Quick Fixed: User Profile Service Failed the Logon Windows 10

Why Receive Windows Update User Profiles Service Failed Error?

When you log on to a Windows-based computer like Windows Vista/7/8/10/11, you may receive the following error message:

"The User Profile Service Service failed the logon. User Profile cannot be loaded" Or "The User Profile Service service failed the sign-in. User profile cannot be loaded."

In general, this may be caused by a temporary profile. Also, Windows might not read your user profile correctly.

How to Fix User Profile Service Failed the Logon in Windows 10

Before trying the following methods, you need to restart your computer and log on with your user account again to see if this error still occurs. If so, please try the following methods to resolve your problem.

Method 1: Enable Built-in Administrator in Safe Mode

After you receive "User Profile Service failed the logon Windows 10", you may be able to access the Sign in screen or not. You can access safe mode in both situation, but the method is a little differences. 

#1: Go to safe mode with Sign In screen

• Start your computer, hold down Shift and select Power > Restart in the Sign In screen. 
• Then, you computer will restart to recovery environment in Windows 10, click Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Startup Settings > Restart.
• In the Startup Settings window, click on F6 or select Enable Safe Mode with Command Prompt to boot in Safe Mode.

#2: Go to safe mode when you cannot access Sign In screen

• Press the Power button to shutdown your computer completely and then restart it. Repeat this operation twice or more, then you will access the recovery environment window.
• Open the Startup Settings window and enable safe mode with command prompt by the last two steps in #1.

After accessing safe mode, type the following command to enable built-in administrator. Then, hit Enter to excute it. Then, log off from the current user and switch to the administrator account.

net user administrator /active: yes (Check for the spaces)

Note: If you want to disable the admin account after troubleshooting, type net user administrator /active: no.

Method 2: Fix User Profile Server Failed to Logon using Registry Editor

To edit the registry you'll have to sign in as a different user, but if you have only one user account, you can also use Safe Mode to edit the registry.

Part 1: Check the status of user profile service

 Type services.msc in the search box and select it to open the Service window. Then, find out the User Profile Service, double-click it, set the startup type as Automatic, and click Start under the Service status. After that, check if you can log on with your user account.

Part 2: Check the Registry settings

In general, the Default profile key can be %SystemDrive%UsersDefault. However, if you upgraded your computer from a previous version, this may be changed automatically. In this case, you need to open Registry Editor and change back the Default key.

Type regedit.exe in the search box and press OK to open Registry Editor. Then, navigate to the following path, find the Default string and change it to %SystemDrive%UsersDefault.

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

Then, check if you can log on with your user account.

Part 3: Change the Registry

In the Registry Editor window, go to the following path, find the subkey and folders began with S-1-5 (SID key) followed by a long number. Then, Click each S-1-5 folder, double-click the ProfileImagePath entry in the details pane and find out which is the user account profile with the error.

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

Here you will see two situations, one is you have two folders starting with S-1-5 followed by some long numbers and one of them ended with .bak, and the other is have only one folder starting with S-1-5 followed by long numbers which end with .bak. 

• If you are in previous situation, you need to add .bak to the S-1-5 folder without .bak and remove .bak for the S-1-5 folder with .bak.

• If you are in the later situation, right-click the S-1-5 folder with .bak, click Rename and remove .bak at the end. 

Afterward, you will get the S-1-5 folder without .bak, click it and set value of RefCount and State to 0. Then, you can close the Registry Editor and restart your computer, check if you can log on with your user account.

Part 4: Delete the SID and create a new profile

To delete user profiles, you have two ways in the following:

#1: Through Computer Properties

Type View advanced system settings in the search box and select it. Then, click the Advanced tab in the System Properties dialog box and then Settings under the User Profiles area. At last, select the profile that you want to delete and click Delete.

#2: Use Registry Editor

Open Registry Editor, find the following registry subkey. Then, right-click the SID that you want to remove and click Delete. Afterward, log on to the computer and create a new profile.

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

How to Prevent Data Loss from User Profile Service Failed Error Again

You can easily fix the User Profile Service Service Failed the Logon in Windows 10 using above methods, but there is a possibility of system instability and crashes, and data loss due to them. Also, there are many computer failures may cause data loss, such as, error loading operating system. Thus, it's suggested to backup system regularly with a free backup software, so you can restore system and data back no matter what happens.

AOMEI Backupper Standard is a great choice to backup Windows 10 due to the following advantages:

Backup system automatically: It supports daily, weekly, monthly schedule backup, so you can backup system with a specific interval. 

Backup only changed files in the system partition: By default, this software supports block-level incremental backup, which backup only changed block in files. It saves you much backup time and disk space. 

Other Useful features: It uses normal compression, intelligent sector backup, automatic splitting to further reduce backup image size. Also, it is able to create Windows 10 boot repair USB, especially useful when your computer fails.

And all the operations are based on intutive interface, so users can understand and use it easily. Please download AOMEI Backupper Standard, install and launch it.

(PS: This software applies to Windows 11/10/8/7/XP/Vista. For server users, try AOMEI Backupper Server.)

Step 1: In the main page of AOMEI Backupper Standard, click Backup and System Backup.

Tip: There are other four backup types available in AOMEI Backupper: Disk Backup, Partition Backup, File Backup and Cloud Backup. You can try them based on your need.

Step 2: Select the destination path to store system image and all the boot-related partitions are selected automatically. 

Step 3. Confirm the backup task and click Start Backup to create a system image in Windows 10. 

This is a single system backup task that only includes contents currently on the system partition. If you make any changes or add new files, installed programs, they will not be in the system backup.

If you want to keep all of them, it's suggested to set Schedule Backup for this backup task. You can choose among Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Event trigger, and USB Plug in. The last two premium features are available on the professional version.

By default this software will create one full backup and 6 incremental backup if you set a scheduled backup task. This may result in backup disk full issue in the long run, thus it's suggested to enable Backup Scheme and delete backup file automatically. You have 3 options, By quantity,  By time, By daily/weekly/monthly. You need to upgrade now (5% off for one computer) before using it. 

And the incremental backup has high requirement for recovery while differential backup is much easier. For differences between them, learn my previous article: Incremental or Differential Backup.

Besides, you still can enable email notification after the task finished. Comment, split, compress the backup image, or select a backup mode, etc. 

And then, you will have the latest backup including everything on the system partition. Thus, you can restore system to new hard drive if something bad happens.

If your computer fail to boot, you restore system with bootable USB or CD/DVD created in advance. Also, you can choose to create a recovery environment in Windows 10 if you don't have any storage device. It helps you boot unbootable computer and is more convenient. You can see Enter into AOMEI Backupper option at the system startup.

Conclusion

You can choose to fix the User Profile Service failed the logon in windows 10 with 2 methods above. Besides, you need to pay more attention to system and data security, since modifying the registry editor may result in system issues. In view of this, it's suggested to schedule backup system with free backup software - AOMEI Backupper Standard.

And then, you can restore system image to new hard drive even if the original disk is corrupted. Also, this applies to restore image to multiple computers as long as you use its image deploy tool in the technician or techplus edition. For differences between them, see the edition comparison page.