Thunderbird 10.0.02 not responding

[viking33]

Suddenly, I've lost Thunderbird.
It tries to start but then says it's already running, close it or restart. I've tried both rebooting but can't seem to get to a place to close it, since I can't access it.
I've tried reinstalling but it's still the same? Firefox works fine but not TB.

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[Bigaldoc]

Bob, when you think TB is closed, run Windows Explorer and dig your way down to your TB profile.

See if you have a file called PARENT.LOCK in the profile directory. If so, delete it and run TB again.

When TB closes, it's supposed to delete that file and (I think) if it fails to delete that file for some reason, Windows thinks it's already running.

[viking33]

Bob, when you think TB is closed, run Windows Explorer and dig your way down to your TB profile.

See if you have a file called PARENT.LOCK in the profile directory. If so, delete it and run TB again.

When TB closes, it's supposed to delete that file and (I think) if it fails to delete that file for some reason, Windows thinks it's already running.

Thanks, Al.
Parent.lock was not in the profile directory BUT it did get me looking at the profile files more closely. I found that the ini file was pointing to a non-existent partition location. ( how? ) By editing it to point to the correct location where the TB info was located, all came back in a rush and it appears to be at peace with the world again.
I think the message that TB was already running was a "catch all" error message, when it fact is was NOT actually running but hung up in limbo somewhere in the system.
I was really sweating this one out, thinking I would lose all of my saved emails and address book files.
Just got done making a new image of the mailbox stuff!

[Bigaldoc]

Glad you got-r-done, Bob !!!

[stuck]

The 'already running but not responding' message is a common Mozilla message that actually means, "TB or FF can't access it's profile", which in turn means:
either there is another instance running somewhere (check by looking in the Processes tab of Task Manager)
or a parent,lock file hasn't been deleted on a previous close (check by looking in the profile folder)
or the path to the profile folder is wrong (check as above)
or the profile folder is in an inaccessible location (check the drive exists via Explorer, typically only applicable where the profile is on a central network folder)

Ken