The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded.

How to Fix the Error "The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded."​

   Information

When you log on to Vista or Windows 7 using a temporary profile (user account), you receive this error message:

The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded.

For more information, see:
Error message when you log on to a Windows Vista-based or Windows 7-based computer by using a temporary profile: "The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded"

   Note

CAUSE:

The jury is still out on the exact cause, but so far :

• This issue may occur if the user profile was manually deleted by using the command prompt or Windows Explorer by a user or by some program. A profile that is manually deleted does not remove the security identifier (SID) from the user profile list in the registry. Since the SID is still present, Vista will still try to load the profile by using the ProfileImagePath that points to a nonexistent path. Therefore, the profile cannot be loaded.
• This can also be a issue with the user profile entering into a backup state.
• Manually renaming the C:\Users\(User Name) user profile folder.

   Warning

If you have this error message below instead, then see: How to Fix the Error "Your user profile was not loaded correctly! You have been logged on with a temporary profile." in Vista

Your user profile was not loaded correctly! You have been logged on with a temporary profile.

Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log off. Please see the event log for details or contact your administrator.

   Tip

If the steps in the tutorial below do not help or you wish to try this first, then:

• You could also try doing a System Restore at boot using a restore point dated before the this error to see if it may be able to fix this.
• If you do not want to repair the user profile, you can delete it and create a new user account in OPTION TWO. If this still does not work for you, then you will be left with doing a clean install for your Upgrade or Full version of Vista or Windows 7.
• Try the option at this link: Rob Brooks-Bilson's Blog: Fix for Vista's: The User Profile Service service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded

STEP ONE

Log on to the Computer

   Warning

You must be logged on to an administrator account using either step 1 or 2 below before you can move on to do either the OPTION ONE or OPTION TWO sections.

1. To Log on to another Administrator account.​

NOTE: If you do not have another Administrator account, then proceed to step 2.​

A) Go to OPTION ONE or OPTION TWO.​

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OR​

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2. To Boot into Safe Mode and Use the built-in Administrator account​

NOTE: You may not need to enable the built-in Administrator account. If this was the only normal administrator account you had, then Safe Mode should automatically boot into the built-in Administrator account.​

   Tip

If you cannot boot into Windows and do not have a Windows installation DVD, then you can create and use the boot disc below to boot into Safe Mode with instead.

   Tip

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Windows 7: (Option Two at link)​

How to Create a Windows 7 System Repair Disc​

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Vista: (Option One at link)​

How to Create a Vista Recovery Disc​

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A) Boot into Safe Mode (in Vista) or Safe Mode (in Windows 7).​

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B) If Safe Mode did not boot into the built-in Administrator account, then enable the built-in Administrator account. If it did, then go to step 2D.​

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C) Log off in Safe Mode, and then log on to the built-in Administrator account to logon with that account in Safe Mode.​

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D) Go to OPTION ONE or OPTION TWO.​

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OPTION ONE

To Fix the User Account Profile

1. Open the Start menu.​

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2. In the white line (Start Search) area, type regedit and press Enter.​

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3. If prompted by UAC, either click on Continue (Vista) or Yes (Windows 7).​

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4. In regedit, go to: (See screenshot below step 5)​

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HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

5. In the left pane, look for the S-1-5..... folder (SID key) with the long number that has .bak at the end of the numbers.​

(See screenshots below steps 6A and 7B)​

NOTE:​

A) In the right pane, look at the ProfileImagePath to verify that this is the user account profile that has the error.​

B) You may have another S-1-5..... folder (SID key) above it with the exact same number without the .bak at the end of it.​

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6. If you have Two S-1-5..... folders (SID key) with the same Number​

NOTE: This is if you have two S-1-5..... folders (SID key) with the exact same numbers, but the second (below) one has the .bak at the end of the numbers.​

A) In the left pane, right click on the first (top) S-1-5..... folder (SID key) that does not have .bak at the end of the numbers and click Rename. (See screenshot below)​

