My profile won't load. I really could use some help

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

So I was running Arma in windowed mode and -filepatching, doing some map indexing for ALiVE. Everything was going fine and normal. After I was done I closed the game and unsubscribed from the map on Workshop, I went to my launcher settings, unticked the -filepatching option in the parameters, and unticked the forced windowed mode option, and when I launched the game now and no matter how many times I restart it, I'm greeted with the "WELCOME!" message and my profile just isn't there. Everything is back to default. All traces of my profile and Arma identity is gone. I can't even load any of my missions or anything. The list is blank.

 

However, in my Documents\Arma 3 area, under Other Profiles I see my profile is still there. And my missions are still there (phew!). But the game absolutely will not load my profile. I really need some help.

 

I'm too afraid to make a new one out of fear it will overwrite my real profile when it saves. What do I do?

 

 

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

In case anyone finds this thread googling  similar issue, the only way I was able to solve this was by reinstalling the game. Verifying the game files and even a platform update didn’t help. 

 

Fortunately having backed up my profile, copy pasting it back in it still works.

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

NOOOOOOO. My profile is gone again. I just don't understand what's going on here. 

 

I reinstalled the game, allowed the game to create a brand new default profile, made a brand new second profile, then copy/pasted my old profile into the other profiles spot in my Documents Arma 3 area, and closed and opened the game completely several times. It was all working absolutely fine. Good as new! So I spend some time editing a mission. All good there. Closed and opened the game and everything is fine and dandy. Then I spent two hours making a mission, only to realize that it didn't save anywhere. And sure enough, I launch the game again suspecting the worst, and I see this. Vanished!:

 

 

Notice how the top right corner there is no profile. 

 

 

It's fucking empty. What the hell?

 

My folder path:

 

 

So as you can see it's still there. The game just won't recognize it. This is after a complete reinstall. What the heck is going on?

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

And for anyone that thinks maybe my profile wasn't working after the reinstall and that maybe I'm confused, here is indisputable proof it was working just fine before the game stopped recognizing it again. Look at the timestamp of the update to this mission of mine on Steam: 

[yxman 90]

are you using a microsoft account (live/onedrive) as login or a local account at windows10?

[cb65 86]

Have you tried just saving your mission folders and nothing else then delete your old profile folder and re-create your profile to create a new profile folder and then just copy and paste your mission folders into your new profile folder.

 

Sounds like your old profile files might be corrupted in some way so its probably best to delete that saved profile folder except for your missions folders and start again. 

 

Hope this idea works for you mate, what you have been describing sounds weird.

 

Cheers.

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

10 hours ago, yxman said:

are you using a microsoft account (live/onedrive) as login or a local account at windows10?

No it’s not live/onedrive. Well I don’t think so. I’m not a computer whiz. I just have Windows 10 installed and Steam installed and download Arma 3 with Steam and play. My default profile name is my Windows PC name, and if it helps, I’ve never heard of Live or Onedrive. So I doubt I have accounts for those.

 

10 hours ago, cb65 said:

Have you tried just saving your mission folders and nothing else then delete your old profile folder and re-create your profile to create a new profile folder and then just copy and paste your mission folders into your new profile folder.

 

Sounds like your old profile files might be corrupted in some way so its probably best to delete that saved profile folder except for your missions folders and start again. 

 

Hope this idea works for you mate, what you have been describing sounds weird.

 

Cheers.

This is probably the best course of action. I just really want to avoid it if possible. Although my settings aren’t robust, I do have quite a few compositions saved, some custom graphics settings and keybinds I’d like to not start from scratch with and stuff like that.

 

Its kind of a bummer with so many hours with this game, and with the product nearing end of life, I could get such a crippling bug all of a sudden.

 

But yeah, I may just try this. I mean the game is literally unplayable for me if profiles keep disappearing. I can’t make missions or even save my game progress or anything if I can’t solve it.

