"Can't open user profile directory" appears really often when it shouldn't

A Former User

Ok, so it seems, like the .swf problem will stay there for a while, so I'd like to talk about something else

Let X be "Can't open user profile directory, because you lack sufficient privileges. You might want to contact the administrator of this machine."

When I open Opera when I'm offline:
a)

It doesn't open at all
I go online
I launch Opera
It launches a window, saying X and working Opera

b)

Opera launches, but can't connect to any site
I close it
The next time it launches a window, saying X and working Opera

c) Or Opera won't connect or launch at all

It's very annoying, sometimes this bug appears even when I'm online, I'm the administrator of the machine and it may randomly happen while I'm trying to connect to the 51th site on this Opera session, just like if Opera changed its mind after 2 hours and decided, that it's not me and it won't let me use the internet

Any ideas ?
(Yes, I know, that it may be the worst way to explain it, but I tried 3 different ways to write it and this one sounds the best. Just ask if you don't get something)

blackbird71

blackbird71

The usual questions apply: what is your OS (and, if Windows 10, has it been upgraded to the 1709 Fall Creator's Update); what is your Opera version; is it installed stand-alone; and what is your AV program? Also, how long has the problem persisted in time, and did it appear following any OS, AV, or Opera update/upgrade?

A Former User @blackbird71

@blackbird71 Oh sorry, totally forgot about it
Windows 7, Opera 49.0.2725.47, Avast AV
It's been here for about 3 months, but recently it became more often. I don't remember any change in my computer just before it appeared
I can't find the definition of "stand-alone" Opera, but as far as I think what it is, it's on my C drive, available to two user profiles of the computer

blackbird71

blackbird71 @Guest

@kuna When Opera loads into RAM upon starting, it must access various user files from your profile folder at the location defined when Opera was installed; if those files don't exist or are seriously corrupted, Opera will attempt to write default versions of the affected files to the specified profile folder location. Under 'About Opera', you should find the path to where Opera thinks the profile folder is located for that user account.

The error message you've noted indicates that permission to access a file(s) within the specified profile folder is inadequate for that which the OS believes to be necessary for the named folder. There are a variety of reasons this might occur, though most such reasons should operate all the time rather than intermittently. The intermittency would suggest that one of the data files needing to be accessed by Opera on occasion is perhaps located in a folder either in a protected system area or under a different user account, with the error message only occurring when that particular file is being called upon (which would not be all the time, else the error would occur all the time). It might alternatively suggest a corruption of something somewhere, either in an OS file, the Opera installation, the user profile, or even a problem chip in the RAM.

From within the user account and with Opera off, see if you can manually access the profile folder that was specified within Opera, as well as the files beneath that folder. Looking at the profile folder and various of its files, right-click and check the properties of each under the security tab to see if the full-control privilege is checked (or at the least modify, read & execute, read, and write privileges). If nothing obviously wrong appears there, try renaming the profile folder to some other name. Then restart Opera. Opera should immediately create a new profile folder and populate it with default versions of the files; try browsing for a while with Opera using these files (although your original settings, customizations, bookmarks, etc should all be missing after the renaming, unless you recreate them anew). If this fixes the problems, you can try copying over certain of the original profile files from the renamed folder to the new folder to recover their particular data (with Opera always turned off during such copying operations). In that case, however, do realize that copying in an original file risks copying in the original problem as well if it was caused by corruption in that original file.

If none of this works, you may want to try deleting the new-created profile folder and renaming the renamed profile folder back to its original name and then uninstalling/reinstalling Opera for all users from within an admin-level acount to try to clear up any possible corruption or privilege issues related to the install itself. In that case, Opera should recover and reuse all your user data in your profile.