Firefox Community Forum

After closing Firefox, I often get a message for "creating a new profile". It seems difficult to do this and it would be very helpful to have a link where this can be easily done. Thanks for all your help. Alok Bhargava [edited email from community support forum]

Out of nowhere today I encountered with Firefox seemingly crashing. My laptop said it needed to reboot. Once rebooted I began to get the missing/inaccessible profile error. I tried to uninstall / reinstall but continue to get the error. When I search through for the missing profile per all guidance and troubleshooting Windows says it's not found. When I use the "run" it doesn't bring me to a folder but to a notepad type screen (copy paste below). I do not see where I have any options. Would it be effective to just delete all Mozilla from my laptop? I uninstalled / reinstalled but same error.

[Install308046B0AF4A39CB] Default=Profiles/5yyitbs7.default-release Locked=1

[Profile1] Name=default IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/cd6wstjp.default Default=1

[Profile0] Name=default-release IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/5yyitbs7.default-release

[General] StartWithLastProfile=1 Version=2

[BackgroundTasksProfiles] MozillaBackgroundTask-308046B0AF4A39CB-defaultagent=2eq3b8bj.MozillaBackgroundTask-308046B0AF4A39CB-defaultagent MozillaBackgroundTask-308046B0AF4A39CB-backgroundupdate=1syr00zv.MozillaBackgroundTask-308046B0AF4A39CB-backgroundupdate

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.

Been using Firefox for 20+years in poway, ca now in Oregon City, somehow I ended up with 3 profiles, I would like to merge at least the bookmarks and delete 2 To stop confusion, thanks Ralph Kirn

When I try to browse or download another copy, the error message "Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible" appears.

How do I fix this?

Thanks

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.

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?

I have a problem with the browser automatically starting when I start my PC. I have this feature disabled (!) ("Open Firefox automatically when your computer starts up" turned OFF) Everything was fine, but then I started using the "profiles" feature - browser start's to open automatically when i start up my pc.

when I created a new profile (in addition to the main one). The problem appeared, and that was a long time ago (at least half of year ago it was already as now). I hoped that it would be fixed and didn't write to support. Windows and the browser itself have been updated several times since then - this did not help.

Changing the settings in different profiles, creating / deleting them, and other basic actions did not help. What happens is that the browser ALWAYS opens when I start the PC (Profile selection tab, i have turned ON "Select profile when Firefox start up")

I tried turn off \ delete all plugins, turn on\turn off almost every default setting, no effect. What should i do?

Browser version - 150.0 (64-bit) (from "settings-about firefox") Windows 11 Pro 25H2

Currently have 4 profiles in Firefox - but problem appeared after creation on 2nd profile. "Open Firefox automatically when your computer starts up" turned off in every profile.

Today Firefox started acting up on YouTube. I couldn't use pause or play buttons. I rebooted my computer (though Safari works fine), I force quit Firefox and restarted it. No dice. I finally removed it from my Macbook Pro and redownloaded it. But it obviously wasn't a fresh copy because it still had all my bookmarks and extensions included. It worked for a short while and then started acting up again. I don't have any new extensions so I'm not sure what's causing the problem.

Since it seems corrupt, I don't want another copy of what I already have on my current Firefox App. I want to start over to see if it works better.

I would like to know how to do that since deleting the app and redownloading didn't give me a fresh app without all my other stuff included.

Any help would be appreciated. I found a great video addressing this but it was for Windows so I couldn't apply the info to my Mac. I checked my history but couldn't find that video which may have helped someone with Windows. Grrrr!