 

Here is a ticket I opened: https://feedback.bistudio.com/T127321

 

I appreciate the replies everyone.

[yxman 90]

to check - press start - and type: powershell

 

whoami

(machine\user)

 

after that use the username you got from it and type

 

Get-LocalUser -Name '$username' | Select-Object *

 

check 

PrincipalSource        : Local/MicrosoftAccount

 

the background of this stuff is that if you are using a ms account, the path from your userdir C:\Users\asdf\Documents is completely fucked up and the reason why your profile isn't found

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

@yxman Sure thing I’ll check. 

 

What i don't understand though is why it was working and loading and saving stuff just fine for a few hours yesterday after several closes and launches until it failed again out of nowhere.

 

I had someone else suggest that perhaps I need to run Arma as admin (which I’ll try too) because it sounds like it might be a permissions issue with reading/writing.

 

Of course I’ll try both suggestions and I appreciate the help. I’ll keep you posted after running your steps. It’s just currently as you can see in the screens, I can’t load any profile, not the default one or my main one that I copy pasted, because the in-game profile menu is blank. And I can’t create one either. I’m not sure I can stomach a compete uninstall/reinstall again just to have access to any profile to troubleshoot these suggestions with.

 

I’m assuming the game won’t let me do anything without a profile. Lol. What a mess.

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

7 hours ago, yxman said:

to check - press start - and type: powershell

 

whoami

(machine\user)

 

after that use the username you got from it and type

 

Get-LocalUser -Name '$username' | Select-Object *

 

check 

PrincipalSource        : Local/MicrosoftAccount

 

the background of this stuff is that if you are using a ms account, the path from your userdir C:\Users\asdf\Documents is completely fucked up and the reason why your profile isn't found

I must be typing this into Powershell wrong. I keep getting user ID not found responses, and stuff like... 

 

"The term 'PrincipalSource' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or

operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try
again."

 

When I type into Powershell whoami it says

desktop-tuklocf\ryansgamepc

but I must be messing the second part up.

[yxman 90]

try:

Get-LocalUser -Name 'ryansgamepc' | Select-Object *

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

54 minutes ago, yxman said:

try:

Get-LocalUser -Name 'ryansgamepc' | Select-Object *

This command returns

https://imgur.com/xLDgMKy

 

However adding the next line from above shoots an error. I also just checked One Drive and although it is installed, it's turned off (it says I'm not logged in). Is this enough info to determine if I'm logging into an MS account? Should I uninstall One Drive or anything else?

[yxman 90]

local account, so everything is fine, the problem is not path/useraccount related (onedrive is harmless has nothing to do with it at this point).

 

hmm you could try to set a manual profiles dir + launchparameter see: https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/-profiles also you could try @arma3 launcher > Dashboard > My Units > play without a unit (dunno if it does anything to the arma3 profile but worth a try)

 

also why is your def. arma profile dir "Arma3 - Other Profiles"?

 

 

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

47 minutes ago, yxman said:

hmm you could try to set a manual profiles dir + launchparameter see: https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/-profiles also you could try @arma3 launcher > Dashboard > My Units > play without a unit (dunno if it does anything to the arma3 profile but worth a try)

 

also why is your def. arma profile dir "Arma3 - Other Profiles"?

 

 

I play off of an Arma3 -Other Profile because for whatever reason using the default profile automatically makes my in-game user name in MP my real life first and last name. I’m really not comfortable with that. Since of course Arma doesn’t allow you to rename the default profile, I just make a new one and name it whatever I like (Heroesandvillains). I’ve used this profile in this exact location for years now. Never had an issue.

 

(Edit: To be clear, any time you make a second profile in the game, Arma 3 - Other Profiles is the path Arma makes for the second profile automatically. I didn’t create this path, the game did and always has)

 

Thanks for the link and suggestions. I do appreciate it. I don’t know much about commands or parameters though. I can try it. The example on the wiki is a bit confusing. I know where to put launch parameters, but do you know offhand what the functioning parameter would be for my exact profile location?

