Firefox Community Forum

I am using Firefox (.deb from mozilla, not snap) in ubuntu budgie 26.04. It used ~/.config/mozilla/firefox as its profile root but after I updated to 159.0.1~build1 and clicked on a link in Thunderbird it began to use ~/.mozilla. I closed firefox, renamed that .mozilla directory, and it recreated it. MOZ_LEGACY_HOME is not set, and XDG_CONFIG_HOME is unset.

Is it only me? Thanks for your time.

$ aptitude show firefox Paquete: firefox Versión: 159.0.1~build1 Desarrollador: Mozilla <release@mozilla.com>

$ aptitude show thunderbird Paquete: thunderbird Versión: 2:1snap1-0ubuntu5

~$ stat .mozilla/

File: .mozilla/
Birth: 2026-11-04 14:43:08.656418113 -0300

~$ stat .config/mozilla

File: .config/mozilla
Birth: 2026-05-01 00:15:51.579973605 -0400

about:support: Firefox 159.0.1 (build 20261102144711), distributionID mozilla-deb, Linux 7.0.0-42-generic, Wayland (MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1). The crash reporter’s data and ping directories point to ~/.mozilla/firefox, even though the profile is in ~/.config/mozilla/firefox.

I am trying to export my firefox profiles between two firefox instances on the same PC. The windows ones, which were the originals, work fine. When I boot into ubuntu though, When I put the files into the profiles section of firefox it is unable to recognize the files, even when I rename them to the default profile. Is there a fix for this?

Rn it's the only thing stopping me from completely switching over to firefox. I would like to have desktop icons for each of my firefox profiles that let me sign in and continue with the selected profile. Chrome currently has a straight forward way to do this, I was wondering if firefox had the same support. I've attached a screenshot for context. TIA!

I have been a happy Firefox user for decades but I am about to junk it. Why? I keep my profiles on a separate external drive. That way I can just go from my laptop to my desktop and leave off where I was. I also don't take up GGGBytes on my default hard drive. However, Firefox knows better. Use "Profiles - Manage Profiles" or restore a profile from a backup, and all of my precious profile is lost and put in a random folder on my hard drive, exactly what I DO NOT WANT. Then there is the "Can’t delete a profile that is linked to other profiles" nonsense ... Please let ME decide how to run my profiles. I don't want to dig into Firefox code, I don't want to become the world's expert on how and where it keeps my passwords. I just want it to work.

what is the url for profiles, because about:profiles page says Invalid Address The provided address is not in a recognized format. Please check the location bar for mistakes and try again.

(I am a Chinese and English is not my native language, so please forgive my grammar or vocabulary errors) I was doing my programing test in class and the Tab Edit profile pop up, at the same time the theme of my browser changed. I didn`t want that changing so I clicked the Delete button. In the following few seconds nothing happened so I just put it aside and continued my examination (it was on a website and I need to sign in). And then suddenly, my browser was closed. When I opened it again, it didn`t recover any of my tabs. I tried to open my previous tabs and found that my history was empty, and when I returned to my examination and try to login, I found that even my passwords were all deleted. What was happened? how to recover my tabs and my passwords? I just don`t want to change my Theme why every thing was deleted? (and also, why Support service in Chinese is not available?)

I was trying to figure out how to remove a totally different feature, and I guess I accidentally created a profile or something. After I fixed my original issue, I looked up regarding this issue, and I found a way to get rid of the 'profile' I created. Now I have this annoying button on application menu, and it is messing up how I interact with it. Please tell me there is a way to remove it.

Am I seriously supposed to enter windows safe mode to delete this folder, my machine requires a bitlocker password for me to enter safe mode in windows. I could probably do it, but I do not understand why I have to go through this insane process to remove a folder from my desktop.

I cant believe this software is capable of making a completely unremovable folder on my desktop, I don't have permission to remove a folder from my own computer? Seriously? I'm supposed to go into recovery mode in windows just to delete some firefox folder? THIS IS INSANE.

I tried restarting, changing permissions, I get access denied error. Is there anything else I can do?

Bonjour,

Mon PC W10 m'a lâché et me voici sous ...W11......j'avoue que pour le moment on n'est pas copain/copain !

Voici ma question : Firefox est installé, mais quand je vais dans "Profiles", j'ai le contenu du dossier xxxxxxxx.default qui s'affiche mais pas le dossier !!! Comment procéder ???

De plus "profiles.ini" me semble bien bizarre ...à quoi doit-il ressembler ????

