Hello calliope77, definitely there should be a profiles.ini file somewhere, otherwise you wouldn't get this kind of error.

note that for OS X 10.7 and above, the ~/Library folder is hidden by default : Showing hidden files and folders on Mac

• check in :

~/Library/Mozilla/Firefox/

or

~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/

• try also to write in terminal window :

/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -CreateProfile test

OR

/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -CreateProfile test

to see if we can create a new profile.

thank you

Hi, I've already tried all those things.

I restored the profiles.ini file from my back-up external hard drive, but it didn't help. Exact same error. I also installed the Profile Manager from an external website, but it won't open (gives me the same message).

Restoring a previous version of the profiles.ini file won't help because this is about the profile folder that is registered in profiles.ini is missing on that hard drive,

The most likely cause is 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.

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

You can use one of these to make Firefox create/use a new default 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

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Managing+profiles
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox

Hi, I've tried this as well (before restoring my old profile, and again just now after deleting it) and get the same error message.

Did you find the profiles.ini file that is causing this issue?

Try to repair the disk permissions:

• http://thexlab.com/faqs/repairprocess.html

If you delete your old profile first (probably by mistake) and then the profiles.ini file then you get the above message (your firefox profile cannot be loaded.......... inaccessible). Try to restore your old profile(you have it), seek for profile.ini file in :

~/Library/Mozilla/

or

~/Library/Application Support/

and then rename the profiles.ini file to profiles.iniOLD and rename also your profile(the restored one) to xxxxxxxx.defaultOLD (xxxxxxxx = is the 8 random characters, don't change it).

any luck ?

cor-el, I'm wary about running such a complex fix when there is NOTHING else wrong with my computer. I have to run a full disk repair on a new computer just to be able to use a browser???

ideato, I don't have a file with the 8 random characters.

I'm not sure if 'm being clear. There was NO profiles.ini file in my computer at all. I know how to search for and in the Library and I checked every possible place. There was no profiles.ini file until I restored one from my external back-up, which someone above said would do no good.

I erased it, tried opening the Profile Manager again to no avail. I then restored it again and relabeled it as profiles.iniOLD, which did not help.

I find it very, very troublesome that this is clearly a common problem (searching on Google for the issue came up with dozens of hits from other people) and Firefox has done nothing about preventing whatever is causing it, and has made fixing it extremely complicated/impossible.

If you restored the profile.ini file and relabeled it as profiles.iniOLD you must rename also your profile (probably it is in your restored profile manager) to xxxxxxxx.defaultOLD.

from terminal opens the profile manager ?

/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -ProfileManager

This is what happens when I try to open the Profile Manager from Terminal.

You can clearly see that there is a problem with the permissions, so you will have to check that and possibly repair corrupted permissions to files in the location where the main Firefox profile folder and the location where the cache folder are stored.

• /Users/<user>/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/<profile>/
• /Users/<user>/Library/Caches/Firefox/Profiles/<profile>/Cache

Well, I ran a disk repair, cleaned the caches, deleted every single file remotely connected to Firefox, restarted the computer...and something in that combination worked!!!!!!!

Thank you!!