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Problem with Firefox reinstall
my wife's copy of Firefox picked up a virus. After trying several other things, I saved the profile, uninstalled FF, and installed the latest version. But when I tried starting FF I got an error message: Your Frefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible.
All Replies (6)
How did you save the profile for her data?
Barry Gold said
I saved the profile, uninstalled FF, and installed the latest version. But when I tried starting FF I got an error message: Your Frefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles
Firefox needs to not be running and the profile folder names must match exactly for this to work, including the random string of 8 characters if this is the method you used.
markwarner22 said
How did you save the profile for her data?
Actually, I only copied the bookmarks to an ordinary folder on the C disk. Then I uninstalled the old version of firefox.
to James: I had completely uninstalled FF.
This was an odd occurrence: I had run into this piece of malware before. That time I used the Task Manager to kill Firefox. Then rebooted and brought up FF again, and everything worked fine.
This time, though, the malware was persistent. As soon as I restarted FF, I got the same set of multiple flashing windows.
This in spite of having an active antivirus (ESET) running.
ISTM that when I install the latest Firefox and start it, it should create a new profile with the default settings.
What I want to accomplish: 1. Get the latest Firefox working on this (my wife's) computer. 2. Copy the saved bookmarks from the old FF to the new one. If necessary I'll paste each URL into the new FF and create a fresh bookmark from it.
Barry Gold said
to James: I had completely uninstalled FF. This was an odd occurrence: I had run into this piece of malware before. That time I used the Task Manager to kill Firefox. Then rebooted and brought up FF again, and everything worked fine. This time, though, the malware was persistent. As soon as I restarted FF, I got the same set of multiple flashing windows. This in spite of having an active antivirus (ESET) running. ISTM that when I install the latest Firefox and start it, it should create a new profile with the default settings. What I want to accomplish: 1. Get the latest Firefox working on this (my wife's) computer. 2. Copy the saved bookmarks from the old FF to the new one. If necessary I'll paste each URL into the new FF and create a fresh bookmark from it.
Hello!Delete Old FIrefox Data in firefox and uninstall firefox.Then,Reinstall it.The reason it might happen is probaly because the profile is corrupted already and firefox data is corrupted.Create a new profile and paste each URL into the new FF.Another reason if probaly because one of your bookmarks is the reason this is all happening.Since bookmarks can run code
Modified
I just tried this. Uninstalled Firefox. Deleted the folder that should contain Firefox data. Tried reinstalling. Same error message.
Then created new, empty folders named "firefox" and "mozilla". Reinstall again. Same error, but this time it didn't wait for me to start Firefox - I got the message from the installer. Note: my installer is 364KB, downloaded Feb 11, 2025.