Black screen in firefox... now also no user profile
Hi,
So, I had the same initial problem as: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1025438
The problem is, I reset my firefox... which resulted in making the issue even worse. I still have a black screen, but now when I open firefox there is also no profile and I get a "profile missing" box that is entirely black.
If I hold down shift and click on the firefox icon, I receive "Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible". If I try to create a firefox profile, I get a black firefox box.
For the record, before trying to reset firefox, I did manage to get a "safe setting" startup. At which point I tried to the reset option, not realizing that this option would totally mess up my ability to start firefox.
I then uninstalled and reinstalled firefox... but still, black window, no profile. And now, I have no ability to access firefox because of the windows are blacked out.
Thoughts on how to get my access back to firefox? I do have the "old firefox data" folder from the reset. Thanks in advance,
Chosen solution
Oops, what a mess. Let's try to copy your old profile folder back into place, and see whether Firefox is still looking for that one. If Firefox doesn't find that one, we'll need to edit a configuration file to point Firefox to it.
Go ahead and open these two folders:
(1) Old Firefox Data
(2) Your Firefox profiles folder. To most quickly get to this file, you can type or paste the following in the Start menu search box (and press Enter) or in the address bar of a Windows Explorer window:
%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
Next, copy your earlier profile folder from #1 to #2 (e.g., right-click>Copy from #1 and right-click>Paste to #2). Leave these two windows open for now (it's okay to minimize them).
Try starting Firefox in its Safe Mode by holding down the Shift key when starting Firefox. If you get the Safe Mode/Reset dialog, click Start in Safe Mode and hopefully all is well and you can proceed to disable hardware acceleration.
If you still get a missing profile error:
In window #1, type or paste this in the address bar and press Enter:
%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox
In this folder you should see a file named profiles.ini. If Windows is hiding the .ini extension you may want to unhide it. See this Microsoft article on steps for that: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hide-file-name-extensions
Right-click>Edit the profiles.ini file and it should open in Notepad. You should see something like the following:
[General] StartWithLastProfile=1
[Profile0] Name=default IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/asdf1234.default Default=1
The part of Path after Profiles/ needs to match the name of the folder you pasted into window #2. If that doesn't match, go ahead and edit it to match and save the change. Then try starting Firefox in Safe Mode one more time. Can you get in?
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Chosen Solution
Oops, what a mess. Let's try to copy your old profile folder back into place, and see whether Firefox is still looking for that one. If Firefox doesn't find that one, we'll need to edit a configuration file to point Firefox to it.
Go ahead and open these two folders:
(1) Old Firefox Data
(2) Your Firefox profiles folder. To most quickly get to this file, you can type or paste the following in the Start menu search box (and press Enter) or in the address bar of a Windows Explorer window:
%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
Next, copy your earlier profile folder from #1 to #2 (e.g., right-click>Copy from #1 and right-click>Paste to #2). Leave these two windows open for now (it's okay to minimize them).
Try starting Firefox in its Safe Mode by holding down the Shift key when starting Firefox. If you get the Safe Mode/Reset dialog, click Start in Safe Mode and hopefully all is well and you can proceed to disable hardware acceleration.
If you still get a missing profile error:
In window #1, type or paste this in the address bar and press Enter:
%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox
In this folder you should see a file named profiles.ini. If Windows is hiding the .ini extension you may want to unhide it. See this Microsoft article on steps for that: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hide-file-name-extensions
Right-click>Edit the profiles.ini file and it should open in Notepad. You should see something like the following:
[General] StartWithLastProfile=1
[Profile0] Name=default IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/asdf1234.default Default=1
The part of Path after Profiles/ needs to match the name of the folder you pasted into window #2. If that doesn't match, go ahead and edit it to match and save the change. Then try starting Firefox in Safe Mode one more time. Can you get in?
As far as the Black Screen:
posted by phillip in other threads today hello, other users with this problem all had an embedded intel hd graphics card with an old driver present. in case this also applies to you, here would be a link to update the driver, which in turn should also address the black firefox problem.
Intel HD 2000/3000: 32bit https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=23763 64bit https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=23764
Intel HD 4000: 32bit https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=24328 64bit https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=24329
jscher2000,
Great response! That was easy to follow and fixed the profile problem instantly.
the-edmeister and cor-el, also thank you for your responses. I am going to try to solve the graphics issue in a little bit. Thanks for the assistance!