 

 

[yxman 90]

first thing you could try, start Arma 3 Launcher - Parameters - All parameters - Profile folder and set your "Arma3 - Other Profiles"

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

I want to thank @yxman for taking the time to assist me here via Steam chat. So the issue apparently was Arma suddenly not being able to read or write or see my Arma 3 Documents folders, as seen in the client rpt. 

 

He suggested I make a new profile on my PC and see if things began working again and so far, so good.

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

Wow the problem’s back. Time to wipe my PC I guess. Crazy I’m the only one having this problem. The rpt still says Arma can’t find my Documents folder, and this is with a new Arma install, new Windows profile account, and a brand new profile (no copy/pasting anything from the old profile this time).

[devilspawn 24]

did a clean install help? I am having the same problem, my files are going to my game directory not my documents folder 

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

3 hours ago, devilspawn said:

did a clean install help? I am having the same problem, my files are going to my game directory not my documents folder 

The only way I was able to fix it was by a clean operating system re-install. Just reinstalling Arma did not fix it. I had to wipe Windows and reinstall it. 

[desperados 16]

I'm having the same problem too!! Sorry for my bad english!

 

I use arma3sync as a launcher!

 

In the last 2 day I see steam updating ARMA3 (no mods updating) one or two times!

 

The problem occurred after starting ARMA without starting battleye ...
launch arma correctly and with correct profile --> entering the gameserver one popup appears with the request to restart the game in order to start battleye, but when starting battleye the system crash!

At the next restart the correct name of my profile existing but has been reset to the default settings whitout possibility to restore the previous (correct) version!

 

made some research among the profiles folders, I noticed that on my system:

- Vanilla Launcher view this profile folder: C:\Users\....username...\OneDrive\Documents\Arma 3\Users

- Arma3sync view this profile folder: C:\Users\....username...\OneDrive\Documents\Arma 3 - Other Profiles

 

The correct profile still exists but only 2 files has been overwritten, the other folders have not been overwritten:

in fact, in the editor I still see all my missions created...., so the lost files are those indicated with the red arrows!!!

Surely one of those files got corrupted and was reset to the default setting!

 

After careful research these are the settings restored to default... or restored to unknown previous version:

 

OPTIONS (unknown previous version?? or default???)
-Viedo
-Audio
-Controls
-Game

 

TUTORIALS all reset
-VRtraining
-VirtualArsenal loadouts
-Ace Arsenal loadouts

 

SINGLEPLAYER all reset
-Showcases
-Challenges
-I've never played the campaign.... so I do not know if it resets that too!!

 

 

NO WAY.... RESTORING MANUALLY ALL MY CUSTOM SETTINGS!!

[desperados 16]

example....

SHOWCASE progress existing in the folder:

 

 

but Arma do not recognize it:

 

[whitehall gaming 0]

now im having the same problem can somone tell me how to fix it in simple terms im not a tech whiz either 

[whitehall gaming 0]

its sitll not recgonizing my proflies 

 how do i fucking fix this 

[Operator_Grim 0]

I've been having a similar issue with my profile, fucking frustrating because sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. All I wanna do is edit my fucking name

[johnnyboy 3789]

I switched to Windows 10 recently (old pc died), and I have similar problems.  I get a profile error when trying to play missions.  If I try and run a Lan server and play a Steam downloaded mission, I click on the mission and nothing happens.  I can play vanilla content missions though.

 

I've put all my custom missions in my missions folder so at least I can edit my missions.

 

Any ideas on how to fix this?

 

EDIT:  By switching to using the Administrator Windows 10 account, my profile now appears to be working, and I can play Steam downloaded missions via MP.  I fugging hate Windows 10.  My default account had many issues (couldn't run firefox browser, couldn't run CMD.exe, and more).  By switching to Administrator I appear to be operational now.