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will not load

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  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

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a box comes up says firefox profile can not load. It may be missing or inaccessable

a box comes up says firefox profile can not load. It may be missing or inaccessable

All Replies (2)

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Whoops, that's not good. Do you recall what the last thing was that Firefox was doing before this problem started?

One initial guess:

If Firefox was trying to run its Refresh procedure but didn't complete it normally, do you see a folder on the Windows desktop named Old Firefox Data? If so, please check inside to see whether it has a semi-randomly-named folder with recently updated files inside. We'll need to to restore your lost settings.

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You need to locate the profiles.ini file and delete this file or use the Profile Manager to create a new profile.

See:


This issue is caused by a problem with the profiles.ini file or with permissions/ownership of involved folders/files.

You can use one of these to make Firefox create a new default profile or recover an existing profile:

  • Delete the profiles.ini file to make Firefox create a new (default) profile
  • Use the Profile Manager to create a new profile
    If you still have an existing profile then click "Choose Folder" in the Profile Manager and browse to the location of a lost profile to recover this profile
    https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Managing+profiles

You should find the profiles.ini file in this hidden location:

  • Windows: %AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\
    *C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\
  • Mac: *~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/
  • Linux: *~/.mozilla/firefox/

If clearing the profiles.ini file isn't working then also check the location of the cache files.

  • Windows: *C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>\
  • Mac: *~/Library/Caches/Firefox/Profiles/
  • Linux:*~/.cache/mozilla/firefox/

You can also try to rename/delete the Mozilla\Firefox\ folder in both above mentioned locations (main, cache).