Multiple Firefox Systems
I'm not entirely sure what's happened, but I can describe it. My Macbook Air crashed for reasons unknown, and upon rebooting it, I attempted to open Firefox, but was met with the message "A copy of firefox is already open". I found some old guide on using Terminal to discover two different profiles for Firefox. After restarting my computer, I accessed my Firefox tabs from before, but now when I open links from my email account, they default to opening up a new Firefox window, one where it seems my bookmarks don't exist. How do I remove the second profile without losing my bookmarks?
Chosen solution
You can use the Profile Manager or the about:profiles page to remove the profile that doesn't have your bookmarks and set the profile with your bookmarks as the default profile.
Firefox uses two locations for the Firefox profile folder. One location for your personal data (e.g. bookmarks) and another location for temporary files like the disk cache, so best is to use the Profile Manager to remove the profile to ensuhe profile is removed in both locations.
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Could you try making your current profile the "default" and see whether it works:
Profile Manager Page
Inside Firefox, type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it.
This page should list at least one profile and could list many. (Each profile has two folders and one or more buttons. Do not use any Remove buttons!)
The profile that Firefox is currently using will have this:
This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted.
Assuming this is your preferred profile, does it have a Set as default profile button? If so, go ahead and click that so external links are opened in your preferred profile.
Any luck?
I've made it to the profile page, where "default" and "default-release" are shown. Switching to either doesn't stop email from opening links to a different Firefox window, forming a separate image on the toolbar (two Firefox logo shortcuts), and I don't know which profile is the original I'm currently typing on.
You can get the profile name from each window by opening the Troubleshooting Information page, first table: Use the Troubleshooting Information page to help fix Firefox issues.
It's possible that external links will open in a new window even in the same profile, but they should at least have the same bookmarks and other data. Can we get that far?
No dice. The newly opened tab only accepts bookmarks transfer from Safari or Chrome, so I can't even move everything over. The external links just won't work on the profile I've set as default.
Chosen Solution
You can use the Profile Manager or the about:profiles page to remove the profile that doesn't have your bookmarks and set the profile with your bookmarks as the default profile.
Firefox uses two locations for the Firefox profile folder. One location for your personal data (e.g. bookmarks) and another location for temporary files like the disk cache, so best is to use the Profile Manager to remove the profile to ensuhe profile is removed in both locations.