Post a crash ID from Help/More Troubleshooting, Crash Reports. An ID is a string starting with bp-...

Post the Add-ons section from Help/More Troubleshooting.

Removing every add-on, language pack, etc. stopped the crashing on exit.

However, If I add even one add-on, when I restart TB, the add-on is inactive even though it shows enabled in the add-on manager.

Which add-ons? A few of them can be installed and appear enabled, but they don't actually work. Save us some guessing and list the faulty add-ons and their versions.

A representative crash report:

bp-de81d943-839d-4a66-9979-131660211017

Several of your add-ons are not the latest version, such as XNote++, Lookout fixed, TbSync and Send Later. Go to the add-on pages on addons.thunderbird.net and install the latest version.

Several of your add-ons are not the latest version, such as XNote++, Lookout fixed, TbSync and Send Later. Go to the add-on pages on addons.thunderbird.net and install the latest version.

As mentioned above, deleting all add-ons seems to have stopped the crash on exit issue but add-ons/extensions still don't load on TB restart.

Also as mentioned above, prior to deleting all add-ons, I clicked on the "Check for Updates". That resulted in an "Updating add-ons" message that never went away or showed any progress.

One would think that updating the add-ons would work or that the upgrade from 78 to 91 would have done it as part of the process (as it has in the past). But alas, that is not the case.

The issue remains that if I close TB, all my add-ons go into limbo when I bring TB back up. They say they are enabled but they do not operate. It doesn't matter if it is one add-on or the whole suite that I'm using. As an example, just loading CardBook, it works until you reboot TB. To get it to work again you have to delete it, reboot TB and then load it again.

For the moment I have reloaded my suite of add-ons and I am afraid to restart TB.

The complete list of add-ons I'm using are: CardBook Confirm-Address DKIM-Verifier FiltaQuilla Full Address Column Message Preview Provider for CalDAV & CardDAV quickFilters QuickFolders Remove Duplicate Messages Simple Mail Redirection TbSync

I don't know why your add-ons disappear between restarts, but I've never seen this issue before. Perhaps create a new profile from Help/More Troubleshooting, about:profiles, add an account, install an add-on of the correct version, then restart TB. If it still disappears, it would indicate to me there's some external app acting on TB's settings. Running OS X in safe mode might test this notion.

I don't know why your add-ons disappear between restarts, but I've never seen this issue before. Perhaps create a new profile from Help/More Troubleshooting, about:profiles, add an account, install an add-on of the correct version, then restart TB.

I don't know why my add-ons disappear between restarts either and that is why I asked the question.

I normally use the default profile created at first installation.

Per your suggestion I restarted TB, created a new profile with a new account from the startup dialog. I got a crash message, however it appeared that TB had actually restarted and proceeded into the configuration dialog.

bp-0ad6309a-6b41-4aa1-bc62-e61d00211017

In the new profile I added one current version add-on (CardBook) from the official repository, and verified it was working. I restarted TB using the new profile and the add-on was still installed and remained working. There was no crash when I stopped TB.

I restarted using the new profile and then added my whole suite of current version add-ons from scratch from the official repository, verified they were present, configured, and working. I restarted TB, and the add-ons remained installed and appeared to be working.

I closed TB and restarted using the default profile. In this profile, previously I had the whole suite of add-ons installed and working. Now they all showed enabled but were actually not running.

I closed TB again and it generated a crash message:

bp-1fafc1a3-12c8-4718-a2dd-8b55f0211017

I started TB again, using the default profile. Once again all add-ons showed enabled but were not functioning.

I closed TB again and it again generated a crash message:

bp-63130936-6f5a-46c6-a780-497220211017

I am sure you will likely suggest using a new profile and starting from scratch. However my default profile reflects the accumulation of about 8+ years of TB usage starting with a migration from Eudora to Eudora/OSE. I now have about 14 accounts, hundreds of filters, addresses, messages, folders etc. as well as migrations through many TB versions since the original OSE migration.

I would believe it is entirely possible that the profile has cruft that is causing strange behavior. To start from scratch is a non-starter however without some migration strategy. AFAIK TB removed all migration tools some time ago and there is no simple migration strategy aside from directory copies which simply duplicates the cruft.

If it still disappears, it would indicate to me there's some external app acting on TB's settings. Running OS X in safe mode might test this notion.

There are no magical external apps tweaking TB settings and I would have to buy an Apple OSX machine to test this notion. Not likely to happen.

Yes, you're on windows and I confused the topic with another one on OS X. You can still run in Windows safe mode to test the effect of startup apps.

Data migration is not too difficult, even if you've never done it before. There are numerous topics on this forum about transferring local mail mbox files, address books, calendars, filters etc.

Yes, you're on windows and I confused the topic with another one on OS X. You can still run in Windows safe mode to test the effect of startup apps. Data migration is not too difficult, even if you've never done it before. There are numerous topics on this forum about transferring local mail mbox files, address books, calendars, filters etc.

Yeah, .... all spread out over the entire community. Not helpful. Especially aggravating when one shouldn't have to be doing it to start with. Sorry but migrating 8+ years of data is difficult and yes I have tried it. It was a CF.

Since it seems that the standard pat answer to many questions is "refresh your profile" there really ought to be a guide as to how to do that instead of trying to piece it together from all the different queries/FAQs/posts etc. Not to mention that the rules seem to change with each version.

