This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Firefox generating new, blank profiles at launch after Time Machine Restore

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 13 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

more options

We sent out a MacBook Pro 15-inch 2017 to Apple for a battery replacement. They also replaced the logic board, which means a blank/fresh boot drive. After restoring from Time Machine, Firefox makes a new profile at launch, instead of referencing the original “working” profile, even though it's the default. It creates profiles as n9w2dcnd.default-release-#; for example: n9w2dcnd.default-release-1, n9w2dcnd.default-release-2, and so on.

It works one time after we set the correct profile to default, but not after subsequent relaunches of Firefox. Basically, we went into about:profiles, set the correct profile as the default, delete other profiles, restarted Firefox, everything in Firefox was as it was before Apple wiped the computer. However, if you quit and reopen Firefox, it generates that new profile (like I stated above), and appends a number after it.

Even starting up Firefox with a default profiles will simply cause Firefox to make new profiles after each relaunch. We got up to 6 profiles just testing it, before stopping and coming here.

Some notable information:

- We were running 10.15.7 before, Apple wiped it and installed 10.12.6, but upgraded to macOS 12.0.1, as 10.15.7 and 11.x are no longer available.

- All permissions seem correct on the profile folder inside the user Library, including /Users/rick/Library/Application Support/Firefox, and /Users/rick/Library/Application Support itself. I even set the “everyone” or read and write.

- We have the current version of Firefox installed.

- The previous version installed is whatever was current or near current on Thursday when we ran the last Time Machine backup.

I'd really appreciate any help. Thanks!

We sent out a MacBook Pro 15-inch 2017 to Apple for a battery replacement. They also replaced the logic board, which means a blank/fresh boot drive. After restoring from Time Machine, Firefox makes a new profile at launch, instead of referencing the original “working” profile, even though it's the default. It creates profiles as n9w2dcnd.default-release-#; for example: n9w2dcnd.default-release-1, n9w2dcnd.default-release-2, and so on. It works one time after we set the correct profile to default, but not after subsequent relaunches of Firefox. Basically, we went into about:profiles, set the correct profile as the default, delete other profiles, restarted Firefox, everything in Firefox was as it was before Apple wiped the computer. However, if you quit and reopen Firefox, it generates that new profile (like I stated above), and appends a number after it. Even starting up Firefox with a default profiles will simply cause Firefox to make new profiles after each relaunch. We got up to 6 profiles just testing it, before stopping and coming here. Some notable information: - We were running 10.15.7 before, Apple wiped it and installed 10.12.6, but upgraded to macOS 12.0.1, as 10.15.7 and 11.x are no longer available. - All permissions seem correct on the profile folder inside the user Library, including /Users/rick/Library/Application Support/Firefox, and /Users/rick/Library/Application Support itself. I even set the “everyone” or read and write. - We have the current version of Firefox installed. - The previous version installed is whatever was current or near current on Thursday when we ran the last Time Machine backup. I'd really appreciate any help. Thanks!

All Replies (3)

more options

Make sure you install Firefox properly and that you do not launch Firefox from the DMG (Disk Image) file.

Open the Firefox Disk Image file and drag the Firefox application to the Applications folder on your hard drive. You shouldn't double-click the Firefox application to run it from the Disk Image, but instead drag it out of the DMG folder.

more options

Thanks, I definitely did not do run it form the DMG, it's running from /Applications.

more options

It is possible that there is a (permission: read/write) problem with the profiles.ini file and Firefox isn't able to register the new profile in profiles.ini. You can check the about:profiles page and the Profile Manager and the profiles.ini file directly to see what profile are registered. I assume that there are a lot of unregistered profiles created because of this.