@blackbird71 said in "Profile Error Occurred" - Message On Opera Startup:

I wonder how many of the 7 users experiencing the problem in this thread have actually reported it to Opera via the formal bug reporter built into Opera (O > Help > "Report an issue"). Unless bugs are reported 'officially' (and fully), one can't rely on Opera developers scanning these forums randomly looking for problem reports.

I have done that twice already... I have even linked my official bug report with this forum-thread. In spite of everything, no actions from Opera's Developers, except of an automated confirmation-reply has been taken.
I'm providing the quotation from this reply: "...please note that you will not receive a personal reply to the bug report, unless we need more information to investigate the bug".

The latest occurrence has been observed today (23rd May, 2020). The Cookies has been wiped just after automatical update of Opera browser (updated to v68.0.3618.125). Luckily, now I have a backup copy of the file "...\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera Stable\Cookies". By restoring the only file "Cookies" (without extension) my settings of opened Web-Sites are back...
Currently, I'm not sure by 100%, that issue is related to automatical update of browser, but I'll notice that. In the future I'll inform you about my observations. How about You guys? - Are You observing this issue just after automatical update of browser too???

Long story short: Me and many other users of Opera for Windows browser are experiencing the same issue - "Profile Error Occurred" message appears on Opera Startup:
Right after this issue I'm losing all login (active sessions) data and settings of the individual Web-Sites. It looks like wiping all Cookies, but I do confirm - the switch named as "Clear cookies and site data when you quit Opera" is always OFF in my program.
At the beginning of May, 2020 I have decided a radical experiment: to uninstall an Opera browser fully, to clear any traces from this program and then reinstall it from the scratch again. Unfortunately, now I can state, the problem is still present on the latest versions of Opera (currently I'm using 70.0.3728.119 on Windows 7 x64 i7 machine). Latest occurrence has been observed today (as of 24th August, 2020).
Few months ago some users have discovered that instance of the file "...\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera Stable\Cookies" could bring all the lost settings back by restoring this file from backup.
The testing is quite annoying, because this problem occurs just in some occasions. I cannot find any reasons and clues about it. Sometimes even I don't get a "Profile Error Occurred..." message, but some configuration is nevertheless lost.
It looks like this issue is tending to appear of more frequent when Windows OS is freshly restarted.
You can read some findings from other users about this problem on the old topic here.
Anyway, this problem isn't resolved jet and I encourage developers of Opera browser to pay some attention into this problem.

@burnout426 said in "Profile Error Occurred" - Message On Opera Startup:

While Opera is closed, copy the profile folder and paste it on your desktop just to see if the copy goes okay. If so, move the profile folder (original, not the copy you just made) to see if the move goes okay or not. If those things fail, there might be some permission issues the profile folder and files are inheriting or something else funky.

Tested it today... Neither copying nor moving the profile folder experienced any problems.

@burnout426
Already tested few minutes ago:

1. Closed my Opera browser;
2. Renamed the folder "C:\Users\myusername\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera Stable";
3. Launched my Opera browser again;
4. I found that Opera has re-created the folder "C:\Users\myusername\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera Stable".

Now, I have to reconfigure my Opera browser from the scratch, because all the settings stayed in the renamed folder.
During the next weeks I'll observe about presence of the discussed problem.

@burnout426
Ok, I'll move back to the old profile:
. . .
5. Closed my Opera browser again;
6. Deleted the new profile in the folder "C:\Users\myusername\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera Stable";
7. The old one profile renamed back to "C:\Users\myusername\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera Stable";
8. Launched my Opera browser again.

The latest issue has been confirmed today on Opera v68.0.3618.104.
Since I'll have a good profile, I will follow the advice @avmon - I'll backup the files "Cookies" and "Web Data" (without extension).

It's very strange, but each such issue leads to the appearance of the Welcome screen. Even without an auto-update of the Opera browser. Additionally, today I found a subfolder "opera autoupdate" inside of the folder "...\AppData\Local\Temp" and the timestamp of the subfolder "opera autoupdate" equals to the moment, when "Profile Error Occurred" issue has been generated...

The same situation is today (as of 06th June, 2020, Opera v68.0.3618.125) after regular restart of Opera browser: "Profile Error Occurred" dialog, Welcome screen in Opera browser, wiped cookies and "opera autoupdate" subfolder inside of the folder "...\AppData\Local\Temp"...

@sgunhouse said in "Profile Error Occurred" - Message On Opera Startup:

Never run Opera as administrator, as this will result.

Yes, currently I'm logged as Administrator on my Windows 7 OS... Why can't I use Opera with an administrator account?

Beyond that, you'd have to tell us what you did to cause it.