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B) Add .bk to the end of the numbers. (See screenshot below)​

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C) In the left pane, right click on the second S-1-5..... folder (SID key) with .bak at the end of the numbers and click Rename. (See screenshot above)​

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D) Remove only .bak from the end of the numbers and press Enter. (See screenshot below)​

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E) Now go back and Rename the first one with .bk to .bak now at the end of the numbers and press Enter.​

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F) Go to step 8.​

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7. If you have Only One S-1-5..... Folder (SID key) with .bak​

NOTE: This is if you only have one S-1-5..... folder (SID key) for your user account with .bak at the end of the numbers.​

A) In the left pane, right click on the S-1-5..... folder (SID key) with .bak at the end of the numbers and click Rename. (See screenshot below)​

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B) Remove only .bak at the end of the numbers and press Enter. (See screenshot below and below step 10)​

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8. In the right pane of the one without .bak now, right click on RefCount and click on Modify. (See screenshot below step 10)​

NOTE: If you do not have RefCount, then right click on a empty space in the right pane and click New and DWORD (32 bit) Value, then type RefCount and press Enter. This value for this entry will reset and return back to the original value after you have restarted the computer and logged on to the account.​

A) Type 0 (number) and click on OK. (See screenshot below)​

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9. In the right pane of the one without .bak now, right click on State and click on Modify. (See screenshot below step 10)​

NOTE: This value for this entry will reset and return back to the original value after you have restarted the computer and logged on to the account.​

A) Type 0 (number) and click on OK. (See screenshot below)​

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10. The registry will now look like this for the one without .bak now. (See screenshot below)​

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11. Close regedit.​

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12. Restart the computer.​

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13. See if you can logon now.​

NOTE: If this still does not help, then either try OPTION TWO below or see the yellow TIP box at the top of the tutorial.​

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OPTION TWO

To Delete the User Account and Create Another One

   Warning

You can do this option if you do not care about losing the user account and the contents in the user folders. Your programs will still be installed, but you will need to create new shortcuts for them afterwards.

1. Delete the User account profile that this error is for.​

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2. Open the Start menu.​

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3. In the white line (Start Search) area, type regedit and press Enter.​

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4. If prompted by UAC, click on Continue (Vista) or Yes (Windows 7).​

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5. In regedit, go to: (See screenshot below step 7)​

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HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

6. In the left pane, click on one of the S-1-5..... folders (SID key) with the long number in it.​

NOTE: It may have .bak at the end of it.​

A) In the right pane, look at the ProfileImagePath to see if this is the same user account that you deleted in step 1 above.​

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B) Repeat step 6 until you find the one that you deleted in step 1 above.​

NOTE: If the user account is not here, then it has already been removed when deleted in step 1. Go to step 9.​

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7. To Backup the Registry SID Key​

WARNING: You should backup this SID key to be safe in case you delete the wrong one in step 8 below.​

A) Right click on the SID key, and click on Export.​

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B) Type in a name and save the REG file to a safe location.​

NOTE: This is your backup. To Restore the Backup, right click on the REG backup file and click on Merge.​

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C) Continue on to step 8.​

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8. To Delete the Registry SID Key​

A) Right click on the SID key, and click on Delete. (See screenshot above)​

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B) Click on Yes to confirm deletion. (See screenshot below)​

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9. Close regedit.​

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10. Now, just create a new normal Administrator account.​

NOTE: See: How to Create a New User Account in Vista​

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11. Restart the computer, and log on to your new account.​

NOTE: If this still does not help, then either try OPTION ONE above or see the yellow TIP box at the top of the tutorial.​

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That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How To Perform a Repair Installation For Vista
• How to Do a System Restore in Vista
• How to Do a Startup Repair in Vista
• How to Do a Clean Install of Vista with a Upgrade Version
• How to Do a Clean Install with a Full Version of Vista
• How to Fix the Error "Your user profile was not loaded correctly! You have been logged on with a temporary profile."
• How to Change the User Folder Name of a User Profile in Windows 7
• How to Fix Windows 7 Logon Screen Showing Only "Other User" and Last Logged On User Icon

