[mythtv-users] OT - Unkillable Firefox Thread Problem

[R. G. Newbury]

Members of this list have lots of arcane knowledge about linux, so maybe 
someone can help me.

I moved the office desktop to Fedora 10 a week ago. I did an update from 
firefox 3.04 to 3.0.6 (don't know if that is important or not...I 
deleted the /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.4 folder) And late last week I lost the 
ability to launch Firefox. I get an error box, saying that Firefox is 
already running, and I must close the existing process or reboot.

Problem is:
1) 'ps -amx' shows NO firefox processes running, nor even any mozilla 
processes.
2) there is one <defunct> Xsession, which top shows as a zombie (but I 
have the same zombie process on the laptop, at about the same thread pid 
number...and firefox opens fine on the laptop
3) there are NO unexpected lock files ANYWHERE
4) there are NO unexpected pid files ANYWHERE
and
5) REBOOTING DOES NOTHING TO DELETE THE 'existing' PROCESS...

What's going on here? Clearly the zombie process is being reinstated on 
boot, but where/how? I have tried various cutdowns, including turning 
off most daemon services but no joy...

So I have no idea where this weird process comes from, nor do I know how 
it gets started and no idea what it is....since it does not appear to 
show up in the process list. It must be hiding under some other process 
name, but what? What process would call/start a browser?

Ideas anyone?

Geoff




          Tux says: "Be regular. Eat cron flakes."