Unable to delete profiles through profile manager

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1

Hey guys,

The browser allows me to create profiles, but when I try to delete a profile, it stutters a little before opening a new window and throwing me a error message as seen in one of the screenshots bellow.

Environment

  • Tor Browser version: 16.0a9 (based on Mozilla Firefox 153.0esr)

  • Operating System: Windows 11 25H2

  • Security Level: Standard

  • Tor Browser Alpha or stable: Alpha

Screenshot 2026-08-18 202949
Screenshot 2026-08-18 202949793×833 38.7 KB

Screenshot 2026-08-18 203006
Screenshot 2026-08-18 2030061400×984 45.4 KB

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Open the Tor Browser Alpha.
  2. Click on the Menu button.
  3. Click on your current profile
  4. Click new profile
  5. Tor should have opened a new window at this point.
  6. In the new window please click the menu button again.
  7. Click on the current profile.
  8. Click manage profiles.
  9. At this point you should have the profile manager open.
  10. Try attempting to delete a profile. You should have met the occurrence that happened in Screenshot 2026-08-18 203006.

Thank you :smile:

2

Thanks for writing this up with such detailed steps! Since you’re running Alpha 16.0a9 (on the Firefox 153esr base), this definitely looks like a regression with profile deletion or file locks from the recent ESR rebase.

A couple of quick workarounds to check in the meantime:

  1. Check Task Manager to make sure no background tor.exe or firefox.exe instances are keeping the profile folder locked when you try to delete it.

  2. You can also try deleting the specific profile folder manually from %APPDATA%\TorBrowser-Data\Browser\.

I’d definitely recommend opening a bug ticket on the Tor Project GitLab so the devs can fix this before it hits the stable channel!