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

Este fío arquivouse. Faga unha nova pregunta se precisa axuda.

I had a problem with Firefox, so I uninstalled it and reloaded, now I get Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible

  • 5 respostas
  • 1 has this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by thegeegs

thegeegs
thegeegs
more options

I have looked in the forums, and I found my "profile" folder, but the ini file and other things I was told to look for are not in it. I dont know whether deleting the whole folder and then reloading Firefox again will solve the problem and it will create a new profile or not. Can someone please help me with a step by step? Thanks!

I have looked in the forums, and I found my "profile" folder, but the ini file and other things I was told to look for are not in it. I dont know whether deleting the whole folder and then reloading Firefox again will solve the problem and it will create a new profile or not. Can someone please help me with a step by step? Thanks!

All Replies (5)

philipp
philipp
  • Moderator
more options

hello thegeegs, what you could try is to press the windows-key+R and open %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\ - a folder should open up which should include a file named profiles.ini.

the error message you're receiving is usually triggered when the path to your profile specified in profiles.ini doesn't exist on your hard-drive.

you can rename the file to something like oldprofiles.ini & restart firefox - this should lead to a new profile being created.

ideato
ideato
more options

Hello thegeegs, the profiles.ini file it is not inside the profile folder .

it is in the profile folder path : %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox

not in : C:\Documents and Settings\<Windows login/user name>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile folder>

seek for something like the screeshot (in win xp like yours) and delete it

see also: Recovering important data from an old profile

Transferring data to a new profile - Firefox


thank you

thegeegs
thegeegs Question owner
more options

Hi Phillip,

I went to the folder C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles and opened it but there is no file called "profiles", and only 2 .ini files, one for compatibility and the other for extensions. So what now?

Appreciate the help... I just want my Firefox back!

philipp
philipp
  • Moderator
more options

you could try to delete/rename the whole C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\ folder then. if this doesn't work, please right-click on the "%appdata%\Mozilla" folder, go to properties & make sure that any read-only protection for containing files and folders is turned off.

thegeegs
thegeegs Question owner
more options

Phillip, YOU ARE THE MAN!!! Followed the instructions, actually did find a profiles.ini text file, renamed it and I am back! Lost a little stuff and my bookmarks arent really loading properly, but.... thanks!