topic Thunderbird reinstall in Tech Help - Software/Hardware etc

Thunderbird reinstall

penfold — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 07:49:00 GMT

I recently updated my laptop to an SSD and did a clean install of 10. Everything went fine, but when I reinstalled thunderbird something odd happened... I installed, and opened up once. It asked to create new mail accounts etc, which I declined, and shut it down. Navigated to the profiles folder, and there were 2 default profiles..... Not sure why. Coped my old profile files into one of these, and restarted thunderbird, nothing happened, wanted to create a new mail account again. Copied the folders to the other folder, and it all seemed to work OK.. Any ideas why this fresh install of thunderbird created 2 default profiles, or should I not have opened it up before copying my profile files over. I assumed it had to be opened once, to create a profile.

Thanks

Re: Thunderbird reinstall

RPMozley — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 13:54:53 GMT

When you say default profile, is there one that says just default and the other has letters (and numbers I think) at the end?

Re: Thunderbird reinstall

shutter — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 14:48:34 GMT

@penfold

There is a "sticky" tutorial that I wrote above your posting ! ! ! ! !

https://community.plus.net/t5/Tech-Help-Software-Hardware-etc/Transfer-Thunderbird-Emails-etc-etc/m-p/1649948#M86187

You MUST close your "thunderbird" email start page after copying your "local profile"... BEFORE doing any work to change the content..

so... if your "new" profile is setyy1cv then you need to delete all the content.. then copy the "old" profile content into the new one...

close the workings... then restart thunderbird.. and all your old emails, address books etc should appear...

Maybe this one is a bit easier.... and probably how you were trying to do it....

but again... YOU MUST CLOSE thunderbird mail page, before doing the transfer...

https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/Windows-Thunderbird-transfer-to-LINUX-mint-19-1-but-may-work-for/m-p/1650311

Re: Thunderbird reinstall

penfold — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 15:16:42 GMT

Hi both.... thanks for replies

@shutter I read your sticky before doing this. (Very good guide as well!!) I shut down thunderbird before transferring the profile files, but I did open it up after install once, as I assumed it would need to create a default profile first.

I have attached a jpeg of the profiles folder. The one at the bottom is the one that seems to work OK.

Any ideas?

Re: Thunderbird reinstall

RPMozley — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 15:36:01 GMT

“Default-release“ hmm... things must have changed then. Can’t possibly think why change that other than change for the sake of change. There used to be an option to start with profile management, I suppose that’s been removed by now knowing what Mozilla are like these days.

Re: Thunderbird reinstall

shutter — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 15:43:00 GMT

@penfold When you Re-start, or "open" Thunderbird... if there is no profile , then it creates a new one... so ,... in effect...you are "chasing" yourself, with new profiles, everytime you open it..

hence the reason for closing thunderbird while you "copy and paste" the contents of your "OLD" profile, into the NEW one that the new copy of Thunderbird has created...

and you MUST use the "new" profile ( which is empty) file name.... hence closing thunderbird to stop it creating ANOTHER new profile file name...

(I did it recently..and had the same problems, because I forgot to close thunderbird mail page. ! ! )

I think you will find it easier to use the second way of doing the transfer...

Re: Thunderbird reinstall

penfold — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 15:54:39 GMT

This is what I did...
Moved the contents of my old profile to my backup drive.
Installed thunderbird on new drive
Opened thunderbird. It asked me to create accounts. I cancelled and shut down thunderbird.
Browsed to the profile folders, and found the 2 I posted up. 1 seemed to work, 1 not when I delete the contents and replace with my backup files
I suppose I could export the files out of thunderbird again, delete the profiles, reopen and close thunderbird and see what happens....

Re: Thunderbird reinstall

shutter — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 15:58:17 GMT

@penfold You should try it the second way.... remember to use the profile file name that the new install provides.... but..> DELETE all the files and folders,..#

then copy and paste in the contents (all the file and folders ) from the original (old) profile...

into the new profile file name folder...

close all windows... then re-start thunderbird from your desktop icon, ( or wherever you start it from normally) ...

Re: Thunderbird reinstall

RobPN — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 19:00:37 GMT

@RPMozley wrote:
... There used to be an option to start with profile management, I suppose that’s been removed by now knowing what Mozilla are like these days.

Having just checked it seems it's still possible to open Thunderbird profile manager by the original method of typing "thunderbird -p" (without the "") in Windows 'Run' command (dunno about Linux).

That always seems pretty straightforward to me.

Useful info: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-thunderbird-profiles#w_starting-the-profile-manager

Re: Thunderbird reinstall

penfold — Sat, 03 Oct 2020 15:38:58 GMT

OK Sorted now.

Exported out the data from the profile again.

Deleted all profiles and created a new one

Imported all data back into this one.

All working.

Thanks to all who helped.