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

missing profile and profile manager won't open

  • 6 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 15 views
  • Last reply by James

more options

OSX 10.6.8

Firefox will not open due to missing profile. I have tried following all of the trouble shooting pages and it does not work. There is no profile.ini anywhere on my computer. There is no firefox folder in the Library/applications support. Terminal can not open the profile manager (says can not open XPCOM). There is a old firefox data folder on the desktop. I've tried deleting firefox and re-installing and it does not fix the problem. According to the help pages if there is no .ini file it should make a new one but it does not. Please advise. omnath

OSX 10.6.8 Firefox will not open due to missing profile. I have tried following all of the trouble shooting pages and it does not work. There is no profile.ini anywhere on my computer. There is no firefox folder in the Library/applications support. Terminal can not open the profile manager (says can not open XPCOM). There is a old firefox data folder on the desktop. I've tried deleting firefox and re-installing and it does not fix the problem. According to the help pages if there is no .ini file it should make a new one but it does not. Please advise. omnath

All Replies (6)

more options

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

See:


This can be caused by a problem with the profiles.ini file and the profile marked as Default=1 in this file is no longer present on the hard drive.

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

  • Delete the profiles.ini file to force Firefox to 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 PM and select the location of a lost profile and recover this profile.

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

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

more options

I'm wondering if you read my post all the way. As stated there is no profile.ini located anywhere on my computer and there is no file marked "firefox" in the application support folder. Also as stated the profile manager can not be opened using the terminal.

more options

my profile.ini file is there but I can not load the profile manager I run this script c:\program files\nightly\firefox.exe -profilemanager and it just starts nightly normally any suggestions

more options

Close Firefox.

Open your file browser, and go to this folder; C:\Users\=<user>=\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox Turn off the options "hide <system> files" and "hide known file types"

In this Firefox folder, rename the profiles folder, and the profiles.ini by adding .old to them. Now start Firefox.

more options

Did as you suggested but still only got a normal session of nightly

I am using windows 10

Modified by bobt07

more options

Hmm Testing the more unstable Nightly channel builds.

You could post in http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=23 as many Testers hang out there at the independent mozillaZine forums.