# Firefox User Accounts?



## Iblis (Jun 25, 2004)

Hey.

I am on Firefox, and have been using it fine for some time. But today I have obviously done some to alter a setting somehow, because earlier when I tried to access a page it said I got an error and it asked me to set up a User Profile because apparently "default" account was being used by another prgram.

I had to enter a different account name to access any sites. So now all my bookmarks and settings etc are gone.

Does anybody know what I did to cause this and how I can go back onto the original "account/profile"...? I never set anything up when I first used firefox.

Hope this made some sense to a few of you.


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## DW49 (Mar 22, 2005)

Iblis,
I also use firefox...can you get online with it ?


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## Iblis (Jun 25, 2004)

Yes I can now get online -I had to enter a new "account name" to be able to though as it said "default" was already in use.


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## DW49 (Mar 22, 2005)

Iblis,
So you just created a new profile ??


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## Iblis (Jun 25, 2004)

No, I didn't have to, instead I just entered a different account name (default_2 or something) and its let me on... however I'd like to sort it out, obviously.

(Cheers for the replies by the way! )


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## LauraMJ (Mar 18, 2004)

firefox does have something called a profile manager, though it takes a bit to set up, which allows you to set up different profiles so each user has their own preferences, ect. It sounds like somehow your firefox got bumped from that default browser and when you made a new profile, of course, it would have been all basic for the new "person" to create it as they wished. If I'm not mistaken, yours is probably still there.

I've known of several people that this has happened to. Seems to be a glitch in the program. It seems to be related to the Profile Manager. The profile manager is an option you can set up, though it doesn't really seem to be known much or to be mentioned much on the Firefox website. Don't know why, as I find it very useful since my daughter and I have completely different tastes in browser looks and website favorites.

Anyway, once you set up the profile manager, you can then see all the "profiles" that are created. Your default profile should still be in there and you can switch it back to that one. You can delete the new one you just created, too.

Okay, here are the instructions for creating a profile manager which will let you switch back and forth between profiles.

First, click on your existing firefox desktop icon and create a second desktop icon from it and name it "Profile Manager."

Then, open that icon and click on "properties>Shortcut tab>"Target" field. In the target field, make the path read like this: "C:\Program Files\firefox\firefox.exe" -p (So long, of course, that you have saved it to your C drive. Really, just add the -p to the end of whatever is in the target box.)

It's the p switch that brings up the profile manager. Now click Apply>OK>launch Firefox>follow Profile Manager prompts.

*Now, this is very important:* Make sure that firefox is not running in the task manager, sometimes, the first time, it does not shut down completely. (which is part of the problem that forced you to create a new profile.) What I had to do was to close it using the task manager to make sure it was completely closed, the very first time I tried this.

Anytime you click on that desktop icon, with all FF browsers closed, you will get a profile manager dialog box. You should get a box showing the existing profiles and some options to modify them.

Using this profile manager should allow you to get back to your default browser.

I hope this helps.


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## Iblis (Jun 25, 2004)

Thanks a lot! 

I am just going out but I will follow your instructions later and let ya know how I got on.


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## BillC (May 29, 2003)

You might try just rebooting.


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## keithy397 (Jul 11, 2004)

LauraMJ said:


> Okay, here are the instructions for creating a profile manager which will let you switch back and forth between profiles.
> 
> First, click on your existing firefox desktop icon and create a second desktop icon from it and name it "Profile Manager."
> 
> ...


*Or*,when you get to the profile manager via Start > Run > (type) firefox.exe -p, *untick* 'Do not open Profile Manager every time Firefox is opened' or similar. Same result, Profile Manager will open every time you start Firefox.


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## LauraMJ (Mar 18, 2004)

BillC said:


> You might try just rebooting.


That certainly does seem to fix most things, lol. However, the five or six people that I've known that this has happened to has rebooted, un-installed/re-installed, ect., several times for days. None of that worked. It was the same in all cases. *shrug*


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## LauraMJ (Mar 18, 2004)

keithy397 said:


> *Or*,when you get to the profile manager via Start > Run > (type) firefox.exe -p, *untick* 'Do not open Profile Manager every time Firefox is opened' or similar. Same result, Profile Manager will open every time you start Firefox.


But make sure, Iblis, that you have ALL FF browsers closed, the profile manager will not open if there is a FF browser open.

I used the desktop icon route because of my daughter and I wanting to have different profiles, and the fact that I found it annoying to have the profile manager dialog box popping up every time FF was started. Done the way I described, the profile manager is easily accessible from the desktop, but will not pop up unless the icon is double-clicked  But this othe way may work fine for you so long as you don't care if the box pops up each time.


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## keithy397 (Jul 11, 2004)

LauraMJ said:


> I used the desktop icon route because of my daughter and I wanting to have different profiles, and the fact that I found it annoying to have the profile manager dialog box popping up every time FF was started.  But this may work fine for you since you may not have a need to switch profiles ocassionally.


