User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; nl; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090824 Firefox/3.5.3 Build Identifier: Firefox/3.5.3 In the profile selector screen, I deleted only one profile. FF 3.5.3 asked for confirmation on deleting the file belonging to this profile. I agreed. After this I tried to start another profile when I got the message that the profile was stil active. I tried all suggestions (incl reboot) on the forum and discovered: 1) profiles were still present in the profile screen of FF, but refused to start. 2) related profile directories had disappeared. It was in the path: C:\Documents and Settings\My Name\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles I assume my profiles are gone. That's a real, real pitty and will take a lot of time to recover. (Lesson to create a backup next time on the profiles as well.) Within the profile manager I created a new profile, which I can start. The other profiles are still unable to start saying, the profile is still active. New profiles are placed in the same path: C:\Documents and Settings\My Name\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles Reproducible: Didn't try

You need to choose a different folder for each new profile. Not Firefox\Profiles but Firefox\Profiles\somedirectory. It seems like you created a profile in Firefox\Profiles and then deleted it, which deleted all the files there including all of your other profiles which were inside that directory.

I don't agree at all and find it a very easy answer. I created the profiles from firefox in the first place. So, any discussion about creating separate directories is not true. I notices just now that firefox creates new directories for eacht new profile. So There must have been different directories. I'm sure about this because I've found a back-up in which the original separate directories were present. Therefore I'm sure it is a bug.

(In reply to comment #1) > You need to choose a different folder for each new profile. Not > Firefox\Profiles but Firefox\Profiles\somedirectory. It seems like you created > a profile in Firefox\Profiles and then deleted it, which deleted all the files > there including all of your other profiles which were inside that directory. Please refer to my comment #2. In my opinion it's still a bug.

At least four operations are known which produce pointer in profiles.ini to higher directory than required directory. (A) Bug 470927. Choose option of "Select Folder" at profile manager, choose higher directory which already has profile directory(or required directories/files) in it. - one : IsRelative=1,path=Profiles/one - two : IsRelative=0,path=....\\Profiles (B) Bug 434556 is probably next case. symlink to "profile directory for other one" is defined, and user specified the symlink for "Profiles/two". - one : IsRelative=1,path=Profiles/one - two : IsRelative=1,path=Profiles/two (i) .../Profiles/two == symlink to .../Profiles (ii) .../Profiles/two == symlink to .../Profiles/one (iii) .../Profiles/two == symlink to .../Profiles/one/xxx (C) Bug 509145 : profile tow is created with "-CreateProfile ./" - one : IsRelative=1,path=Profiles/one - two : IsRelative=1,path=Profiles (D) Bug 486834 : Create user directory under profile directory. Your case is (A), and main cause of problem is misuse of "Select Folder" by user when (A), because "Select Folder" is for re-pointing of old/existent profile directory(or back up), and because option of "Select Folder" displays used profile location correctly (...\Profiles in your case). However, once profile.ini entry which points higher directory is defined, "delete of the profile" deletes all directories/files under it (current design/implementation. it's normal implementation). So, an improvements is proposed for case (A) in Bug 470927, to reduce misuse of current "Select Folder".

I've confirmed bug 470927 this bug, and bug 305551, should probably be duped to something.

This bug is filed in a bugzilla component related to pre-Firefox code which no longer exists. I believe it is no longer relevant and I am therefore closing it INCOMPLETE. If you believe that this bug is still valid and needs to be fixed, please reopen it and move it to the Toolkit:Startup and Profile System product/component.