Your firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible
!st I get;Firefox is already running, but is not responding. The old firefox process must be closed to open a new window. When I check my task manager only the firefox is running that is the dialog box. If i hit Close firefox I get the next error. The 2nd error is Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible. I have rebooted, deleted firefox, tried to recreate a user profile. When I try to recreate a user profile I get the error. Firefox cannot use the profile "default" because it is in use. To continue, close the running instance of firefox or choose a different profile. Before the crash I had firefox up and running over several days on ABB's website using there robot tutorial. I run Norton security and I am on windows 10 64bit.
Thanks in advance for any help,
Val
All Replies (8)
This is a problem with the profiles.ini file that stores data about registered profiles.
Locate the profiles.ini file and delete this file or use the Profile Manager to create a new profile.
See:
You can check if you have orphaned profiles that aren't registered in profiles.ini and that do not show in the Firefox Profile Manager. You can check that by opening the current profile folder and go up one level.
You can delete the profiles.ini file to make Firefox create a new (default) profile or you can recover an orphaned profile via these steps:
- use the Profile Manager to create a new profile
- click "Choose Folder" in the Profile Manager
- browse to the location of a lost profile to recover this profile and register it in the Profile Manager
Note that you should never use "Choose Folder" to specify a folder that already contains files that do not belong to Firefox (i.e. only use "Choose Folder" to recover an orphaned profile)
You can find the profiles.ini file in this hidden location.
- http://kb.mozillazine.org/profiles.ini_file
- Windows: %AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\
C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\ - Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/
- Linux: ~/.mozilla/firefox/
When I logged onto my computer this morning Firefox was doing an update trying to fix some add ons. Then it stopped working...created a prefex folder on my desktop and kept giving me this error message every time I tried to open it:
Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible
I uninstalled it and have been trying to re install all day and I keep getting that message when I try to open it.
Please let me in laymen's terms how to fix it or Firefox is gone from my computer forever.
It looks that something went wrong with the refresh and that a new profile wasn't created. You will have to use the Profile Manager to create a new profile.
Do you have an "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop with you previous profile?
If you have this folder then you can restore you old personal data. If you do not have an "Old Firefox Data" folder then you can check if you have orphaned profiles that are no longer registered.
You can check that by opening the current profile folder and go up one level.
- C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>\
You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.
- Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> Profile Directory:
Windows: Show Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox
You can copy files like these to the current Firefox profile folder to recover specific data.
- bookmarks and history: places.sqlite
- bookmark backups: compressed .jsonlz4 backups in the bookmarkbackups folder
- cookies.sqlite for the cookies
- formhistory.sqlite for saved form data
- logins.json and key3.db (decryption key) for Passwords saved in the Password Manager
- cert8.db and possibly cert_override.txt for (intermediate) certificates stored in the Certificate Manager
- persdict.dat for words you added to the spelling checker dictionary
- permissions.sqlite for Permissions and possibly content-prefs.sqlite for other Site Preferences
- sessionstore.js for open tabs and pinned tabs
I hae a prefetch folder. PLease send instructions on how to restore the data from the prefetch folder when Firefox will not open...only gives me the error message:
Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible
What "prefetch folder" are you talking about?
What files and folder are present in this folder?
Sorry...not prefetch but Old Firefox Data...there is lots of stuff in there but I have no idea how to use it. I unistalled and re-installed firefox from my computer. When I try to open all I see is the attached box...
I have been a firefox user for 10+ years...this is ridiculous ....I have tons of bookmarks and pre-set data...tell me how to fix it...it was running fine on this computer until yesterday.
You can copy files like these from the "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop to the current Firefox profile folder to recover specific data.
- bookmarks and history: places.sqlite
- bookmark backups: compressed .jsonlz4 backups in the bookmarkbackups folder
- cookies.sqlite for the cookies
- formhistory.sqlite for saved form data
- logins.json and key3.db (decryption key) for Passwords saved in the Password Manager
- cert8.db and possibly cert_override.txt for (intermediate) certificates stored in the Certificate Manager
- persdict.dat for words you added to the spelling checker dictionary
- permissions.sqlite for Permissions and possibly content-prefs.sqlite for other Site Preferences
- sessionstore.js for open tabs and pinned tabs
You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.
- Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> Profile Directory:
Windows: Show Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox
See also:
how does this help me when I can't open firefox?