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Firefox profile inaccessible from old pc to new

  • 8 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
  • 19 views
  • Last reply by MajorFoley

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So trying to move my Old mozilla profile from an old pc to my new one. I put the respective profile folder in appdata/local and appdata/roaming (theres 2 different folders with profiles) etc but when i try to open firefox it comes up with profile missing or inaccessible. It has the .default infront of it but it still refuses to open.

So trying to move my Old mozilla profile from an old pc to my new one. I put the respective profile folder in appdata/local and appdata/roaming (theres 2 different folders with profiles) etc but when i try to open firefox it comes up with profile missing or inaccessible. It has the .default infront of it but it still refuses to open.

All Replies (8)

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Hi MajorFoley, you probably noticed that the first part of each profile folder name is randomized, so it's natural that your new Firefox has no knowledge of the old profile folder.

Before proceeding, please set Windows to show all file extensions to make sure you are working with specific files and don't have to guess which is which: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/how-to-show-file-extensions-in-windows/

In the Firefox folder, there is a file named Profiles.ini that contains Firefox's map of your profile folders. If you remove that file (for example, rename it ProfilesOLD.ini while Firefox is not running), at the next startup Firefox should scan the Profiles folder for all existing profiles and offer you the option to choose which one to start up with. It's "Method 2" in the following article:

How to run Firefox when your profile is missing or inaccessible

Regarding the /AppData/Local/Mozilla/Firefox stuff, it's just temporary data such as the cache, so you can ignore that and focus on the contents of /AppData/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox.

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jscher2000 said

Hi MajorFoley, you probably noticed that the first part of each profile folder name is randomized, so it's natural that your new Firefox has no knowledge of the old profile folder. Before proceeding, please set Windows to show all file extensions to make sure you are working with specific files and don't have to guess which is which: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/how-to-show-file-extensions-in-windows/ In the Firefox folder, there is a file named Profiles.ini that contains Firefox's map of your profile folders. If you remove that file (for example, rename it ProfilesOLD.ini while Firefox is not running), at the next startup Firefox should scan the Profiles folder for all existing profiles and offer you the option to choose which one to start up with. It's "Method 2" in the following article: How to run Firefox when your profile is missing or inaccessible Regarding the /AppData/Local/Mozilla/Firefox stuff, it's just temporary data such as the cache, so you can ignore that and focus on the contents of /AppData/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox.

That creates another new profile doesn't let me use my old one which is what i want to use.

Modified by MajorFoley

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You tried Method #2 and it said you don't have any profiles and need to create a new one??

OK,

Question 1

How many profiles do you currently have in the usual location -- this is a shortcut you can paste into the Windows search box, or the address bar of a Windows Explorer window:

%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

That should expand to

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

Is the old folder you want to use in this location? If not, it needs to be copy/pasted here.

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jscher2000 said

You tried Method #2 and it said you don't have any profiles and need to create a new one?? OK, Question 1 How many profiles do you currently have in the usual location -- this is a shortcut you can paste into the Windows search box, or the address bar of a Windows Explorer window: %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles That should expand to C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles Is the old folder you want to use in this location? If not, it needs to be copy/pasted here.

There were 2 but it's Ok i solved it... at least partially. Instead of deleting or renaming the profiles.ini folder, i went into the file and changed the path=profiles line to my older profile name. My previous session and bookmarks came up although for some reason my history didnt... Is there a way to get history back?

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If the history wasn't read, it's possible the Places database was perceived to be corrupted and rebuilt only from a bookmark backup. If you look in the profile folder, do you see

places.sqlite-corrupt

there?

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jscher2000 said

If the history wasn't read, it's possible the Places database was perceived to be corrupted and rebuilt only from a bookmark backup. If you look in the profile folder, do you see places.sqlite-corrupt there?

Yeah i do. My older pc still has the history though is there some way to get it?

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I don't know if there is a way to "fix" whatever Firefox doesn't like about the old places.sqlite file, but you could try copying in the old one again to see whether it works better on the second try. While Firefox is not running, of course.

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jscher2000 said

I don't know if there is a way to "fix" whatever Firefox doesn't like about the old places.sqlite file, but you could try copying in the old one again to see whether it works better on the second try. While Firefox is not running, of course.

Sorry for the long downtime, didn't seem to work unfortunately. Maybe it doesn't like to load my history/session because it despite in the profile manager having the folder it doesn't like that i renamed the default folder? Maybe because something was changed with quantum? I dunno... I remember if my session ever got deleted for some reason i had a backup of sessionstore.js that would restore it but doesn't seem to be working here... I know it isn't corrupt either.

Modified by MajorFoley