Firefox Community Forum

The question has been edited after doing further testing on the issue.

During the last week or so I have encountered the issue that one or more of my Firefox profiles keep resetting after every update.

I noticed there's couple of threads with similar issues already but the generic profile restore instructions are not helping at all since it seems that Firefox is actually wiping some files. I'm not currently sure what causes the files to be wiped, but it's either related to rebooting the PC or starting / closing Firefox. The file deletion also doesn't always hit the same profile either.

I'm running Firefox 150.0.1 for Arch on CachyOS.

I did a clean reinstall of Firefox. After the install I created 2 new accounts in addition to the one that's pre-created on install. All of the profiles work as expected at this point.

The profiles seem to have files in three places

• $HOME/.cache/mozilla/firefox
• $HOME/.config/mozilla/firefox
• /run/user/1000/psd/

The issue seems to be that after a reboot the files under /run/user/1000/psd/ are missing. Both of the other locations seemingly are unchanged but under $HOME/.config/mozilla/firefox the linked files claim no target in /run/user/1000/psd/ is found.

When looking at the missing files, it seems that in total 6 folders have been wiped at the time of testing. All of the wiped directories were ending as ".Profile 1" or ".default-release". Directories ending with ".Profile 2" or ".default" were still there. At this point I'm not sure what is causing this but it seems to explain why the profile is inaccessible.

Manually restoring the files under /psd/ seems to fix the missing profiles completely.

I have been using Firefox profiles for years, long before the announcement of the new profiles UI. The new profiles UI launhed with FF 144. I'm on the latest version, which is 149.0.2 and I still don't have the new UI. Specifically, I do not see my profiles in the new UI.

When FF launches I see the new UI but my profiles are nowhere to be see as you can see in the screenshots:

https://postimg.cc/gallery/tFXz00m

I have 2 profiles and they each have their own name.

Instead I am presented with 2 option "Original Profile" and "create new Profile". When I click on orignal profile, Firefox opens my default profiles which has its own original name. However, when go throught the new UI o switch profiles, I do not see my other profile. Moreover, if I click manage profiles, I don't see either of my profiles.

The only way I am able to launch my 2nd profile is the old fashiong via "about:profiles".

Why can't I see my profiles in the new UI?

On my 2nd profile, I don't even have the new profiles UI.

Why dont't I have the new profiles UI months after you launched it?

Please help!

Hi folks -

I've just seen the update that firefox now allows "profiles" for different purposes (e.g. work, fun, etc.) which seems really handy. But I'm trying to wrap my head around how to approach restructuring my current setup. In particular, do these profiles *all* sync with my mozilla account? Or do I need a separate mozilla account for each profile? (if so, that sort of defeats some of the utlity here unless you're sharing the PC).

I can't tell from the support article, doesn't seem to address this, but you do need to login again if you set up a new profile.

Thanks, Patrick

Hello.

After the recent update that added profiles to Firefox I have gotten them working on my personal computer but not on my work pc.

The option for creating profiles showed up once when launching the browser but I had to dismiss it at the time. Now I can't find the option to create profiles any more, I have followed the guides that mozilla have put out but the option physically is not there.

I have also tried reinstalling Firefox but that also did not work.

what do?

Thanks.

When i open firefox, i can choose what profile to open. I have two screens, so i was wondering if it was possible to be able to open both profiles i use, and have one on each screen. If not possible, would it be considered for an update in the future? It would make it easier, so i can have my personal profile on one screen, and my work profile on the other.

The article explaining why one should not downgrade ignores a critical reason why one needs to downgrade and that is when it turns out that the new version breaks an existing website!

I got bitten by this when Firefox "upgraded" me to V143 after which point the ticket system I use to support my customers stopped working. That same ticket system continues to work fine in Safari, Edge, Chrome and Brave, etc.

Worse, when one does try to downgrade, the old profile gets removed which means you lose EVERYTHING you had (tabs, bookmarks and presumably all the settings and saved passwords, etc). You need to be keeping the old profiles around so that they can be accessed again should someone NEED to downgrade. Fortunately I was able to use Time Machine to recover the old profile --- but somebody just didn't think this through.

Much as I have loved Firefox over the years, I'm starting to feel that it's time to give up on it and move to something else.

Turning off automatic updates is not a solution because eventually one will choose to upgrade manually and most people won't remember to make a copy of their existing profile. Should one then encounter a problem, you're back to square one

Very disappointing .

My Windows 11 PC crashed but i was able to recover copy of my firefox profile. I copied previous profile folders and i am able to access those profiles using firefox.exe -P command.

But profiles don't show up in the new profile switcher. How can i restore them to modern way profiles work.

i don't want to setup accounts and sync for my profiles.

In "manage profiles" I see where to delete the extra profile that was created and I don't want. Thanks to Cetaseus1. my question is does deleting a profile delete all the bookmarks? there is an info box that warns that bookmarks will be deleted including my 30,000+ bookmarks that were rolled over to this unwanted profile that just appeared. My intent is to have one remaining profile and all my bookmarks. I am hesitant to delete a profile and loose all those bookmarks. I won't delete until Mozilla assures me that I won't lose the bookmarks in the other profile. Thanks.

For highly encrypted messages and sensitive information each time renewed or discovered for the first time cam be very intimidating for certain people. Based on the facts and past experiences, this has become extremely important to discuss and share knowledge with true and trustworthy people only to ours and others peace of mind and safety.

I really don't need a profile in Firefox and if I delete the profiles listed, you will wipe out all my bookmarks/settings. Why do I need to see a yellow triangle on the Firefox app icon?

Hello! I just installed F-Fox yesterday and want to delete Google Chrome. However, my husband and I both used Chrome and I would like to add him to Firefox, so his history, passwords, etc can be imported but I don't know how to add his profile to Firefox along with mine.

Please help.

Help! I updated my account to a new email months ago. I have been trying to set up a new different profile. Copying a profile or trying to add a profile adds the newly made profile to my old email address instead of my new email address. In the new profiles created, I am unable to login to my new email and password.

Suddenly I have to click passed something called a profile screen. Don't want it. totally useless. Absolutely annoying. I never want to see it again. How do I do that?

How do I change a profile folder's name without causing any problems? I'm on a Mac.

I know I can change a profile's name for internal Firefox use (by going to about:profiles in the URL address section of the browser), but the cryptic folder names remain the same. I've read that you should never change a profile folder's name directly (inside ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/), so is there another way?

I run both the standard version of Firefox and the developer edition on the same computer, so it would be nice to immediately see which profile folder belongs to which Firefox version by their names.