Where did you install Firefox from? Help Mozilla uncover 3rd party websites that offer problematic Firefox installation by taking part in our campaign. There will be swag, and you'll be featured in our blog if you manage to report at least 10 valid reports!

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Profile missing after "clean" install

  • 2 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 15 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

Bagpuss
Bagpuss
more options

I performed at 'Reset' because of unwanted search engines that had appeared and got the message "Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible".

I tried to do an update to clear the problem but still I got the same result.

Following advice from the internet, I uninstalled firefox and deleted all files and folder references to the old installation. I ran System Mechanic to clean the Registry, CCleaner to remove any other traces and then looked for 'Firefox' in any file by using Windows explorer. The system was rebooted and another "Clean" install run but I still get the same result.

I am running Windows Vista SP2 on a laptop with an Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5450 @ 1.66GHz

PLEASE help

I performed at 'Reset' because of unwanted search engines that had appeared and got the message "Your Firefox profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible". I tried to do an update to clear the problem but still I got the same result. Following advice from the internet, I uninstalled firefox and deleted all files and folder references to the old installation. I ran System Mechanic to clean the Registry, CCleaner to remove any other traces and then looked for 'Firefox' in any file by using Windows explorer. The system was rebooted and another "Clean" install run but I still get the same result. I am running Windows Vista SP2 on a laptop with an Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5450 @ 1.66GHz PLEASE help

All Replies (2)

Sourjobraato Banerjee
Sourjobraato Banerjee
more options

Hello,

Certain Firefox problems can be solved by performing a Clean reinstall. This means you remove Firefox program files and then reinstall Firefox. Please follow these steps:

Note: You might want to print these steps or view them in another browser.

  1. Download the latest Desktop version of Firefox from mozilla.org (or choose the download for your operating system and language from this page) and save the setup file to your computer.
  2. After the download finishes, close all Firefox windows (or open the Firefox menu New Fx Menu and click the close button Close 29).
  3. Delete the Firefox installation folder, which is located in one of these locations, by default:
    • Windows:
      • C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox
      • C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox
    • Mac: Delete Firefox from the Applications folder.
    • Linux: If you installed Firefox with the distro-based package manager, you should use the same way to uninstall it - see Install Firefox on Linux. If you downloaded and installed the binary package from the Firefox download page, simply remove the folder firefox in your home directory.
  4. Now, go ahead and reinstall Firefox:
    1. Double-click the downloaded installation file and go through the steps of the installation wizard.
    2. Once the wizard is finished, choose to directly open Firefox after clicking the Finish button.

More information about reinstalling Firefox can be found here.

WARNING: Do not use a third party uninstaller as part of this process. Doing so could permanently delete your Firefox profile data, including but not limited to, extensions, cache, cookies, bookmarks, personal settings and saved passwords. These cannot be easily recovered unless they have been backed up to an external device! See Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles.

Please report back to say if this helped you!

Thank you.

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

See:

This is usually caused by a problem with the profiles.ini file and the profile marked as Default=1 in this file is no longer present on the hard drive.

  • Windows: %AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\
    C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>\
  • Linux: ~/.mozilla/firefox/
  • Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/

You can use one of these to make Firefox create a new default profile or reuse an existing profile:

  • Delete the profiles.ini file to force Firefox to create a new default profile
  • Use the Profile Manager to create a new profile
    Use "Choose Folder" when you create a new profile to select the location of a lost profile and recover this profile