User profile service failed the logon

Table of Contents

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

INTRODUCTION

When attempting to logon to a computer you get an error after inputting the username and password along the lines of User profile service failed the logon request or You have been logged on with a temporary user account

This can be due to either of the following issues:

issue with the registry entry for the user account
issue with the default user account

GUIDES

Existing User Profile

When an existing user profile attempts a logon and gets a temporary account or failed logon request. The profile GUID in the registry has been changed and duplicated for a “temporary logon”, (typically by the system adding “.bak” onto the end) this is easily fixed by finding the offending GUID entry in:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionProfileList

Backup the duplicate GUID without the .bak extension and delete it, then rename the original GUID to its original name by removing the .bak (you can tell its the original by the key for the “user profile path” being the UNC filename for the profile location.

New User Profile

When new users cannot login but existing users cant, this is a corrupt default user profile (the template user profile for new users). The easiest way of fixing this is by overwriting it with a copy of the “default” user folder from a healthy machine.