When I run profilemanager in terminal I this I see another profile than the "default" /Applications/Thunderbird.app/Contents/MacOS/thunderbird-bin --profilemanager

But if I select this non-default profile, I get this dialog error: Your Thunderbird profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible.

~~~~~~~ SIDENOTE: I see those errors in terminal: UNSUPPORTED (log once): POSSIBLE ISSUE: unit 1 GLD_TEXTURE_INDEX_2D is unloadable and bound to sampler type (Float) - using zero texture because texture unloadable

That push to account setup implies that Thunderbird doesn't like the profile it is seeing. To verify the profile, I suggest help>troubleshootinginformation, scroll down to 'profiles' and click 'about:profile' . That doesn't 'fix' anything but can confirm that Thunderbird is looking at the right profile. If so, there is a button in upper right to restart with addons disabled. Worth a try? From my experience with many posts on the forum about backed-up profiles, proprietary backups have failed more often than expected, and I do not know why that happens, other than possibly creating the backup while Thunderbird is running, which can cause a backup to be incomplete. If nothing works, you can still salvage the message folders and addressbook (abook.sqlite) to paste into a new profile.

Thank you for your reply David.

1-Seems about:profile is seeing the right profile. 2-I tried clearing the cache & stuff., Changing the profile name, pointing to it in the ini file. Nothing works. Starting without add-ons. Nothing fixes it. 3-Thunderbird was not running when making the final OSX TimeMachine Backup.

4-I am now seeing this in the terminal when launching from there thunderbird-bin[6397:170416] Rethrowing (from nts_ValueForProperty:) NSInternalInconsistencyException: Unhandled error (NSCocoaErrorDomain, 134092) occurred during faulting and was thrown: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=134092 "(null)" CoreData: error: Unhandled error occurred during faulting: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=134092 "(null)" ({ })

5-What Am I going to lose if I create a new profile and simply move abook.sqlite and the message folder? I have tons of addons with their respective setup, rules, filters. I am a power user, but now I am stuck.

thanks again!

I read you loud and clear. Been there, ain't no fun. My thoughts: - abook.sqlite, and message folders are good if they are POP. If IMAP, they will be recreated. - if any POP accounts, there is a popstate.dat file in the account folder. That contains the last downloaded message. copy that in after setting up account or the account will download from the beginning. - message filters are in msgfilterules.dat and are embedded in the account info for each account. Those can be copied directly to the same places in a new profile. - customizations in profile will have suffix that includes the letters 'json', such as extensions.json. I'm not smart enough (as some are on this forum) to know if some may not work, but I suggest looking for all that have those letters somewhere in suffix and copying. - look also for folders with 'extension' in the name. Hey, what the heck. Try them.

I just went back to the previous computer, open and quit TB, and then took the profile folder to the new computer. Same issue. Man this is tedious and so unclear.

I wish there was a TB Profile checker of some sort that could rebuild a profile and keep the maximum setup in place. I wish there was at least some log or report telling me why TB is bugging on my profile! Feels like a permission issue.

I have multiple email accounts in this. IMAP accounts, but some folders are removed from syncing. And I also keep local backups in the local folder to reduce disk usage on remote IMAP server.

So not still not sure how I will rebuild this thing. :/

Ok, try this: - with thunderbird not running, copy the Thunderbird folder from old machine. that folder includes the profiles folder and the profiles.ini file - on new machine, with thunderbird installed but not running, copy the backed-up thunderbird profile to overlay the installed version. That sets the new machine identical to the old machine. - start thunderbird and it should work.

Thanks for your Help David. I created a new profile and pointed to my folder, and now it works. So it seems this was my first backup having an issue? Not sure. Anyway! Thanks so much for the help!

You're very welcome. Be sure to do a full backup now, with Thunderbird not running.