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My computer suddenly started the above error message for multiple programs. The local computer shop was able to sort out what appeared to be the root cause and that recovered some things but I still needed to reinstall a number of programs.

The program I am terrified of reinstalling is Thunderbird. All my emails on five email accounts since 2011 are stored in TB and I naturally do not want to lose any of them.

The major problems are the computer is running Win7 Enterprise and I am 82 years old so I am prone to needing things spelt out in greater detail than many others.

Can anyone provide a way to reset the program permissions (preferable) or identify the best way to reinstall and still access all my historic emails?

Thank you

Linux User So. I recently followed a Mozilla guide, previously posted, and something that I did, or changed, I now have a very annoying "profile" name in the title bar. Further to that, I now have an additional menu option called "Profiles", with --"profile --Add Profile

Manage Profiles

I have never had or seen these items, except when I've moved my profile from an old computer to a new computer, using the console of "firefox -P" command.

It is becoming very annoying as I only have one profile, and I don't want an more.

Question. How to I block the display of 'profile information' ? Thanks

Hi,

When I opened Firefox today, it asked me which profile I'd like to use. I named one Katy and then continued. Now, I can't see any of my bookmarks, none of my passwords are saved, none of my sites recognized. I've been using Firefox for years. Everything I have is saved there. I just want my old stuff back. I'm signed in on my account, but can't see another profile that I can choose. My phone still has all the passwords and bookmarks from before but I I can't see what profile I'm signed in under. Can anyone help?

Thank you!

Katy

I do not understand how profiles work, and hence don't know how to fix my problem. I had a problem with my printer connection, and tried to solve it by rolling back my Linux O/S, (using Timeshift) to a date prior to the printer not connecting. (It didn't help.) But what it *did* do was to screw up my TB, which when I tried to open it, after the roll-back, complained that the TB profile was "newer", and I needed to create a new one. I did this, but then found that all my old emails had disappeared and it had started a complete new collection of emails, and all the mail folders had disappeared . I went back to the data backups from prior to the rollback, (using Cronopete), and was able to find the TB profile (and 5 years' worth of old emails) in the .Thunderbird folder in the Home directory. And I have pursued the profile manager in TB, and located the profile from before my roll-back. But I can't figure out how to recover this old one. I have a button "Set as Default", (I hesitated to commit to this - should I?), and another for "Launch Profile". But when I click on this last, it drops right back into the requirement to create a new profile. I already have one new profile, (which was created when I tried to sign on to TB after the roll-back.) I can't see much point in making yet another one. And I don't really understand how the data are stored in the profile in any case. (emails seem to be in a Mail folder, but are scattered about in a whole series of sub-folders and files within the Mail folder). And some of the numbered "profiles" seem to refer to things other than Thuderbird, (they lack any folder named "Mail".)

With the new profile manager your have to choose a Profile that you have to open on system start. That is okay, but I often change between two main profiles, "Homelab" and Personal. That means if I close Firefox and open it again it defaults to open in the last profile use. When I get an idea, I like to start researching and testing before i get side tracked

Is there a way to specify to open a link in a particular profile, like with Edge you would do something like: "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Firefox.lnk" -profile-directory="Profile 2"

Thing I have tried:

• "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Firefox.lnk" -profile-directory="Profile 2"
• C:\Users\%USER\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\vlfrd90t.default
• "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Firefox.lnk" -P [also -profile] "[Alpha-digits].Profile 1"

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Before the new profiles update in Firefox I was using the old version of creating profiles and I want to move that profile into the new profile method. Is that possible?

Hi, I have been using TB for many years, when suddenly 4 days ago ( Feb. 1st.) it started as a brand new install, asking to set up a new account, I got no previous warnings or had other issues.

Since then I have done several attempts to get it connected with my profile, among others: - Everything from this article https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data - Importing the Profile from Functions > Import > "Import from another Thunderbird installation" - Reinstalling TB ( without removing the profile)

All of it with no succes, there is no accounts, and no mails, only some empty local folders so I'm running out of good ideas, and I really hope you can help!

BTW, somehow the addressbook has content, as the only thing.

Thanks Best regards Preben

I have an account for standard support release versions, I am now using extended support release version 140.7.0 and a popup notification keeps nagging me to make a new profile. How do I do this?

