repeat- Missing or inaccessible profile problem
Windows 10 install. Firefox previous version probable v56???. Updated automatically to FFQ 57. Now getting the "Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible" on user account with limited access. I tried following instructions for repair to no avail. I uninstalled no change. I uninstalled and manually deleted all folders that contained FF folders and cleaned the registry. No change- still does not work. I logged out of the user account and into the Admin account and FF worked great. Investigating a little bit it appears that it has to do with the naming of my user account. My user account name is written in non Latin lettering where as my Admin account is English along with the rest of my computer. Digging around on other support forums I am not the only one with this issue. Any suggestions other than wiping out windows and changing to all English (Latin based) names?
All Replies (5)
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recover-lost-or-missing-bookmarks
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles
If find your Profile it maybe possible to recover the information. Do not attempt to do so your self unless have further instructions as do not want to corrupt any thing that is not already.
Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.
If Firefox can read the profiles.ini file without problems, but has a problem with the path to the actual profile folder then maybe try to use the Profile Manager to create the profile in a location that doesn't have non Latin characters in the file path.
Note that you should never use "Choose Folder" to specify a folder that already contains files that do not belong to Firefox and make sure that the specified folder exists.
Modified by cor-el
I am not looking to restore the users profile since they were manually deleted already.
I was able to log onto the computer today and run some more tests. I should have been more clear about the process that we had. The user nor I were able to successfully get FF to run after it has been run initially. It always says the profile is missing- so we are not able to get the profile manager to run to be able to manage the location of the profile. At this point FF 57 and above is dead for this user. I completely cleared the non Latin character windows user profile of all traces of FF and tried to reinstall 57.0, no dice. Then again cleared and installed 58.0 and it will not load past the initial startup. All attempts to install 57 or above allow FF to run initially and then do not allow it to run to be able to load the profile manager after that.
Cleared and reinstalled v56.02 and it works perfectly. However, v57 and above are broken.
Modified by RenalsH
This the best way to uninstall Firefox. Then Delete the Mozilla Firefox Folders in C:\Program Files and C:\Program Files(x86) Then restart system. Then run Windows Disk Cleanup. Then run it again and click the button that says Cleanup System Files. Note: your Firefox Profile is saved. But you should make a back up before you do : https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles
Reinstall with Current Release Firefox 57.0 with a Full Version Installer https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/
Going back : unfortunately 56.0.2 is no longer safe to use for every day use do to security issues, but 52.5.0 ESR is. It will continue to get security updates until May 2018, and you can download and install it from this page: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all/ Note : Legacy Extensions will be deleted or removed in any version update after May 2018.
You should make a backup of your Profile before going back and just because: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles
Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.
I have uninstalled/cleaned and reinstalled v57 about a dozen times now and every time it is the same result- missing profile error. Doing it one more time will not change anything at this point. Since I have manually deleted every firefox trace on my computer the profile that contained real info is long gone (and I could not care less about the profile). I simply want FF to work as it should.
I have reverted back to the ESR edition for now until mozilla can fix the error.
Modified by RenalsH