Do you have Firefox from the Mozilla server or the MSIX version Firefox from the Microsoft Store? The MSIX version has its profile in a different location.

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-troubleshooting-information-page-fix-firefox

You can check if you have an "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop in case the Refresh feature in Firefox has been used and a new profile has been created.

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-firefox-easily-fix-most-problems
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile

Hi,

I downloaded it from the Mozilla Server, and the folder that stores the profile has been created and is empty

C:\Users\marcu\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox.old C:\Users\marcu\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox

As I installed and uninstalled twice, both of these folders are from the 2 installs I have done where Firefox is failing to start due to the profile issue. Both do not have a profile in them, just the crash folder I mentioned above.

"You can check if you have an "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop in c"

I dont have any folder on my desktop from firefox, the folders are in the AppData folder.

Is there a registry setting thatcontains a path Firefox is using to find the profile ? Maybe from a previous Firefox installation, a reg entry that is maybe pointing to a folder where it is looking for my profile and that folder has now been removed ?

If you get the "profile cannot be loaded" message then this means that you have a profiles.ini that lists profiles and that the profile marked as "Default=1" is no longer present. You can remove profiles.ini to force Firefox to create a new default-release profile.

You can find the profiles.ini file in a hidden location:

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

Note that Windows hides the .ini file extension.

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-run-firefox-when-profile-missing-inaccessible

Hi,

As I mentioned above, I have already looked in those folders and there is no file called profiles.ini in there

C:\Users\marcu\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox# dir /s

Volume in drive C is OSF
Volume Serial Number is EE6C-1E09

Directory of C:\Users\marcu\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox

2022-11-15 12:37 PM <DIR> . 2022-11-15 12:37 PM <DIR> .. 2022-11-14 12:49 PM <DIR> Crash Reports 2022-11-14 12:46 PM <DIR> Pending Pings

              0 File(s)              0 bytes

Directory of C:\Users\marcu\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Crash Reports

2022-11-14 12:49 PM <DIR> . 2022-11-14 12:49 PM <DIR> .. 2022-11-14 12:46 PM <DIR> events 2022-11-14 12:49 PM 10 InstallTime20221010114559 2022-11-14 12:46 PM 10 InstallTime20221104133228

              2 File(s)             20 bytes

Directory of C:\Users\marcu\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Crash Reports\events

2022-11-14 12:46 PM <DIR> . 2022-11-14 12:46 PM <DIR> ..

              0 File(s)              0 bytes

Directory of C:\Users\marcu\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Pending Pings

2022-11-14 12:46 PM <DIR> . 2022-11-14 12:46 PM <DIR> ..

              0 File(s)              0 bytes
    Total Files Listed:
              2 File(s)             20 bytes
             11 Dir(s)  91,514,695,680 bytes free

Also I searched my entire C: partiton where my users folder c:\users is

C:\>dir /s profiles.ini

Volume in drive C is OSF
Volume Serial Number is EE6C-1E09

File Not Found

There are no file called profiles.ini anywhere on my partition where my users folder is. There is the folder the profiles ini is supposed to be inside, but no profiles.ini

I also searched the whole user folder as my user, and as an administrator

C:\Users>dir /s profiles.ini

Volume in drive C is OSF
Volume Serial Number is EE6C-1E09

File Not Found

All folders are empty? No installs.ini file either? Usually then Firefox would just create a new profile.

Although I think you should be seeing hidden files in the command window, "just in case", could you verify that Windows is not set to hide them in File Explorer:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/view-hidden-files-and-folders-in-windows-97fbc472-c603-9d90-91d0-1166d1d9f4b5

@jscher2000 - You are correct, when using Windows explorer (with "show hidden" enabled) I can now see other subfolders. Looking at my user AppData subfolders I had a messed up Junction right here

C:\Users\marcu\AppData\Local\Mozilla

2021-08-08 06:17 PM <JUNCTION> Mozilla [X:\CUserMarcu\AppData\Local\Mozilla]

That was pointing to a missing folder location ie there is no X:\CUserMarcu\AppData\Local\Mozilla folder, I added a link to another disk for this folder a while ago in a previous install of Firefox, this was to reduce the backup sizes of my user folder.

Anyway I deleted this, and all sorted now, thanks a lot for being patient !

Thank you for reporting back. I'm not familiar with junctions, and didn't realize a problem in the "Local" path could cause that error message. Always a new wrinkle.