User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092417 Firefox/3.0.3 Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092417 Firefox/3.0.3 My experience is essentially than when I begin a new session of Firefox, my bookmarks toolbar (as well as the drop-down menu) is empty and websites load very slowly, if they load at all. My experience is very similar to bugs 436676 and 407981 in that upon opening the task manager, I discover multiple instances of Firefox running in the processes tab. However, I have no warning message upon starting Firefox (unless Firefox attempts to upgrade) and the application does start successfully. Reproducible: Sometimes Steps to Reproduce: 1.Start Firefox. 2.Close Firefox. 3.Repeat until it opens without the bookmarks bar. Actual Results: Firefox opens, but without any homepage and bookmarks. No prompt appears, but restarting the computer resolves the issue. Clearing duplicate Firefox processes in the task manager also resolves the issue. Expected Results: Firefox should be opening fully functional. I am not using any add-ons/extensions

Does it make a difference if you run Firefox with a new profile ? http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_manager

Unfortunately, no, the profile makes no difference.

Maybe this: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox.exe_always_open Did you start all those firefox.exe's yourself? It that case it could be a firewall issue.

looks like locked places.sqlite, bug 407981 deals with delayed shutdown, while bug 414715 adds an UI to notify the user of the issue... we can't do more atm