We are currently rolling out a profile management solution based on Ivanti User Environment Manager. In order to configure file includes and excludes in the profile management tool, we have to “standardize” the Firefox profile path in the filesystem. We have implemented a PowerShell script, which reads the currently used profile from %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\install.ini, renames the appropriate profile subfolder to “firefox.default-esr” and replaces the entries in installs.ini and profiles.ini.

The script seems to be reliable. However, for around 10% of the users, we are seeing issues when the user launches Firefox after the “firefox profile migration” happened. Firefox opens but none of the GUI controls is accessible. Firefox is completely unusable. See screenshot attached.

We do have workarounds to resolve this issue, such as completely wiping the %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox folder and let Firefox re-build everything from scratch. But we are still trying to find the root cause the issue, because our customers have more than 100k clients, what will be a big impact and hard to handle for the helpdesk.

We are currently unable to reproduce the issue on test clients. Even copied Firefox profile folders form affected clients don’t show the issue on other clients.

Therefore we want to find out and ask for your help:

- Is there a supported way to “standardize” the filesystem folder name of the Mozilla Firefox (ESR) profile of a user? - What are the files within a Firefox profile that are required for the profile and the application itself to properly start? - Do you have any idea which files in a Firefox profile (in a corrupted state) could cause our issue?

My power just went out for a second, now Firefox its acting like I've never used it.

I've never had this problem. Firefox has worked just fine for years. I have never had an issue with FireFox. Now I'm being told to select a profile like there isn't a set of folders with files dating back to 2021 sitting next to these fresh new folders full of files all dated to today.—I don't know shit by the way, Google told me where the profile stuff is or something idk im pissed.

How do I get Firefox to recognize the same old mountain of files its been using to store bookmarks, passwords, and all the rest is right under its stupid nose? And no the about:profiles page just gives me another blank profile to choose.

funfunfun

Good Afternoon,

I am enjoying the easier profile management with the new profile system, and I am using it currently for splitting personal / work usage. I was just wondering if it is possible to set 'Choose a profile when Firefox opens' to always apply when running a Firefox shortcut, not just when Firefox is not currently running (similar to Chrome's 'New Window' option)?

Thanks, Robert

I got a message on my Win10 PC saying, "Your Firefox profile can not be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible."

Mozilla help suggests looking in %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\. I did this but don't know what to do next.

I have another Win10 PC where Mozilla still works, and they do sync. Should I copy some of the Mozilla folders from it to the first PC to restore the problem? Which ones?

BTW, I can still run the Mozilla TOR Browser on the first PC. Thank you!

If I'm not mistaken, between FF146 and FF147 it appears the location of the profile directory has changed. It was:

   /home/<user>/.mozilla/firefox  

and now is

   /home/<user>/.config/mozilla/firefox

Is that correct?

I recently upgraded Thunderbird from v140.7-ESR to v147-Release and would be grateful if someone could answer some questions.

After upgrading I noticed there are 3 profile folders even though I am the only user of my Win11 laptop.

Profile Folders 92yfgi88.default-esr - 3.654 GB - 2026/01/23 12:50:27 >> My profile jf63jfuk.default-default - 1.533 GB - 2024/06/05 21:27:32 y9efj7q9.default - 47 Byte - 2026/01/23 12:30:15

The folder y9efj7q9.default only contains 2 files - parent.lock (0kb) and times.json (1kb).

1. Can I safely delete profiles I don't use?

2. Why is -ESR still shown at end of my profile folder name? - I thought it would be renamed when I changed to the release channel version.

3. Can I manually rename my profile folder? - I know I can rename a profile using Profile Manager but this doesn't rename the folder.

4. If not possible to rename my "92yfgi88.default-esr" folder, I assume I can just copy it's contents to another new profile folder and tell TBird to start using that?

5. Can I use Windows File Explorer to delete/rename profiles, or must this be done from within Thunderbird?

Also, any idea why Thunderbird Notifications still show as coming from Mozilla Thunderbird ESR, even though I now use the Release version? I've checked Windows 11 System > Notifications and it is still shown there as Mozilla Thunderbird ESR.. Why? and how to fix?

Thanks in advance..

As the title says, when i go to about:support, and click the open profile folder, i wanted to install a customization to allow me to edit the default tab background, but for some reason i do not have admin privileges in that folder, i can't access anything, i can't edit anything nor create a new folder, even rename it. It says that my own computer does not have admin privileges inside that folder.