV has anything to do with it - two PCs with the same AV, on one PMportable works, on the other it doesn´t?

Cheers, Markus

Did you actually close Pale Moon before unplugging the stick, and did you tell the OS to "eject" the stick before unplugging it (so it flushes all writes to it)?
If not, then there's your problem. Always completely exit Pale Moon (best to do so from the menu -> exit), and then "eject" your media for pending writes to be flushed, before pulling out your stick.

I always close Palemoon using the red X at the top right. I notice, however, that sometimes that does not remove Palemoon from the list of running processes in Windows' Task Manager.
I´ll try the method you described, an will report back.

I generally eject my external storage media before unplugging them. I might have missed it one or the other time, but that doesn´t explain why Palemoon doesn´t work most of the time.

Cheers, Markus

By default you can't start portable Pale Moon when a locally installed copy is running.. You can fix this by editing the ini file. Maybe that is your issue?

I always make sure no local Palemoon installation in running, as stated that one should on the PM portable download page.

I think, properly closing PM via the menu did the trick, though. No more problems now


Thanks a lot,

Cheers, Markus

I just started having this same problem when I backup (from win8.1pro) the entire Folder to another drive. Previous version, 25.6 was OK.

The backup copies all the files OK, but if I try to run it on the backup (another win8.1pro) system, it crashes with an error "Application was unable to start correctly 0xc000007b. Click OK to close." but it doesn't even wait for a click and closes.

Yes it was shut down correctly before the copy. Changing the Multiple instances makes no difference.

markusGE wrote:I think, properly closing PM via the menu did the trick, though. No more problems now

Markus, are you sure you didn't do anything else as I can't get the copies to work on either PCs. All three are win8.1. It works fine on the originating PC, (using it now) but when I copy the entire PalemoonPortable installation folder to the other two, they flash the splash-screen then shut down. The d not even leave any remnants running visible in the Task Manager.

On one PC, I overwrote the installation with a new download zip and it still will not run.

One is a win8.1 tablet so I will overwrite with the Atom version of Portable and see what's what. I have had to go back to {gack} FFx on the other two machines.

{edit} UPDATE: Just over-wrote with Atom version on the Tablet and it runs AND it is using the User information from the previous copied version. Even though I had answered "Yes to all" for the overwrite during unzipping.

Houston, we have a problem here. I am going to close down PMP and try a copy of just the User Folder.

What else I did was trying out PM sync, but that was after I manually copied over most of the user profile files. Copying over the profile files was done before reporting back though.

Indeed I had similar problems when copying the working installation to another USB drive. What I did was simply reinstall from the installer to that existing directory. That does not overwrite user info, but any program-related files changed from the defaults. PMsync then takes care of getting them synced to the remaining installations again (works also to sync portable installs with local ones, even if not perfectly).

PCs tested are all either Win7 or 8 (various editions, from home to professional), all laptop or desktop machines. Haven´t had the chance to try on a public PC at university or at the EMS station* yet.

Cheers, Markus


* I volunteer as an EMT, though only every now and then currently.

Closing with the red 'X' in the upper right doesn't actually fully exit FF and its derivatives, I remember reading some years back that it leaves some data in ram for a faster restart. To make sure you are completely out always use file/exit. (hope it's still relevant.)

That´s exactly what does the trick. Been using PMportable from a USB-stick for nearly a month now when not on my own PC, always worked flawlessly.

Cheers, Markus