 

[Brink]

Blackdot,

You might see if you may be able to use METHOD TWO in the tutorial below to run chkdsk in a command prompt at boot, then see if you may be able to do a system restore at boot afterwards.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/67612-check-disk-chkdsk.html

 

[robmar0se]

Many thanks for this fix. Happened to 2 PC's virtually simultaneously - both had only one admin account, once I realised that I could gain temporary access via the safe mode, was able to make the registry changes.

After ran a number of virus fixes (Combofix etc), and found a number of infected files, so am erring towards a virus that is causing this, especially as it happened to two PC's at the same time - a memory card had been used on both prior to the problem occurring, so suspect the virus was transferred from one to the other via the card; waiting for the card to be given back so that it may be checked.

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome RobmarOse, and welcome to Vista Forums. Hopefully they'll both clean up completely.

 

[RayK]

I've also experienced this error - but haven't been able to resolve it. I've followed the recommendations in the post threads without sucess.

The S-I-D suggestion was not available to me given Vista did not have or retain a .bak copy.

The system reverted to safe mode meaning all my documents were lost and thus did not appear in explorer.

I sent it to a technician who had my laptop for 8 weeks. He attempted to use utilities to read my hard drive with the hope he could at least recover the files and reassemble them within the various applications i.e. Outlook, Word, Excel etc.

Although he found some 69 gigs of supposed files of mine, it was unreadable, all the file extensions were missing, and many of the logical records were chopped / segmented. His advice was I am out of luck there is nothing he can do for me.

In a last effort I thought i would reach out to the post.

Are there any other ideas out there that might be able to restore my laptop and its file contents to its status just before this Vista profile error showed up.

Thanks Much

 

[robmar0se]

I sent it to a technician who had my laptop for 8 weeks. He attempted to use utilities to read my hard drive with the hope he could at least recover the files and reassemble them within the various applications i.e. Outlook, Word, Excel etc.

Although he found some 69 gigs of supposed files of mine, it was unreadable, all the file extensions were missing, and many of the logical records were chopped / segmented. His advice was I am out of luck there is nothing he can do for me.

Sounds like yr engineer used some program like Active @undelete to access the hard drive, this does a sector scan to try and find files where the index may be lost - this can be problematic, and I use it only to find specific lost files.

If your system registry is corrupt (and the system restore function doesn't get you back), then I would remove the hard drive and place it as a slave on another system; then one must use security procedures to take ownership of your folders/files. This way you should be able to get axxess to the stuff you're looking for. Back it up, and then rebuild the system from the original windows vista disks etc. I have done this successfully.

However the usual warning, unless one can actually see the system it would be difficult to provide a guarantee that this would work.

Regards

Rob (PC engineer based in Sussex)

 

[blackdot123]

hey Brink:

thank you for your quick reply, i tried the http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/67612-check-disk-chkdsk.html
link you suggested... nothing... no success

i tried the tutorial under this thread.. and no success... the .bak file keeps coming back after i rename it...

then my laptop wont let me restore... b/c it says my C file has problems


i noticed on the lower right corner it mentioned for me to check out the even log to see what the issues might be... and i noticed a lot of bad even logs on the date when i can't log into my laptop... and the even log says

"event filter with query "SELECT*FROM_InstanceModificationEventWITHIN60WHERE TargetInstance ISA "Win32_Processor" AND TargetInstance.LoadPercentage >99" could not be reactived in namespace "//./root/CIMV2" because of error 0x80041003. Events cannot be delivered through this filter until the problem is corrected"

i have no idea what that means... i dont even know where to go to solve the problem mentioned above... anyone knows what it means??? please help!!!!


fyi this bad event log started occuring the first time when i couldn't log on in my laptop and has never occured before in the event logs ...

