I allowed a Win 10 update, then restarted, and now am getting this message: “The user profile service failed the sign in. User profile cannot be loaded”

I allowed a Win 10 update, then restarted, and now am getting this message: “The user profile service failed the sign in. User profile cannot be loaded”

There are a couple of issues that can cause this user error in Windows 10. I will preface this with this is an advanced process and for MOST people you are better off allowing one of our technicians to hand the process for you.

Call us at 800-935-6704 to get professional computer technician help with this process.

If the error The User Profile Service failed the sign-in appears when you first log in to the system under a new account, it means that the Default profile is damaged. The default profile is the directory with the profile template for all users of this computer. Settings are copied to the new profile at the first logon. If the C:\Users\Default directory is damaged or missing, the Windows Profile service won’t be able to copy data from this directory to the new profile directory.

To fix the problem, it is enough to replace the damaged C:\Users\Default folder. Copy the same folder from the working operating system (the Windows 10 should build match). Verify that the properties of the Default folder and the NTFS permissions match.

Error User Profile Cannot be Loaded for Only One Single User

If only one user has a problem with the profile, then only the directory or registry entry with the user’s profile is damaged. Try to logon as another user with administrator permissions. If this is not possible, boot your Windows 10 in safe mode, in the recovery console, or the Windows PE environment.

First, check the disk for errors using chkdsk. File system errors are the most common cause of corrupted Windows user profiles. Run the command:

chkdsk c: /f /r

Restart your computer and try to log in. In some cases, this may be enough. If this doesn’t help, boot your computer in Safe mode again. Open the Services.msc console and make sure the User Profile Service is started and configured to start automatically.

the user profile service failed the sign-in

Open the Registy Editor (regedit.exe) and go to the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList;

In the list of the registry key tree, there will be several sections with long names starting with S-1-5. Each section corresponds to a single user profile. To determine which profile belongs to a specific user, you need to take a look at the value of the ProfileImagePath parameter. One will correspond to the root user (C:\Users\root). Check if this folder exists on the disk;

the user profile service failed the sign-in windows 10

If you find your user and the name of the registry key doesn’t end with .bak, change the value of the DWORD 32-bit parameters State and RefCount to . If these parameters are missing, create them);

Sometimes, the profile tree for your profile has two sections. One of them ends in .bak. You need to rename the main section to .bak in the registry, and .bak to the main section. If there is only a key with .bak, simply remove this extension;

user profile service failed the sign in

Verify that the value of the RefCount and State parameters is 0;

Restart the computer. In most cases, this should fix the problem with the damaged user’s profile.

If this doesn’t help, a new account needs to be created and profile data moved over for the new account.