Firefox profile cannot be loaded
Ok, I'm at my wits end. I recently bought a new i-Mac after the old one died and during the setup I imported everything from my Time Machine backup to the new computer. Everything seemed to be working ok until I tried to launch Firefox (29.0.1) and got this:
"Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible."
I searched around and found this thread:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1003715#question-reply
I deleted the profile.ini, got the same error message. Then I re-copied everything by hand from the backup, even the app itself. Then launched the profile manager and created a profile name that matched what was in /library/application support/firefox/profiles, hit the launch Firefox button and everything works! My bookmarks, history, everything works.......until I quit Firefox and try to relaunch it, I get:
Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible.
It works just fine if I launch it through the profile manager but it's a little heavy weight to need to start up the terminal every time I want to launch a browser.
Anyone have any ideas? I've run disk repair thinking maybe it was a permissions issue, I even installed the newest version (30.0) which by the way puts your profiles in /private/var/root/library/application support/firefox profiles, tried copying the profile to that location, no dice.
So for now I'm stuck launching Firefox via the profile manager.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
All Replies (7)
It is possible that there is a problem with the permissions of the profiles.ini file and that it isn't possible to update the file properly.
Did you check the content of the profiles.ini file to see to which default profile it refers?
Yes, made sure the ini had the matching profile name.
One interesting thing that I sort of noted above. If I delete the .ini file from /library/application support/firefox/profiles, and then start up Firefox from the profile manager, it creates the new .ini file in /private/var/root/library/app support/firefox/profiles.
If I move the backed up profile folder there, it still doesn't work.
Ok, I just tried this.
1. Uninstalled the app with AppZapper and removed the Firefox folder from the Application Support directory. 2. rebooted my computer 3. downloaded the version I was previously using (29.0.1) from oldapps.com 4. ran the installer.
Got the same error message "Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible."
5. looked in /library/Application Support and there's a Firefox folder but it's empty. 6. Ran the profile manager and created a profile, letting it put the profile in /private/var/root/library/Application Support/Firefox/profiles. (NOTE: I don't have access to this by default, I had to give myself permissions.) 7. clicked "open Firefox" and it works 8. closed the browser, tried to re-open it, got the error.
At this point, I'm feeling like I'm being punked and about ready to wipe the drive of my brand new computer and re-install. Something obviously got screwed up when I migrated all my information back over.
Ilungisiwe ngu SylvesterMarcus
What a weird location is that:
- /private/var/root/library/app support/firefox/profiles
That would suggest a location that requires root privileges and can't be modified a a normal user. The regular Firefox profile folder should be in this location.
- /Users/<user>/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/ (<profile>/)
Thanks for all the replies everyone. I ended up just doing a clean install of OSX and copying everything back over from my Time Machine disk manually. Everything seems happy now.
I think there were other permission issues going on because there were several folders that I was locked out of that I wasn't previously (I'm an admin on the machine).
The Migration assistant did a 99% good job moving everything over but that 1% was killing me.