You've been signed in with a temporary profile - Fix

How to Fix "You've been signed in with a temporary profile" Error in Windows 8 and 8.1


This is for when after you sign in to a user account in Windows 8, and notice that a temporary profile has been loaded instead of the profile that corresponds to the current user. Therefore, any changes that you make to the current desktop are lost after you sign out. Additionally, the notification area may display the following error message:

You've been signed in with a temporary profile.

You can't access your files, and files created in this profile will be deleted when you sign out. To fix this, sign out and try signing in later. Please see the event log for more details or contact your system administrator.

This problem usually occurs if the user profile of the account was accidentally corrupted or deleted from the system.

This tutorial will show you how to fix the "You've been signed in with a temporary profile" error a user may get after signing in to their account in Windows 8, Windows RT, Windows 8.1, and Windows RT 8.1.

This will basically delete the user profile of the user account that is getting the "You've been signed in with a temporary profile" error in order to reset and rebuild the user profile to fix this error.

A user profile is a collection of settings that make the computer look and work the way you want it to for a user account. It contains the account's settings for desktop backgrounds, screen savers, pointer preferences, sound settings, and other features. User profiles ensure that your personal preferences are used whenever you sign in to Windows.

How to read event log details for User Profile Service error:

• Open Event Viewer (eventvwr.msc), then expand open Windows Logs and Application in the left pane.
• Right click or press and hold on Application in left pane, click on Find, type 1511 (for Event ID), and click/tap on Find Next.
• Close the Find dialog, and view details. Repeat to view any other listed 1511 Event IDs if needed.

EXAMPLE: "You've been signed in with a temporary profile" Notification Message





Here's How:

1. If you have another administrator account that is not affected by this user profile error, then sign out of the affected account (ex: Brink), and sign in to the other administrator account.

   Note

If you do not have another administrator account to sign in to, then you could do one of the following options below to enable the built-in Administrator account to sign in to, and continue on to step 2 below.

A) If the affected account is an administrator, then enable the built-in Administrator account, sign out, and sign in to Administrator.

OR

B) Boot into safe mode, enable the built-in Administrator, sign out, and sign in to Administrator.

2. Press the :winkey: + R keys to open the Run dialog, type regedit, and click/tap on OK.

3. If prompted by UAC, then click/tap on Yes.

4. In Registry Editor, navigate to the location below. (see screenshot below)

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




5. In the left pane under ProfileList, click on a SID key (S-1-5-21....long number). (see screenshot above)
NOTE: Usually, it will be for the SID key that has .bak at the end of the long number.

A) In the right pane of the SID key, look at the ProfileImagePath value to see if it is for the same user account name (ex: Brink) that has the user profile error.

B) If not, then repeat step 6 until your find it, then go to step 7 below.

6. Right click or press and hold on the SID key (ex: ...-1006.bak) found in step 6, and click/tap on Delete. (see screenshot below step 5)

7. Click/tap on Yes to confirm. (see screenshot below)



8. If there is another SID key (ex: ...-1006 at end) with the exact same long number from step 6 for the same user account (ex: Brink) without .bak at the end of it, then repeat step 7 and 8 above for it as well.



9. When finished, close Registry Editor.

10. See if you are now able to sign in to the user account (ex: Brink) from step 1 without getting the "You've been signed in with a temporary profile" error.



That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Fix "User Profile Service service failed the sign-in. User Profile cannot be loaded." Error in Windows 8 and 8.1
• How to Reset User Profile of Built-in Administrator Account to Default in Windows
• How to Do a Repair Install of Windows 8 without Losing Anything
• How to Refresh Windows 8 and Windows 8.1
• How to Do a System Restore in Windows 8 and 8.1

 

[Logic]

It said the last restore was this morning at 9:46 (8:46 for you) but the problem was happening before that. So how do I restart the steps since I have already done them all?

 

[Brink]

You could just start back over at step 1, then do them if the registry SID key is there for the old profile getting this error.

If not able to, then see if you are able to create a new user account to use instead while you are signed in to the built-in Administrator account.

 

[Logic]

You could just start back over at step 1, then do them if the registry SID key is there for the old profile getting this error.

