BuddyPress.org

I have found the problem and you were right it was a plugin.

I found an old dev version of the site (with working profiles) and compared the plugins with the live site. The new site had BuddyPress Backwards Compatibilty installed so I deactivated it and now the profiles work. Now I just have to find out who actived that plugin then told me they hadn’t changed anything! Someone owes me a drink!

thank you