Yonke imikhiqizo 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.

I wanted to refresh Firefox. When I downloaded the installer from the Mozilla website, I got this message: "Firefox is already running, but is not responding. The old Firefox process must be closed to open a new window." I finally downlaoded it from the App store and now I get this message "Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible."

I can't recollect doing anything lately that would have caused such a problem. I don't mess with the registry, and I don't use rogue programs. I do have a Surfshark VPN, which I disabled to download the latest version of Firefox.

I am running Windows 11 on a Dell PC, which is about 6 months old.

I didn't have any problems until reciently.

How can I fix this?

I can't open FIrefox. When I try to open it I get the following error message. "Firefox is already running, but is not responding. The old Firefox process must be closed to open a new window." I opened Task Manager and could not find any instance of Firefox or Mozilla running. I uninstalled Firefox and deleted all the files and folders having to do with Mozilla and Firefox. Then I reinstalled Firefox. I continue to get the same error message. I am running Windows 11 64bit on a Dell laptop. Any suggestions? Ray

Firefox keeps crashig upon start-up. The tab stays open but it just says not responding.

I've tried deleting, and re-downloading, changing settings, changing and deleting profiles through profile manager. Troubleshoot doesn’t work and neither does refresh.

Other browsing apps work just fine, it's just firefox. I only had one add-on, which was AdGuard AdBlocker.

I hadn't done anything that I'm aware of, hadn't touched any settings and only had a max of 3 tabs open at a time.

I don't really know what else I can try anymore.

I decided this morning, since I have gotten no help from Mozilla or anyone else, to uninstall the Firefox browser I had on my phone that was giving me the problem of opening then immediately closing itself. So I uninstalled it, rebooted my phone and went to the Play Store and installed a fresh version of Firefox for Android; version 142.0.1.

After the install, I immediately got a message on my phone screen saying that: "This app isn't compatible with the latest version of Android. Check for an update or contact the apps developer."

And this fresh install will open but closes itself immediately, as has been the issue all along since I first notified you.

The Play Store claims this app "is compatible with your phone, the Moto G Stylus 5G (2024)".

It also claims "the required OS is Android 5.0 and higher".

Note that I'm running Android v.14.

So, since there is no update indicated by the Play Store, I am now notifying the developer.

Please tell me how to resolve this issue. The 3 reports I have submitted from the crash window are:

Crash ID: bp-4107d3db-4280-445b-a0cd-e96400251020 [10/20/2025 2:43 PM (Pacific)] Crash ID: bp-b5e0bbf3-d4f6-4b2a-898a-f56960251020 [10/20/2025 2:40 PM (Pacific)] Crash ID: bp-975fcb26-5886-492f-8253-e37820251020 [10/20/2025 2:39 PM (Pacific)]

I had two profiles, was in the process of trying to learn how to use the 2nd profile (as seen in the link below), which I still have no answer for. Somehow, maybe I held down SHIFT for too long and clicked on something by accident, idk, but somehow, I ended up REFRESHING the 2nd profile, causing it to delete everything I had done with it, and it backed up the old profile onto my desktop in the process. I figured I could just simply delete the new profile folder it had created and put back my old profile in the profile folder, but now, Firefox will not open at all, saying "Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible." How do I get it to recognize the profile folders again? OMG, I'm using Microsoft Edge, please, get me out of this!

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1479231

Summary - Firefox crashes repeatedly. yesterday, I decided to switch to Firefox after using Chrome for a while. it worked fine and I synced my data from Chrome. today, at some point I noticed Firefox is no longer open in my taskbar. I decided to reopen it - it crashed. since that moment it has never worked again. I tried launching it in safe mode (firefox.exe -safe-mode), didn't work. tried reinstalling it, didn't work. manually deleted the files from C:\Program Files and AppData, installed Firefox again, didn't work. reinstalled gpu drivers, didn't work. sfc /scannow-ed, you guessed it - still crashes. what else could I possibly try? please help.

os: Windows 11 Home Firefox source: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/desktop-release/win64/

p.s. this was posted through an android phone but the problem only occurs on windows

Firefox 146.0.1 crashes every time upon launch (basically fails to launch), even in troubleshooting mode, with exception code 0xc0000005. Prior to today, it was working fine. Windows does not show any updates made over the last couple of days. I am on Windows 11 25H2, and I'm current with updates. Chrome works. Edge works. I logged on to the same computer as a different user (different profile folder in the user AppData folder) and Firefox still does not work. I tried to refresh Firefox and that did not resolve the issue. I tried to uninstall and reinstall Firefox and that did not resolve the issue. I tried to run DISM and SCANNOW and that did not resolve the issue. No issues are detected with a virus scan. I am stumped - please help!