Merci pour votre aide et bon WE @ TLM

Who decided to attach everything in my browser to a profile that can be easily deleted???!?!?!? Just lost all of my work shit because I tried to turn off this dumb feature I wasn't using and now everything is gone!!! History, passwords, bookmarks, sessions, everything! Never even created any profile, the browser just updated and necxt day all of my settings were tied to this dumb bullshit. Stop moving all of my data without notice or permission.

Almost locked my out of my work email because it thinks this is a different device now!!!!!!! [expressing disappointment]

I had a problem where FF 140.0 would not update, and in trying to get FF yo update, I used a re-install tool to which I was pointed in my problem report. This caused FF to wipe out my configuration, and I lost all my windows and tabs. I have gone to

    \Appdata\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Proifiles\abnfpged.default

cleared all of the data therein, and restored that directory from a backup I made last Monday. But I cannot get FF to use that directory. "about:profiles" shows only two profiles, but the Profiles directory has five profiles:

03/10/2026 09:39 AM <DIR> qf00ka5x.default 03/10/2026 09:39 AM <DIR> v842ceue.default-release 04/11/2026 09:16 PM <DIR> .. 04/11/2026 09:16 PM <DIR> . 04/12/2026 03:08 PM <DIR> abnfpged.default 04/12/2026 06:29 PM <DIR> jdfj91sd.default-release-1775960183850 04/12/2026 06:48 PM <DIR> f1jq4mlq.default

Only the profiles beginning with "j" and "f1" are seen in the "about:profiles" screenshot I have attached. And I have attached a screenshot of my profiles.ini file. Also, in the abnfpged.default directory I restored, where is the list of all of my open windows and tabs? FF used to keep that in a sessionstore.jsonlz4 file, but that file is only written when FF closes. I tried to save a copy when I was having problems, but I stored the copy in the same directory, which FF changed during the re-install process. Here is my profiles,.ini file:

[Install308046B0AF4A39CB] Default=Profiles/jdfj91sd.default-release-1775960183850 Locked=1

[Profile1] Name=default IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/f1jq4mlq.default

[Profile0] Name=default-release IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/jdfj91sd.default-release-1775960183850

[Install641D10338ABA448D] Default=Profiles/abnfpged.default Default=1 IsRelative=1 Locked=1

[General]

StartWithLastProfile=1

Version=2

[BackgroundTasksProfiles] MozillaBackgroundTask-308046B0AF4A39CB-defaultagent=lnvi5jn5.MozillaBackgroundTask-308046B0AF4A39CB-defaultagent

I have not worked with the ;profiles.ini file in many years, as my FF configuration has not had problems. Thanks.

Again, folloed Mozilla Support directions from Konstantina Papadea of 10/22. I could not type or paste anything to then get to "Enter/Return". Could not get to "About Profiles".

I did get a warning page from Webroot that there "might" be security issues. Please advise.

Once again the latest firefox browser has issues so I rolled back the last stable version. It keeps prompting me to create a new profile. I want to use the previous profile that has all my setting and bookmarks. I got to about:profiles and selected the profile i want to make default and it will not add it to firefox. How can I do this?

At first deployment of multiple profiles in early 2026, my use was really intuitive and I was able to understand the FAQ and Community notes. Early October, the releases started to implement some refinements. I am not understanding these refinements and while I am seeing the error message (attached), I am not understanding what the fix is to use my additional profiles (two), int the past month, I have not found a way to get to my two additional profiles.

My environment: Windows 11 Pro - Firefox 158.0 (64 bit) I have Profiles "Original" and two others. I have one single Mozilla account. I copied my two profiles from original and had made great progress culling the profile passwords and bookmarks, I have only been syncing my original profile two my two cellphones. 95% of my use is from desktop Firefox.

Attached is a well documented result error but I am not locating how to get to the profiles I had created from the attached error message.

Every time there is an update, Firefox creates a new profile and hides all passwords etc. It is therefore impossible to work with it now. With 157 I now have a worthless Firefox, because all links, passwords, settings etc have been cleared and a new profile has been created.

On linux, in the past, firefox kept all its data in home/{user}/.mozilla. This was changed at some pont to spread the data out into /home/{user}/.config, /home/{user}/.cache and maybe another place but when the change was made existing data was not moved and remained in /home/{user}/.mozilla. For my purposes I prefer to see the data in the old location. I make heave use of profiles and I store them on an encrypted partition and I have firejail setup to give access to the old location. Whart does Firefox look at to determine whether to look in the new locations or the old location? What is the new location of profile.ini?