Hi LauraMJ,

I have the PM open each time because I have several profiles, five at the moment! I use 2 for testing extensions, 1 for mixing and matching, 1 for speed browsing and 1 with everything AND the kitchen sink for when I settle down for a good night's surfing!! I think it is easier to have the PM open each time if you have multiple profiles and/or users. That's part of the beauty of Firefox, there are no 2 the same!


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## LauraMJ (Mar 18, 2004)

Well, that certainly would help, if you were switching back and forth so much!  Ain't FF great!

We only need it ocassionally, since my daughter, being nine, only gets on the internet on the weekends. She doesn't have time to much after school during the week, usually. However, it sure has save us a lot of arguing; I dislike having a bunch of bookmarks that I never use on my bookmark list, and she didn't like having to wade through mine! Plus, I could not STAND purple kitten paws all over a purple browser
















Honestly, though, I don't know why they don't tout that profile manager more on the website, it's really useful!


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## Iblis (Jun 25, 2004)

BillC said:


> You might try just rebooting.


Lol, nah that doesnt do the trick for this!! 

Right I am going to (attempt to!) follow the instructions Laura gave me now...


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## Iblis (Jun 25, 2004)

Update: I followed the instructions and it's all sorted now.

Thanks a lot Laura!


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## LauraMJ (Mar 18, 2004)

Hey, glad it's all okay for you now.


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## allienesss (May 24, 2005)

laura--

i appreciate the advice but it didn't work for me  . when i still had mozilla, the same thing happened to me once... and eventually just randomly fixed itself, so maybe i'll just wait this one out...

thanks anyway!


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## keithy397 (Jul 11, 2004)

Hi, and welcome,

What didn't work?


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## cnelson04 (Dec 29, 2003)

guys, could someone please help me, i'm dieing here. i did what you guys said but i can't get my bookmarks back the most inmport thing?


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## cnelson04 (Dec 29, 2003)

fixed!!! on my way to back it up now!!!


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## RobDeBob (Jun 29, 2005)

Okay, like the others in this thread, I have this same problem. My target for the firefox icon is to ["C:\Documents and Settings\RobDeBob\My Documents\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"], and if I add a "-p" at end, making it ["C:\Documents and Settings\Cheesy\My Documents\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -p], it does nothing. No profile manager or anything; it just starts up normally. I'm really stressed out because I can't get to my "default" profile, and I had A LOT of bookmarks on there and had settings and everything going until this error/bug/whatever. I have no idea what's wrong; any ideas?


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## keithy397 (Jul 11, 2004)

RobDeBob said:


> Okay, like the others in this thread, I have this same problem. My target for the firefox icon is to ["C:\Documents and Settings\RobDeBob\My Documents\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"], and if I add a "-p" at end, making it ["C:\Documents and Settings\Cheesy\My Documents\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -p], it does nothing. No profile manager or anything; it just starts up normally. I'm really stressed out because I can't get to my "default" profile, and I had A LOT of bookmarks on there and had settings and everything going until this error/bug/whatever. I have no idea what's wrong; any ideas?


Are you ensuring Firefox is fully closed before attempting to access the Profile Manager? Check in the Processes tab of the Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) for any instances of 'firefox.exe' and if any visible, select and 'End Process'.

Now click - Start > Run > (type) firefox.exe -p (firefox[dot]exe[space]-p) and this will open your Profile Manager. From here you can Select, Create, Rename and Delete profiles. There is also an option to open the Profile Manager every time you start Firefox, which is a must if you have multiple profiles.


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## RobDeBob (Jun 29, 2005)

Thanks a lot, I got it working. Firefox.exe just needed to be completely shut down. There was some weird .dll error afterward, but I figured that out for myself.


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## King-Ear (Jun 30, 2005)

Iblis said:


> I am on Firefox, and have been using it fine for some time. But today I have obviously done some to alter a setting somehow, because earlier when I tried to access a page it said I got an error and it asked me to set up a User Profile because apparently "default" account was being used by another prgram.
> 
> I had to enter a different account name to access any sites. So now all my bookmarks and settings etc are gone.
> 
> Hope this made some sense to a few of you.


It made perfect sense to me, because it is exactly what just happened to me! That is why i found this forum/thread, after i was searching on google, this forum thread came up as the first match.

It's great to see that im not going insane here. And yes it is a bug with FireFox, because i was in no way fiddling with the settings or anything at the time. Now all of my bookmarks are (temporarily, i hope) lost!

As if have profiles! That is so 'Netscape-ish'. 

Meh. Now I have to try to figure out this "-P" thing. :up:

EDIT: I found this article on the mozilla forum for any people in the future who may be affected by this:

http://the-edmeister.home.comcast.net/tips-html/tips-create_new_profile_dialog_box.html


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## milpitasmonster (May 5, 2006)

When I create a second icon on my desktop and open it, there is nothing that says Properties or Shortcut tab or Location...so I can't change whatever I need to change to add the -p to the end to open the Profile Manager. Please help. I need to get back my bookmarks and PASSWORDS!!!


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