How to Fix "We can't sign into your account" and 'You've been signed in wit

How to Fix "We can't sign into your account" and 'You've been signed in with a temporary profile' Error in Windows 10

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 is stored in the user's C:\Users\ profile folder, and 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.

If a user signs in to their account and gets We can't sign into your account message and You've been signed in with a temporary profile notification message below, then that user has been signed in to a temporary profile (ex: C:\Users\TEMP ) instead of the profile from their C:\Users\ profile folder. Any changes that the user makes to the temporary profile are lost after signing.

We can't sign into your account

This problem can often be fixed by signing out of your account and then signing back in. If you don't sign out now, any files you create or changes you make will be lost.

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 tutorial will show you how to fix the "We can't sign into your account" and "You've been signed in with a temporary profile" error for a user account in Windows 10 and Windows 11.

   Note

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

• Open Event Viewer (eventvwr.msc), and expand open Windows Logs and Application in the left pane.
• Right click or press and hold on Application in left pane, click/tap 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.

To be extra safe, it is recommended that you back up the contents of your "C:\Users\(user-name)" profile folder before doing the steps in this tutorial.

EXAMPLE: "We can't sign in to your account" and "You've been signed in with a temporary profile" notifications





Here's How:

1 Restart the computer 4 times, each time letting your PC get to the Desktop before the next restart. This will often fix this issue a lot of the time. If not, then continue on to step 2.


2 While signed in to the account with the temporary profile, open a command prompt.

3 Enter the command below into the command prompt, and press Enter.

 whoami /user

SID (Security Identifier) for this current account. You will need to know the SID (ex: S-1-5-21-....-1001) for your account in the steps below. (see screenshot below)

5 If this account is a standard user, then you will need to sign out and sign in to an administrator account to be able to continue on with the steps below.

If this account is an administrator, you will be able to continue on with the steps below.

If you do not have an administrator account available to sign in to, then you could boot into safe mode, enable the built-in Administrator system account, sign out, and sign in to the Administrator account.

6 Press the Win + R keys to open Run, type regedit into Run, and click/tap on OK to open Registry Editor.

7 If prompted by UAC, click/tap on Yes.

step 4 above is listed with (ex: S-1-5-21-....-1001.bak) and/or without (ex: S-1-5-21-....-1001) .bak at the end. (see screenshot above)

10 Do step 11 (Only SID without .bak), step 12 (Only SID with .bak), or step 13 (SID without and with .bak) below depending on what you see in step 9 above.

step 14 below. This new profile folder will be like starting with a new account though.