ExitException[ 3]javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: Received fatal alert: handshake_failure at sun.plugin2.applet.JNLP2Manager.downloadResources(Unknown Source) at sun.plugin2.applet.JNLP2Manager.prepareLaunchFile(Unknown Source) at sun.plugin2.applet.JNLP2Manager.loadJarFiles(Unknown Source) at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager$AppletExecutionRunnable.run(Unknown Source) at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

Actually this is just the only route I could figure out to your page where I had PREVIOUSLY asked this question and was checking back in to see whether 'the Community' had given me an answer yet. I'm no doubt IMPATIENT since my bank told me I need you, not Google and Microsoft Edge , who I both HATE for coming on to MY laptop, asking for more information sharing and basically DEMANDING I follow their marketing instructions since they had somehow REMOVED the X at the top right corner and simultaneously BLOCKED my access to and use of my OWN laptop, so that each time I have NO OPTION but to turn off the power on my laptop, to "reboot" as they once said. If even a basic, ancient telephone can be HUNG UP on scammers.....forgive me. I REALLY want to use your search engine, as WELL as your site. Please advise.

When opening Firefox version 147 it asked if I wanted to install updates and after answering affirmative, then it gave "Error: Platform version '147.03' is not compatible with minversion >=147.02 maxversion <=147.02. Maybe try to reinstall Firefox?" The browser will not open. What is the workaround??

As title: after running updates, Firefox consistently crashes when launching.

To give more concrete details:

-Running on Linux, specifically KDE Fedora 42. Firefox was updated to 142 from 141, alongside various other updates. -When launching Firefox from any source (directly, through a link, through the terminal etc.), the only window that appears is the crash reporter. -This issue occurs when launching in safe mode. Removing and reinstalling Firefox, including deleting the entire .mozilla folder in Home at the same time does not resolve the issue. I am unable to test rolling Firefox back to 141. -When attempting to launch from the terminal (safe mode or otherwise), the following is output (personal info redacted):

restorecon: SELinux: Could not get canonical path for /home/[username]/.mozilla/firefox/*/gmp-widevinecdm/* restorecon: No such file or directory.

/usr/include/c++/15/array:210: constexpr std::array<_Tp, _Nm>::value_type& std::array<_Tp, _Nm>::operator[](size_type) [with _Tp = HeaderBarButtonType; long unsigned int _Nm = 3; reference = HeaderBarButtonType&; size_type = long unsigned int]: Assertion '__n < this->size()' failed.

Redirecting call to abort() to mozalloc_abort

[ExceptionHandler generates a minidump etc.]

Gtk-Message: [timestamp]: Failed to load module "appmenu-gtk-module"

(I would note that to the best of my knowledge I had not included a plugin for decoding widevine in my Firefox setup, and certainly the Firefox 141 instance on the device being used to write this post (same OS) does not include it) -The crash files in the .mozilla folder, meanwhile, consistently list a segfault at address 0x0.

Any advice on diagnosing/solving this issue would be greatly appreciated. Let me know if there's any other information that would be helpful.

If it would be more appropriate, I could report this through Mozilla's bugzilla instance, but given the issue seems to be very niche (Fedora's ABRT shows a total of 5 unique affected users in the last few days) I am unsure whether flagging this there would be appropriate.

Hi, after clicking FF icon, I got nothing. Profile manager (firefox.exe -P) does not start. In event viewer there is log: Name of the application causing the error: firefox.exe, version: 147.0.0.11, timestamp: 0x695c3722 Name of the module causing the error: unknown, version: 0.0.0.0, timestamp: 0x00000000 Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x00007ffc561c6160 Faulting process ID: 0x4A54 Startup time of the application causing the error: 0x1DC85EE68CB3BAD Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe Faulting module path: unknown Report Id: e599c553-d77c-4b73-a863-1ccaa8d3bd4c Faulting full package name: Faulting relative application ID for package:

Last time deleting profile was helpfull, today nothing helps... Reinstall - the same... Any ideas?