I cannot describe any rules or consistent behavioural pattern of when this problem occurs. I'm using Opera as my default browser on Windows 7 64x OS. Usually, there are about 10-15 opened Tabs at the moment I'm closing my Opera browser. It is configured to restore all Tabs on the startup. And this problem appears when I'm starting my browser. Though, it doesn't happen on every startup of the browser.
As I have written earlier, it looks like this issue is tending to appear of more frequent when Windows OS is freshly started.

@martinamery said in "Profile Error Occurred" - Message On Opera Startup:

@tapedi2471
Sorry to jump in but is this forum dead or have you had any help
Regards

I'm still experiencing the same problem without any working solution for this problem. Periodically, I make backup of the file "C:\Users\XXXXXXXXXX\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera Stable\Cookies" and restore it in the case of this problem.

@burnout426 said in "Profile Error Occurred" - Message On Opera Startup:

If you get a chance, run a command prompt as administrator and execute:

chkdsk /r

Then, tell it to do the check on startup. Scan will take a long time.

As I have mentioned before, status of my hard drives (I'm using Raid0) is excelent. Nevertheless, I've run "chkdsk /r" and got a confirmation - "Windows has checked the file system and found no problems."

Then, do a system file check.

Already done. - No corrupted system files has been found...

Also, if not on an SSD, defrag the disk. This worked for a Chrome user. Must have been some performance file-read issue or something.

Defragmentation process is sheduled by me once per month. Nevertheless, I've started it manually by recommendation of @burnout426.

@burnout426 said in "Profile Error Occurred" - Message On Opera Startup:

While Opera is closed, copy the profile folder and paste it on your desktop just to see if the copy goes okay. If so, move the profile folder (original, not the copy you just made) to see if the move goes okay or not. If those things fail, there might be some permission issues the profile folder and files are inheriting or something else funky.

Tested it today... Neither copying nor moving the profile folder experienced any problems.

@leocg said in "Profile Error Occurred" - Message On Opera Startup:

@andrius-s Do you remember the bug ID number?

Yes, I do... My bug report's ID is: DNAWIZ-100126

@blackbird71 said in "Profile Error Occurred" - Message On Opera Startup:

I wonder how many of the 7 users experiencing the problem in this thread have actually reported it to Opera via the formal bug reporter built into Opera (O > Help > "Report an issue"). Unless bugs are reported 'officially' (and fully), one can't rely on Opera developers scanning these forums randomly looking for problem reports.

I have done that twice already... I have even linked my official bug report with this forum-thread. In spite of everything, no actions from Opera's Developers, except of an automated confirmation-reply has been taken.
I'm providing the quotation from this reply: "...please note that you will not receive a personal reply to the bug report, unless we need more information to investigate the bug".

@blackbird71 said in "Profile Error Occurred" - Message On Opera Startup:

To duplicate the problem, a troubleshooter needs to know (for each user seeing the problem): the OS and its version, the Opera version involved, the list of extensions installed into the browser, and a list of the steps that occurred prior to the problem onset (much as @andrius-s has done in this thread). But even with that information, an intermittent or inconsistent problem behavior will take considerably longer to track down, hence it inevitably will require a lot more time and effort on the developers' part.

Such a large projects like Web browsers usually have a lot of debugging, tracking and logging possibilities. I'm sure, Opera isn't an exception as well. Sadly, but I cannot see any efforts from the side of Opera's Developers to dig deeper into this problem...
BTW, today this issue has been observed again (20th September, 2020, Opera 71.0.3770.148).

13th September, 2020, Opera 70.0.3728.178: Issue has been observed again...

@overtheinternet33 said in "Profile Error Occurred" - Message On Opera Startup:

If the level of the browser is compatible with the level of the OS it should work.

Yes, Opera does officially support Windows OS, but anyway I'm experiencing problems with it. Latest occurrence (broken file Cookies + message "Profile Error Occurred...") has been observed today (as of 12th September, 2020, Opera 70.0.3728.178). - Windows OS has been started freshly, but I have uncertainty about avmon's hypothesis of high demand on system resources: today I have made a pause of about 5 minutes since Windows OS starting moment, and only then I have started Opera browser...

@burnout426 said in "Profile Error Occurred" - Message On Opera Startup:

• Check the status of your hard drive with [CrystalDiskInfo]
• Wipe out your hard drive, install Windows fresh, and update windows.
• Download Opera (latest version) and install it fresh.

Status of my hard drives (I'm using Raid0) is ideal. Fresh install from the scratch of latest version of Opera - I'm testing it from time to time. None of the abovementioned means solved the problem.
Only fresh install of Windows OS isn't tested by me yet. But it's quite problematic to do...

Latest occurrence (wiped Cookies) has been observed today (as of 29th August, 2020, Opera 70.0.3728.119)...