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Firefox has stopped working and now it says your forefox profile cannot be loaded it may be missing or inaccessible

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  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by FredMcD

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Firefox has stopped working and now it says your "firefox profile cannot be loaded it may be missing or inaccessible" every time I go to open it. I have uninstalled it and re-installed it but it is still saying the same thing

Firefox has stopped working and now it says your "firefox profile cannot be loaded it may be missing or inaccessible" every time I go to open it. I have uninstalled it and re-installed it but it is still saying the same thing

All Replies (15)

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Can someone other then a computer generated reply get in contact and fix this please?

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Can someone other then a computer generated reply get in contact and fix this please?

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Do you have an "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop in case you have performed a possibly failed Firefox Refresh?

You will have to use the Profile Manager to create a new profile.

See "Creating a profile":

If the new profile works then you can transfer files from a previously used profile to the new profile, but be cautious not to copy corrupted files to avoid carrying over problems. We can provide more detailed instructions if you want to go this path.

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This is exactly what the other person sent to me! I cannot even open firefox to follow these! If I try to open firefox, it comes up with the error message and will not open

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Hi, I am not interested in profiles or what happens at the back end of firefox. all I'd like to do is use it-is that possible? it has been working fine up until now but this is ridiculous

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Did you recently use the Refresh feature in Firefox and created a new profile?


You always need a (default) profile for Firefox. The error message indicates that there is something wrong with a file named profiles.ini that stores data about the Firefox profile folders. You currently have a profiles.ini file, but Firefox can't find the profile set via this file. There are two solutions possible and you either need to remove profiles.ini or use the Profile Manager to create a new profile. The profiles.ini file is in a hidden location in %AppData%\Roaming, so you would have look for this file.

  • C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\

Note that Windows hides some file extensions by default. Among them .html and .ini and .js and .txt and you may only see a file name without file extension. You can check the file extension (type) in the properties of the file in Windows Explorer via the right-click context menu. In this case there might be a profiles file without extension and a Profiles folder where the actual profiles are stored. Creating a new profile with the Profile Manager might be easier if you aren't comfortable with browsing hidden folders.

Did you try to modify a copy of the desktop shortcut and add a space and -P to the command line to be able to launch the Profile Manager?

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Seriously?

I am not a computer programmer-you might as well be speaking a foreign language to me. I have uninstalled firefox from my computer and re-installed it but it is still coming up with the same message. Surely that should work shouldn't it? Yes I did use the refresh feature

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Click the Windows icon on the task bar. Select Run. Type (including quotes) "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -p <enter>

Create a new blank profile and use it As Is. Is the problem still there?

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I do not know what you are talking about! I CANNOT OPEN FIREFOX! Can you please explain to me why uninstalling it and reinstalling it does not work?

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Windows has a way for you to manually start a program. This allows the user to add things like options to the command.

Follow the instructions from my last post.

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where is the Windows icon on the task bar?

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In most cases, the lower left.

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Can you please explain to me why uninstalling it and reinstalling it does not work? What you are asking me to do IS NOT WORKING

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Your problem may be corrupted files. Reinstalling a program can fix that. It could also be that the corrupt file is in the Firefox profile folder.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-run-firefox-when-profile-missing-inaccessible

Use these links to create a new, blank profile and use it "as is." Is there still a problem?