Comment 5 for bug 44942

Hi,
45756 is not an exact duplicate, as it indicates a more general case than just opening from a link. But we can add that to this one, of course: Starting up an instance of Firefox when there's another, non-active instance, will always block, without a way to continue.

* Start up two instances from a menu or dock - same effect.
* Close down one instance, realise you forgot something, and start a new instance - same effect.

Other software may have dialog boxes up that they close again when the reported status changes. It's like FireFox doesn't test for such a change. It seems to note another instance, and then to initiate communications with that instance. From that point on it just sits waiting until it times out.

A quick fix would be to add a retry button to the dialog box, so it could be made to check again, and now find either the other instance had disappeared or could actually accept communications. The real fix would probably be to have it recheck the other instance after the time out, and have it retry even after putting up the dialog box. (Not to mention that inter-instances communication ought to be very early on start-up and very late on shut-down.)

And considering that this is an error I encounter daily, I'd like to offer the opinion that status LOW is not all that high.

(I don't have the time to figure it out, but would some kind soul report that I didn't get this bug listed under my bugreports? Apparently because it only lists bugs you're involved in but doesn't list duplicates. I wasn't directly involved in this one, and 45756, that I reported, is now a duplicate. The result was that neither showed up.)