It is possible that a new profile got created because of problems with the profiles.ini file. You can check the permissions of the profiles.ini file.

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

You can use this button to go to the currently used Firefox profile folder and go up one or more levels:

• Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder (Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder)

• Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/

In Mac OS X v10.7 and later, the ~/Library folder is a hidden folder.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Show_hidden_files_and_folders#Mac_OS_X

You can use one of these to make Firefox create a new default profile or recover a lost profile:

• Use the Profile Manager to create a new profile
• Click "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

See also:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recovering_a_missing_profile
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Recovering+important+data+from+an+old+profile

A first quick point. The first thing I did was look for a profile under Applications Support. There is NO Firefox item there. There is a Mozilla item there and there appears to be something that might be a Firefox profile in there. They look like this: /Extensions/{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}/{23fcfd51-4958-4f00-80a3-ae97e717ed8b}/chrome chrome.manifest install.rdf Maybe that tells you something. It does not help me. I don't want a new profile, I want my Session Manager or History with all the tabs I had open. I can set up a new Firefox and reinstall all the Extensions, that just takes time. But, I had closed down with a lot of tabs open that I wanted to get back to as I have so many times in the past.

I will continue working through your suggestions, but I fear I need more help.

Now I have tried putting this ( /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -profilemanager ) in Terminal and got the Profile Manager, but there is only one Profile there, default.

I don't know how I can find what folder my missing profile might be in. Any suggestions there? My Mac is using Time Machine. Can I find an old profile there. I tried copying the Firefox app from a Time Machine backup from a few days ago, before I left, but that did no work.

My priority remains getting back all the open tabs before I shut down.

Thanks,

George

I tried copying the item Extensions referred to above from a Time Machine backup of my Mac before I shut it down and had these problems. I pasted it in place of the newest Extensions file and changed the name of that file so it would not be used. That did not work, but maybe my approach is wrong, or that is not really my old profile. The letters and numbers appear to be the same.

You can use this button to go to the currently used Firefox profile folder:

• Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder (Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder)

MY BAD, BUT! Since I could see the Library on the Macintosh HD, I thought it would be visible under the User. But, it was not. I learned out to see it under the User using the Option key and found the Firefox folder and the Profiles.

There were two profiles and I tried both using the Profile Manager. But neither were my profile from when I quit Firefox and shut down my computer on Aug. 6 None of my Extensions/Addons were there, my History was not there, and the Setup was not there.

So, it went to my Time Machine backups and looked for the Profile on Aug. 6, 5, 4 and July 31. The same two profiles were always there. As far as I could see, they were identical to the two currently visible on my Mac. It is as if the Profile I have been using for the past few months never existed. Could it be in another Library somewhere? I don't know how to look for it.

The only thing I see different in the older Profiles is that there is a profiles.ini file in the Firefox folder and there is not one in my current Firefox folder. Should I copy it over?

I have been using Firefox since Phoenix v0.6 and never had something like this happen to me.

Thanks,

George

I forgot to mention that the places.sqlite file in each profile appears to be the same in all the profiles from any date I looked at and It always says created on Aug. 6, 2014, even for the backups from before Aug. 6. Is looking for info in these files in Time Machine being preempted by current data? Thanks, George

Maybe check the permissions of the Firefox folder to make sure that Firefox has write permission. If there is no profiles.ini file then there is no default Firefox profile folder specified and Firefox might be trying to create a new profiles.ini file and a new default profile folder with every start.

Try to repair the disk permissions:

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

I did a Verify Permissions and there were not many to correct as I had run it not long ago. There was no reference to Firefox in the list but I ran Repair Permissions anyway.

I looked at the Firefox.app and the Firefox profile files in Get Info and they all have Read/Write permissions for my User.

There are no new profiles appearing as I have reopened Firefox many times with each trial, and there are only the two profiles. I have set it so Profile Manager comes up when I open Firefox so I can choose a profile.

When I tried to look at the profiles from past dates in the Time Machine backup, it must change the backup. I tried to copy a previous profile and put it in the current machine, but when I tried to delete it in the current machine, it was deleted in the Time Machine backup at the same time. It had the same profile name. So I don't know if I have now corrupted the profiles in my Time Machine backups.

My Mac Pro is only a couple of months old and it has suffered some of the known spontaneous restart problems. I thought Apple had fixed this but it happened to me a couple of times over the past two weeks. It is not a daily occurence as it used to be for some people. In any case, that might have corrupted something. But, my Mac was working fine when I shut it down on Aug. 6 and everything has worked fine since I started it on Aug. 8, except for losing all my Firefox info.

That Firefox profile from before Aug. 6 must be somewhere!

Thanks,

George

Could be a Firefox writing error. Go to about:support and click on Restore Firefox to default settings

Try to delete the Firefox folder in ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox to remove all profile folders to see if that makes Firefox create a new profiles.ini file and a new default profile folder.

• /Users/<user>/Library/Application Support/Firefox/

Be cautious with restoring files to this new profile folder from the Time Machine or other backups.

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Recovering+important+data+from+an+old+profile

Rodrigo, thank you for joining in the search for solutions. But, I am not sure how yours would help. I have two profiles that work fine at the moment. It is just not the profile that I had when I quit Firefox and shutdown my Mac on Aug. 6.

Missing are all my Settings, Addons/Extensions (including Session Manager), and History. So, I have lost all the Tabs that I had open which I were working on.

cor-el, I have been able to recover an offsite backup from the Cloud from Aug. 4. There I see two similar profiles 9kn2yszu.default and 9kn2yszu.default\searchplugins

The profiles.ini only uses the first profile. As it turns out, this same profile is one of the two that exists on my Mac. But, it does not have the same contents!

A profiles.ini has made an appearance on my Mac now.

I was thinking to copy and paste the contents of my backup profile to replace the contents in my current profile of the same name, as per

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles

I was going to wait for your ok, but I suppose I cannot do more damage than I already have, so I will go ahead. . . . . . . . .

Well I did it, and it seems to have worked. I have all my tabs back and two windows of Firefox back thanks to Session Manager which is also back.

I will mark this Solved when I get your comments and if you can suggest what that other profile, 9kn2yszu.default\searchplugins , is about. Should I copy it over to my profiles as well?

I now realise that my Time Machine backups were not corrupted by opening them at the same time as the Finder on my Mac. The profiles were the same, but the content of this profile from Aug. 6 looks like the content of the profile of the same name of Aug. 4 that I used. But, the same file, from just before I did my Copy and Paste was missing nearly half its items.

It could be a good idea if Firefox had a way to backup its profiles automatically to another file elsewhere. This may not happen often, but I just wasted many precious hours over the past three days to get it resolved.

Thanks again, for you help.

George

The searchplugins folder stores custom search engines that you have installed yourself. You can check the content of that folder and inspect the XML files in that folder if any are present to decide if you want to recover this folder and its content.

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Search+bar

I think it is time to move on. I have lost a good chunk of my weekend resolving this. If I find something missing, I know where to look.

Thanks,

George

The searchplugins folder stores custom search engines that you have installed yourself. You can check the content of that folder and inspect the XML files in that folder if any are present to decide if you want to recover this folder and its content.

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Search+bar

All the search engines appear to be available in my restored Firefox, most importantly DuckDuckGo! Thanks, George