PLEASE HELP....:D

 

[Brink]

Hello Blackdot,

If you used a retail Vista installation DVD to install your Vista, then you might consider a repair install that should be able to fix it.

 

[loc4485]

Hey Shawn, i recently re-installed a clean copy of vista basic and i am still getting the user profile service failed error. It seemed to work till the windows update forced a restart and i also installed google chrome. I tried the trick but i do not have multiple values of the same SID. No bak just the 4 usual S-1-S-18 thru S-1-S-21 which i did change the values to 0. Should i reinstall another clean copy?

 

[Brink]

Hello Loc, and welcome to Vista Forums.

You might see if you may be able to just create a new administrator account to use instead of having to do a clean reinstall.

 

[loc4485]

Hey Brink, thanks for the info. I tried to create another admin account, but it will only login in safe mode. Both accounts give the same error when in normal startup. Hmmm

 

[Brink]

Loc,

If you have a restore point available dated before you installed Chrome and the updates, then you might see if doing a system restore using that restore point may help.

If not, then it looks like you may need to do another clean install. Be sure to manually create a restore point before installing each item though. This way if you find the culprit, you will easily be able to use system restore to undo it.

 

[blackdot123]

ok so i've been experiencing this "user profile failed to log on" issue on my laptop for the past two weeks... (yes i have window vista)

i have tried all the options posted above, even chkdisk option, NO LUCK

so i tried to restore the computer to the previous date --wont let me

i tried to back up some files (mainly some pictures), can't find the pictures or my other files under the SAFE MODE... which sucks!!!!!!!

and then all of sudden my keyboard and the mouse wont work !!!!

so as you can tell... i am very pissed off...

has anyone experienced likewise situations before? if so how did you fix it while still can save your previous files/pictures???

please help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thank you to all people who have responded to my previous posts... you guys are definitely very knowledgable and more helpful than the people who work at bestbuy LOL
thank you...

 

[Brink]

Blackdot,

You might consider doing a custom install. It's like a clean install, but all files from your current installation are saved into a C:\Windows.old folder during the new installation where you can copy files back into the new installation after it's done installing.

 

[frustrated10]

I no longer have the option to login to "safe mode" and no longer have the ability to run system restore or factory reset. I really do not want to perform a format, I would prefer to salvage my files. Still very ticked off.

 

[Brink]

Frustrated,

Are you not able to do a system restore at boot with your retail Vista installation DVD or Vista Recovery disc (not OEM one) instead?

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[frustrated10]

Nope. Restore doesn't work on a non-admin account, tried it. Don't have a vista install disk only factory default option at start-up which is conveniently not available either. Face it, Vista sucks.

 

[Brink]

You can create a boot disc using OPTION ONE in the tutorial below to boot with to do a system restore at boot.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/141820-create-recovery-disc.html

 

[aac 212]

Dear Brink (or anyone else qualified to help),

I have just experienced the 'user profile service' problem and like many others before, my only real concern is losing the hundreds of photos held on the laptop.

Before I start any of the options mentioned above (which seem to work, great news!), can someone satisfy my real worry which is that these files might be lost. And if not, how do I get my hands on them?

One other thing, my laptop is only a year or so old and when I hit F8 many times when rebooting I get an option that I've not seen discussed on this thread before, 'repair the computer'.

Should I use this instead of going through the other steps listed many times on this thread.

All help gratefully received.

 

[Brink]

Hello Aac, and welcome to Vista Forums.

As long as you do not delete the user account or user folder, you should be fine.

Try OPTION ONE first, and if that fails, try the options in the yellow TIP box at the top of the tutorial. Please feel free to ask any question that you may have along the way.


On OEM (store bought) brand computers, this is normal to have the Repair the Computer option in the F8 Advanced Boot Options screen.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[aac 212]

Brink / Shawn,

Thank you very much for your repley.

The reason I ask about 'Repair the Computer' option is whether this might work, and is it worth runnning before I take any of the other steps described in this thread?