can you try hitting the windows-key+r & open "%appdata%\Mozilla". right-click somewhere on the empty space of this folder, go to properties & make sure that any read-only protection for containinh files and folders is turned of. then also rename the Firefox folder to something like oldFirefox and try to launch firefox again.

in case this works, you can restore some of the data from your former profile.

Recovering important data from an old profile

Thanks for the reply, but that did not work. it did create a new firefox folder for me but no profiles folder or profiles.ini folder.

I am still getting the same error. Also, inside my old firefox folder i do not see a profile folder or profile.ini folder

this is sounding very ununsual and i suspect there is a possibility that this might be caused by some form of malware on your pc. please perform a full scan of your system with your security software already in place and the tools mentioned at Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware.

Create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problems.

See "Basic Troubleshooting: Make a new profile":

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Basic+Troubleshooting#w_8-make-a-new-profile

There may be extensions and plugins installed by default in a new profile, so check that in "Tools > Add-ons > Extensions & Plugins" in case there are still problems.

If the new profile works then you can transfer some files from the old profile to that new profile, but be careful not to copy corrupted files.

See:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox

Ok i am not sure what exactly helped me.. but this is exactly what i did so far.

1. windows-key+r & open "%appdata%\Mozilla" 2. right-click somewhere on the empty space of this folder, go to properties & make sure that any read-only protection for containinh files and folders is turned of 3. Open firefox (version 13) did not open. Error as seen in the screenshot above. 4. Uninstall firefox. 5. Install firefox beta 14.6. 6. Open firefox, works fine.

I am not sure if the step 2 helped along with the uninstall and reinstall.

Thanks once again for the reply.

Also, if i revert back to FF 13 it still gives me the same error.

I have this problem of "Your firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccesible." When I open Firefox on my Mac OSX 8 "Mountain Lion". I want Mac solutions, NOT Windows.

Hi nschrock-me.com, what version of Firefox are you running?

The original poster in this thread went to the personal Firefox folder and made sure that the files/folders there were not marked "read only." I'm sure the Finder has a similar feature.

In order to conveniently access the profile folder, go to:

Help > Troubleshooting Information > "Show Folder" button

Then navigate up to the parent folder (which should be named with a gibberish name) and then up another level to where you see Profiles. Make sure nothing you see here is marked "read only."

Hey jscher2000, I have a similar problem - checked all of the folders to make sure they were "read & write", yes they were. Here are details: MacOs X Version 10.5.8, Firefox Version 16.0.02. Trying to Open Firefox and get "Profile Missing" box. Follow instructions to open Profile Manager in Terminal and get box saying"appliation firefox-bin quit unexpectedly" In "Terminal" get "dyld:unknown required load command OX80000022 Trace/BPT trap" Bottom line: can't open Firefox, can't get Profile Manager to build Profile. Hope you can help ps: I have two other accounts on the same computer and Firefox is working just fine in both.

Hi BillandJane3, I'm a Windows user, so I'm not sure how this works on Mac, but are you sure that neither of your other users are accessing the same Firefox profile?

This is most likely a problem with the profiles.ini file and the profile that is marked as Default=1 in the file is missing.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/profiles.ini_file

In such cases you either need to remove the profiles.ini file or create a new default profile.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recovering_a_missing_profile

Hey jscher2000: While you didn't give me "the answer", you did give me the hint I needed to solve the problem. With MAC OS X, when you open Firefox for the first time in an Account two File Folders are loaded into "accountname/library/applications support": Firefox and Mozilla. To cure the problem of "Profile Missing", both files were moved to the trash (to avoid any conflict file names in the Trash were changed by placing an X in the title). Then went to Applications and selected "Firefox". A new profile was created. You can then go back to trash and move selected data files back to the Profile File within "Firefox file" to salvage such files as Benchmarks, Add-ons, etc. Firefox is now back in business in the troubled Account.

I have tried all of these steps, and I STILL am not able to get downloads on a mac. The problem started just a few days ago, but I am completely stumped.

Hi elaineret, I think this thread started off being about a different problem, so I'm not sure whether you have seen this article and tried the steps listed: What to do if you can't download or save files.

If that doesn't help, could you start a new question with your system information and, if your problem involves any add-on downloaders, which one(s) you're using?

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new/desktop