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.

Avatar for Username

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

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Firefox won't open. Keeps saying the profile is missing. There is no profile in AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\

  • 4 replies
  • 5 have this problem
  • 30 views
  • Last reply by St_Cross

St_Cross
St_Cross
more options

I am running Windows 7 OS. I've read through a lot of similar and some spot on problems like my own but none of them have a solution that works.

I get the error saying "Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible"

I checked Windows: %AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\ C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\

Only thing there is a folder called Firefox and in that one a file called crash report.

There is no file called "profiles.ini" so I have no way to access the profile manager and uninstalling + manually deleting all related Firefox folders/files and reinstalling Firefox does not fix my issue.

I have no clue what to do from here to go about solving this problem or to fix why Firefox is no longer working even when reinstalled.

I am running Windows 7 OS. I've read through a lot of similar and some spot on problems like my own but none of them have a solution that works. I get the error saying "Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible" I checked Windows: %AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\ C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\ Only thing there is a folder called Firefox and in that one a file called crash report. There is no file called "profiles.ini" so I have no way to access the profile manager and uninstalling + manually deleting all related Firefox folders/files and reinstalling Firefox does not fix my issue. I have no clue what to do from here to go about solving this problem or to fix why Firefox is no longer working even when reinstalled.

Chosen solution

Did you try to rename the Mozilla folder?

Also try to remove the folder in the cache location in AppData\Local.

  • C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\
Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (4)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

There should still be a profiles.ini file because otherwise Firefox wouldn't give this error message, but would create a new profiles.ini file and a new default profile folder.

Windows hides some file extensions by default. Among them .html and .ini and .js and .txt and you may only see a file name without file extension. You can check the file extension (type) in the properties of the file in Windows Explorer via the right-click context menu.

You can try to clear or rename the Firefox folder (or the Mozilla folder if you do not have other applications) to force Firefox to create a new profile structure.

St_Cross
St_Cross Question owner
more options

Already have my folder settings to show hidden files as well as protected operating system files. No "profiles.ini" file shows up in the Firefox folder in appdata or even the newly generated folder after a did as you suggested and rename the first one to fore a new folder to get generated.

Is it possible the "profiles.ini" could be elsewhere? As it is clearly not within \AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\ and I am at a loss at where to go from here as this is where all previous problems like this says to look.

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

Chosen Solution

Did you try to rename the Mozilla folder?

Also try to remove the folder in the cache location in AppData\Local.

  • C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\
St_Cross
St_Cross Question owner
more options

Renaming the Mozilla folder did nothing but checking the Mozilla folder in "AppData/Local" did as apparently that folder was corrupted. After deleting it I started Firefox and now everything works. Thank you for your help.