If not able to, then see if you are able to create a new user account to use instead while you are signed in to the built-in Administrator account.

I got it to work. Thank You for all your help and for responding VERY quickly. I just have one more question. How do I get back my files that I backed up? Again, thanks for your help.

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome. Glad to hear it.

You could just copy and paste them back. Be sure to only do so with say your document, music, etc... files, and not say your old AppData folder.

 

[Logic]

Alright, will do. Thank you! Have a nice day Shawn

 

[Brink]

Anytime. Take care.

 

[Tomgeorge1024]

Brother, the thing is that I don't have 'profile list' folder in the specified location what to do now ? :O

 

[Brink]

Hello Tom, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Double check to make sure that you have gone to the correct location in the registry. You may have gone to the wrong one by mistake. Possibly "Windows" instead of "Windows NT"??

If you still don't see "ProfileList", then post a screenshot showing your registry to see if I may be able to spot what could be wrong.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2598-screenshots-files-upload-post-eight-forums.html

 

[Tomgeorge1024]

This is it bro..and thanks for the help in advance

 

[Brink]

Tom,

You just didn't get to the ProfileList key location below yet. Your screenshot is only up to the location highlighted in red below so far. Just a bit more to go.

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

 

[Dkblight]

Hello Brink, I had my fun time deleting long file names and doing everything you said to do, but I'm still unable to switch users. I deleted my profile folder, I deleted the path reg keys, when I try to switch users, it does not give me the option to backspace just gives me admin, though in user accts my profile is still showing. Do I delete my profile acct and creat a new one or is there some trick I'm not seeing?

 

[Brink]

Hello Dkblight, and welcome to Eight Forums.

This tutorial will not help with "switch user" issues. Are you able to sign in to the user account normally instead of through switch user?

Please use the tutorial below to get more details about the user accounts on your PC. Afterwards, post back with the contents of this information to see what may be wrong with the account.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorial...-view-detailed-information-about-windows.html

 

[Dkblight]

No, i had the temp profile, corrupted profile, deleted the folder, did the reg edit like instructed, but only option was admin, i ended up refreshing the computer, currently running updates.

 

[Brink]

I hope it will sort it for you.

 

[Dkblight]

Just tried to update too much too quick, so having failure updates....just a hell of a weekend.

 

[MrMinex001]

ok i can find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList anywhere on my comp?

 

[Brink]

Hello Mr. Minex, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Double check to make sure that you are navigating to this path in the left pane of Registry Editor (regedit). It will be there like in the screenshot under step 5.

 

[mzapalac]

Just wanted to say Thanks for writing this guide to fix that error.
I've had multiple computers at work throwing this error at the employees, so I'm sure you have their thanks as well.

I took the liberity to write a quick fix tool that will remedy this problem on the local machine via the steps original post provided.
I've wrote it to speed up my daily fixes, but wanted to share it with everyone here to make all of our lives that much easier.

It's written in C#, and such required the .NET framework + Admin rights to function.
Tested and working on Windows 8 pro 64, Win 7 Pro 32, Win 7 Enterprise x86/x64

Thanks again, and enjoy!
Fixer tool can be found at: Mark Zapalac's Creations: Quick Fix - Temporary User Account Registry Fixer

 

[Jyot]

I have followed all these steps. But in the part of deleting the user name folder, I could not delete it as a window appeared while deleting saying that the folder is in use which was not the case. So, I deleted the other folders in the user name folder and then I tried to delete the user name folder again and the same message appeared saying that it could not be delete as it is open. So I closed the window which was doing the recycling, and I assumed that everything was deleted. So, I proceeded with the following steps. When I completed step 12, I signed into my account. I could not obtain my account, that is, all my tiles in my start menu has disappeared, there is only five tiles left (Internet Explorer, Store, File explorer, One drive, Desktop). And I can not open my PC settings. What should I do now?
Please help me.

 

[Brink]

Hello Jyot, and welcome to Eight Forums.

While signed in to the other administrator account, see if you may be able to delete this account, and create a new user account to use instead.

User Account - Delete - Windows 7 Help Forums

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/5536-user-account-add-new-user-windows-8-a.html