I had a problem where FF 140.0 would not update, and in trying to get FF yo update, I used a re-install tool to which I was pointed in my problem report. This caused FF to wipe out my configuration, and I lost all my windows and tabs. I have gone to

    \Appdata\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Proifiles\abnfpged.default

cleared all of the data therein, and restored that directory from a backup I made last Monday. But I cannot get FF to use that directory. "about:profiles" shows only two profiles, but the Profiles directory has five profiles:

03/10/2026 09:39 AM <DIR> qf00ka5x.default 03/10/2026 09:39 AM <DIR> v842ceue.default-release 04/11/2026 09:16 PM <DIR> .. 04/11/2026 09:16 PM <DIR> . 04/12/2026 03:08 PM <DIR> abnfpged.default 04/12/2026 06:29 PM <DIR> jdfj91sd.default-release-1775960183850 04/12/2026 06:48 PM <DIR> f1jq4mlq.default

Only the profiles beginning with "j" and "f1" are seen in the "about:profiles" screenshot I have attached. And I have attached a screenshot of my profiles.ini file. Also, in the abnfpged.default directory I restored, where is the list of all of my open windows and tabs? FF used to keep that in a sessionstore.jsonlz4 file, but that file is only written when FF closes. I tried to save a copy when I was having problems, but I stored the copy in the same directory, which FF changed during the re-install process. Here is my profiles,.ini file:

[Install308046B0AF4A39CB] Default=Profiles/jdfj91sd.default-release-1775960183850 Locked=1

[Profile1] Name=default IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/f1jq4mlq.default

[Profile0] Name=default-release IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/jdfj91sd.default-release-1775960183850

[Install641D10338ABA448D] Default=Profiles/abnfpged.default Default=1 IsRelative=1 Locked=1

[General]

StartWithLastProfile=1

Version=2

[BackgroundTasksProfiles] MozillaBackgroundTask-308046B0AF4A39CB-defaultagent=lnvi5jn5.MozillaBackgroundTask-308046B0AF4A39CB-defaultagent

I have not worked with the ;profiles.ini file in many years, as my FF configuration has not had problems. Thanks.

Updated to FF 150 today on Win 11 desktop.

Q1: Can I remove Profiles from the FF toolbar which is located in between Bookmarks and Tools? Only need one profile on this PC. I tried to customize the toolbar but it won't let me drag Profiles off.

Q2: For some reason my FF profile is now on C: even though I had previously moved it to D: to free up space on C: boot drive.

So I created a new profile with exact same folder name on my D: drive today.

In Profile Manager, I renamed the old profile on C: to "name.old and the new one on D: to "name.new". I set name.new as the default profile and it works properly after exiting and restarting FF.

Now I want to delete the .old profile but FF won't left me, saying Can’t delete a profile that is linked to other profiles. There are only the .old and .new profiles listed. So how do I unlink .old so I can delete all of it to free up space on C: ?

I have my personal account with my personal email setup in both my home PC and laptop. I want to setup a new user profile linked to a work email to hold those passwords and bookmarks separately, and be able to sync it when using my laptop as well. I would also like to be able to have both accounts open at the same time in different windows (i.e. a "work window" with the work account, and a "personal window" with my personal account)

Is this possible? How would I go about it? I looked around the about:profiles tab, but that seems to only configure profiles for my already logged in account (the personal one). I think that what I should do is create a new firefox account with my work email and give that account a profile, but I don't know if I can be logged in to 2 accounts at the same time, and I'm not sure Firefox will show me both profiles at startup, or only the ones linked to the currently logged in account. I haven't tried this because I'm unsure if I could lose my currently open tabs.

I imported my profiles from another machine to a new laptop. Now the profiles all work and I can launch into them using the shortcuts with -p "[name]" this now brings up the old wizard rather than launching directly into the profile, and the new profile manager does not see them at all.

about:profiles sees them properly.

The profiles were imported by using about:profiles to make new black profiles, then copying in the data as from the support article: http://mzl.la/1xKrFsk

Many thanks in advance for the help.

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!

In the before times I had a default profile (for fun) and an alternative profile (for serious stuff).

Now - even with the "-p" set in the shortcuts properties I'm always asked,

OR from the taskbar it's a lottery as to which is opened.

Simple request: have the shortcut respect the "-p" it has been fed in the shortcut & Have the taskbar ALWAYS pen the DEFAULT (fun) profile.

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.