Look on your desktop. Do you see a folder called; Old Firefox? Look inside. Look for the folder with the latest creation date.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles

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

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recover-user-data-missing-after-firefox-update

No such animal and I have never had anything like that over the 10 years I have used ffox. If it should be there is there somewhere else it could have been sent to? I will try the info you sent. This is a real mess for me and I have plenty to say with these unnecessary things that are always messed with by the backroom geeks, causing these kind of problems.

I have had these kind of problems before and almost or did make things worse by opening ffox. Your last article looks like what I need to do, but it requires starting ffox which makes new profiles and maybe deleting old, important, info. Should I do this to look? I have already copied the app data info from local and roaming so if hopefully it was saved previously it should be there permanently. How do I do this and not make things worse? This is a disaster otherwise.

Start Firefox's Profile Manager.

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

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox#Navigating_to_the_profile_folder

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles

Type about:profiles<enter> in the address bar. How many profiles are listed? How many should be there? Also, open the profile folder in your file explorer.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recover-user-data-missing-after-firefox-update

Still stuck. Won't let me do that. It gives me a box warning me of the older version and it only lets me exit what I am trying to do or create a new profile. Yeah right it will create a blank profile wont it? This is all outrageous.

I suppose system restore won't reset this all will it?

Exactly which app data files do I move and to where? Those instructions for "Recovering important data from an old profile" look very complicated and will probably just cause me more questions and problems. Can't I just replace a whole folder or file compilation over. I want it all just like it was, not just parts and games.

No matter what I do I can't get past that warning box. Creating a new profile is just likely to give me a blank profile again. I need it to accept my old profile and start.

I suppose system restore won't reset this all will it?

It might. Or it could make things worst.

I called for more help.

I think that what I am trying to replace the app data with now also has the newest empty backup info with the older data. It is corrupted in a way. So maybe the system just uses that newest set of files and they are the empty ones. If that is true how can I delete what it is using so it will look only at the original data?

If you are trying to get more help then thank you. I will be waiting. I can't stand using chrome and I need my browser setup back. Thanks.

Nobody knows how to fix this? I am pretty sure I have the files I need saved even if they aren't also in the current spot, but I don't know how to get them reinstalled. I would like my full system back to how it was but even if I can at least get my bookmarks it would help. I can use the program to print out my tabs list. But I really want to get my original setup working again. Thanks firefox for this mess. I do not want this new version it sucks. Quit changing things.

I can do all I want to try to get the proper profile info in for ffox to start with but I cannot get by that warning box that won't let me do anything but exit or create a new profile (I bet that will just give me a blank profile). This is obviously something within the firefox system that is forcing that box and problem. My hand or my pc is not what is creating that. You are the only ones that can fix that for me. Can I get some help firefox? What is going on there?

firefox used to be the best. And one of the main things I told others to try to sell it was the fact you could get help with problems. Apparently that is over so now so I certainly can't recommend it to others. I guess this is how it is now.

If you still have your old profile, first start Firefox from command line: firefox.exe --allow-downgrade and choose your old profile. If everything is OK, you can close and start normally. It worked for me downgrading from 88.0.1 to 78.11.0 ESR (see my answer on my own post https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1338596). I recommend using ESR, it has no new fancy update, just security updates.

You don't know how much I appreciate the help and you also are giving me info I like for the situation beyond my profile. Are you saying the 78 is before that last 'upgrade' a year or so ago when they messed up a bunch of things I had to work to try to revert? But as long as I don't have to use this new 89 fiasco. I ran into a snag maybe you can help with. What I did was (after allowing the upgrade, I have it set that way) to 89 I just grabbed the 88 and installed it. Like a dodo rushing to it instead of planning. Well of course it just put in a clean 88 and a blank profile. 88 is still in it. I saved my app date info separately and I think the current ffox on C drive also shows that version along with it's new empty profile. It is defaulting to that empty profile. You do mean to start my command line (I always do it with administrative rights) and type in your command there? I tried it with no spaces and also with a space after .exe and it does not recognize the command. Are there any other spaces or am I off on this? Thanks for any help you can give me. (Otherwise my current hangup is that box that won't let me start 88 without 'creating a new profile". I wonder if I let it do that and then so it will start I can work with it to reinstall or enable my old profile.)

Ok on other advice and info from mozillazine I tried allowing it to create new profile. I then went to profile manager to start with my old profile, which was there, and it just pops up that same damn box again!! I wondered if selecting set (the old profile) as default may let it use that one? Even if somehow it deletes my profile it is still all saved in a different location on my pc for safe keeping.

I found that the command needs to just be in the run box. I tried various versions of the command and still stuck with that warning box. I even tried installing that older version you recommend and same thing. I would like to try setting my old profile as default if it will do that to see, but I am hoping to hear from someone whether I should.

Hi helpful55, Did the profile selector come up or the firefox main window? If you firefox starts with that "create new profile" thing, it means your old profile is still there.

Try to do this: first, open your command prompt and go to the programs folder in your command line like: cd c:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\ and run firefox.exe --allow-downgrade -p. You don't need administrative rights!

It should show up the profile selector with your profiles where you can choose among them... probably you did not have a specific profile name, so try one by one, one of them should be your old profile.

Can you go to your firefox profile folder to see if your old profile is there? In explorer you should enable the hidden items since the AppData folder is hidden. Your profile folder is: c:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ There should be one or more SOMETHINGRANDOMSTRINGS.default folders there.

Sorry about my life story here. That did do it. Now the newest version I am actually not sure about, as I deleted that before I even woke up! It may actually be ok, but I couldn't even read my tabs! I am real touchy because of this kind of regular thing in life with web sites and programs. Stop messing with me. If there was a warning then it is up to me, but firefox just gives me the download box and since it is rarely any noticeable changes I just allow it. Now the last ‘upgrade’ they did about a year ago was kind of a pain and I had to make some changes to get rid of some of the dumb things firefox did with that. Trying to make this work I went to the 77 version so it is now kind of older looking but it will I guess never be messed with so good there.

Now you say command prompt but this is done using the run box (W7). When I put in firefox.exe –allow-downgrade it would just start ffox. I would then go to about:profiles and got the page to select from the listed profiles. My old one has always been there but like I say when I selected it I got that same damn warning box that wouldn’t let me use it. Now I tried the command with the –p you mentioned and it popped up a basic small box that listed the profiles to choose from. I clicked on the top one which was where it was at on the about:profiles page and it opened up with my full old profile and it is operating with the 77 version.

I am actually about to do a reinstall of my os along with some other work on my pc and this would have been a good time with the startover but I wanted to fix this first anyway. Kind of for piece of mind when I resetup ffox with the full reinstall and setup with my pc. Like I say I saved my profile in a separate location which I will do when I redo my pc. I have to use the (Jefferson?) tab lister program and then just pick out the tabs I want. I am horrible about ending up with tons of tabs on ffox so I create that problem for myself. I do want my sensible bookmark list and those are easy to weed out or arrange later on.

So this is it and I am very appreciative of your help. I learned some more about the profile selector which probably would have helped me out another time when I lost a profile because of a mistake I made. I am not happy with the way ffox people seemed to just let me twist in the breeze with this (I assume you are not a worker here). And I do wish ffox would warn people when there is a major change with an update and why not have an easy to click ‘restore’ button so users can get back to where they were version-wise until they find out what is going on. Thanks again.