Gach Táirge Community Forum

Hello, When I went to launch Firefox after starting up my PC this morning, I was greeted with: "Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible".

I went right to the Mozilla forums and found the help page [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-run-firefox-when-profile-missing...] . In this article it detailed how I should go into my AppData, then Mozilla, then Firefox, and look to see where my profile.ini file is. My profile.ini file was there, alongside the installs.ini and a few other folders. I attempted also to launch the profile manager using run and the "firefox.exe -P" command, but I got the same profile error as when I tried launching the app. The help page then recommended deleting the profile.ini file and then launching Firefox to hopefully remake the default profiles.ini file and enable me to launch Firefox, so I attempted that. When I tried relaunching Firefox, the profiles.ini file did not re-appear in my Firefox folder.

I then tried deleting the Firefox folder itself, and relaunching Firefox. This resulted in it being remade, but with just 2 folders left: Crash Reports and Pending Pings. Obviously that's not ideal, so I right clicked the Firefox folder and used the Windows "Previous versions" feature to restore the Firefox folder to a backup of how it was this morning. I then re-tried launching and I still got the same missing profiles error message. I also briefly attempted manually making a new profiles.ini file with notepad, and pointing it towards my Profile withing my Profiles folder, but that still resulted in the same missing profiles error.

This is basically where I am at now. I have confirmed that I do in fact see my actual profile in my "C:\Users\****\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles" folder, and as far as I can tell my profiles.ini file correctly points towards it. I did another reset of my Firefox folder to a backup of where I was at this morning before attempting anything. I can confirm my Windows account (Admin, and only account on the computer) has full read and write access to all Folders and files within the Mozilla folder, although I will mention some of the files in the Firefox folder were marked with the "Read-Only" attribute (not sure if that matters, but I tried unchecking those and still no luck)

As far as I can tell I have thoroughly exhausted all the easily accessible tips on the internet for solving this, so I am wondering what to try next?

TLDR: Error: Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible" Already Attempted (And failed): -deleting and prompting a remake of the profiles.ini folder -using firefox.exe -P to launch Profile manager -deleting Firefox folder to prompt a remake of that -multiple uninstalls and reinstalls of Firefox -manually remaking profiles.ini file after it didn't come back after deletion

Will link images of (1) profiles.ini file. (2) Profiles folder.

bold text Firefox has been my browser forever. When I tried to open it this morning I was invited to create a profile, so no profile, no Firefox..... I've never had to do this before and am reluctant because of the apparent threat of losing all my passwords and bookmarks. I'm 85 years of age so don't need this complication. Any help would be appreciated, complicated high tech answer will probably be beyond me. Brian.

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

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".)

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’m running into a limitation with Firefox profiles involving the original Profile Manager (about:profiles) and the new Profiles menu in the toolbar.

I previously created multiple profiles using the original Profile Manager (about:profiles), for example profiles A, B, and C. These profiles still function normally and can be launched through about:profiles, but they do not appear in the new Profiles menu in the toolbar.

I also tried using the “Copy this profile” option available from the new Profiles menu. This made it clear that the feature does not work with profiles created via about:profiles. For example, when I open profile A, I expected that I could use “Copy this profile” to copy profile A into an existing profile like profile B (which was also created using about:profiles). However, this is not possible. Profiles A, B, and C remain isolated from the new Profiles menu and cannot be accessed, copied, or managed through it.

At the moment, profiles created with the original Profile Manager (about:profiles) can only be accessed through that manager and cannot be transferred into the new Profiles menu in the toolbar.

Is there an official fix or a workaround that achieves the same result—specifically, transferring or integrating all existing profiles created with the original Profile Manager (about:profiles) into the new Profiles menu accessible from the Firefox toolbar?

Hi, So I used Thunderbird to create a zipped backup file of my profile. I got the warning that if the file size if more than 2 GB I may want to make a manual backup. I proceeded, and ended up with a file that was 15 GB. I then uninstalled Thunderbird, reinstalled it, and tried to import my backup file. Thunderbird gave an error, saying the file is too large, and I should manually extract it. Okay, I tried, but Windows 11 failed to extract the file. I then used a third-party app to extract the files. This gave me a c2140ucr.default folder that contained three direct subfolders and many, many files. I located my inbox.ca file, which is what I really want, but I cannot find a way to import it into Thunderbird using the Tools menu. Any ideas on how to recover my previous profile would be appreciated. Thanks.

Hello, I just enabled the backup sync option for the Firefox web browser (Win 10). What is the equivalent process, or recommended method of enabling a backup for mail folders, calendar entries, address books, settings, etc. of the most current Thunderbird version on a Win 10 PC? I could not find a clear answer in the help forums. Thank you.

I want to restore a previous profile which I can see on File Explorer, but no previous profiles appear on the About Profiles page. How can I access this previous profile?

Dear Agent, My computer has been updated to Windows 11 from Windows 10. The Firefox profile settings has not changed from Windows 10 to Windows 11. How can I edit or update to Windows 11 in my Firefox profile?

Regards,

Hi, In profiles, I have several, many of which are up to date and 2 are large, one which is meant to be my current profile at about 2.5 Gb and another at 3.6 Gb (plus others of about 50 Mb) - see screenshot. What is going on?

I keep finding names in my account list with the name hakeem attached. I don't know who this hakeem is or how this name and the associated links became attached to my account. I have 3 firewalls and several antivirus/spam/etc blockers activated. Help.

My Windows 11 laptop became corrupted and the os had to be reinstalled with Microsoft's help. In the midst of all this I did not think of backups sadly. After the restore I started to put my apps back on and without thinking, I installed Thunderbird. I realized immediately my mistake when I saw only new email and no local folders.

The Windows restore created a windows.old directory and I see my profile and configuration files in it. I want to use those old files but I don't know where to copy them exactly. There is some confusion on my part about where the startup is happening for Thunderbird. I really need to have access to all my old mail and local folders.

I'd appreciate any help in this matter. Thanks, Sue

It started with duplicate Archive and Drafts folders...so I checked TB help, and it gave me several suggestions, including going to my Profile folder and deleting duplicate folders from there. Everything seemed fine...until I realized that suddenly TB has NO emails later than 2022! I went in to Gmail to see if I could recover them...but they're all missing there as well. In my business account--also through Gmail, but managed through my domain name--not just my Inbox, but EVERYTHING is gone. It's as if I never existed.

This is extremely upsetting: I teach and have my own business, and losing all my emails is catastrophic.

Can someone please help?