Thank you for trying to help. I appreciate that you are likely not being compensated to do so and I apologize if I'm taking out my frustration in your ear.

As you might imagine this kind of activity was not in my work plan. TB is central to my work (firmware developer) so having to spend time to fix IT problems with it is a serious issue.

I do hope someone has some deeper insight. In the meantime, I'm okay unless I have to restart TB. Then I"m screwed. So no, this issue is not closed but I'll cope for now.

If anyone has better ideas, I'm all ears.

It's hardly a 'pat answer' to suggest creating a new profile. It is highly recommended with each major release, whether you think it's necessary or not. There is a standard article that describes it, although somewhat out of date. The time and effort to do it is often far less than trying to fix a damaged profile.

In your case, you could try deleting the contents of the extensions subfolder of the old profile, and deleting or renaming extension-preferences.json and extensions.json in the profile. Then restart TB, install an add-on, and see if it is retained.

Okay, so two days of solid work later, I have recovered my TB configuration after TB91 basically destroyed it.

The "standard article" for saving/transferring profiles referenced by sfhows was pretty much useless as every tool mentioned in the article is either no longer supported or just plain gone from the Internet. Stripping all that away leaves you with a procedure that starts with a new empty profile and suggests copying various stuff from your old profile into the new profile. Unfortunately that didn't work, even when I kept the transfer to a minimum. This was kind of a bottom up approach where you try to salvage all your configurations by copying them into the profile directories.

The alternative, that was ultimately successful (after 2 days of work), was the following procedure:

1. Start with a new blank profile and go through the new account wizard for one account making sure you are offline.
2. Modify the account profile to assure that you don't pickup any mail and/or remove it from the server.
3. Install all your favorite extensions.
4. Close and open TB to verify the extensions remain.
5. Close TB and copy your old Mail(pop3) and Imap directories to the new profile.
6. Manually add a new account making sure the profile is configured to not pickup mail or remove from server.
7. Re-enter alternate identities for the account
8. Configure destination folders for "copies and folders"
9. Configure junk settings.
10. Configure consolidated message store (if applicable) - Advanced settings
11. Configure "Local Directory" to the directory for the account that you copied into the profile from the old profile.
12. TB will require a restart at this point.
13. Repeat step 6-12 for all your accounts.
14. Revisit your accounts and one by one enable mail pickup settings and test sending functions.

Caveats - I don't think my TB configuration is typical but I also don't think it is outrageous:

• I have 11 email accounts configured for various purposes.
• Three of the accounts have a common consolidated message store for historical reasons. The remainder all have dedicated message stores.
• I prefer POP3 mbox configuration so all but one account is setup using POP3.
• Some extensions may require follow-on configuration once all your accounts are setup if address verification is required.
• Because TB likes to immediately start downloading mail upon a new account creation, you will likely need to play with being offline during most of the configuration. If you are not, you are likely to have duplicate messages downloaded. The "remove duplicate messages" extension is quite useful in minimizing the damage.
• I happened to have another machine with TB78 still installed so I was able to reference critical information like passwords and configuration details during the process. Without this, it would have been even more of a nightmare. Unfortunately this other machine is poised to get clobbered with TB91 on its next restart. UGH!

Bottom line is I rebuilt my profile from the top down by re-installing/configuring TB91 from scratch. A very painful process and one I had not been planning on having to do.

It is true that the profile I was using had evolved through many TB version upgrades (10 years+) and likely had any number of dead end settings left around by sloppy migration strategies. But doing the TB78-91 migration was a very big deal. I would say it was very difficult and could have been disastrous. I strongly recommend that the TB team consider reviving migration tools before they pull this stunt again.

I saw much mention earlier about addons, but language packs and dictionaries are addons as well and you appear to have a french one of each installed according to your crash report.

Perhaps just try disabling them and see what effect it has.

I saw much mention earlier about addons, but language packs and dictionaries are addons as well and you appear to have a french one of each installed according to your crash report. Perhaps just try disabling them and see what effect it has.

Thanks Matt, ... short answer, removing/installing language packs/dictionaries or any other extension had no impact on the issue.

This week has been email hell recovering from this debacle. I run TB on two different machines with essentially the same profile and one is still at TB 78. Unfortunately, it downloaded the TB 91 update and next restart it will boot and replay the same debacle. I'm trying to find out how I can disable the auto upgrade after it has already downloaded the update.

The TB 91 upgrade was a complete CF. Bad enough to have to do it once. Doing it twice will be a disaster.

Reporter,

I don't think making a new profile is a proper solution or workaround here (though I haven't thoroughly read everything). But if it comes to that, don't delete your old profile.

Perhaps you are seeing Bug 1732515 - TB 91 - ANY addon causes problems - no add-ons work and does not shut down cleanly?

If not, I would file a bug report https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Thunderbird

A developer has confirmed that your issues would likely be fixed by Bug 1732515. I'm hoping we can get that released soon.

In order to test, wether this is the mentioned bug, could you confirm that you have the online-offline prompt enabled during Thunderbird start?

If so, your issues should go away as soon as you disable that prompt and use "autodetect", "always online" or "always offline".

John, Wayne, (and Bug 1732515 reporter Mike), Thanks for the hard work and the pointer to the bug report.

I think this is the same issue as Bug 1732515 but will test to determine. I use the profile manager to start in my primary installation (WIn10 - TB 91) selecting the "last profile used" as default startup. I also have the online-offline prompt enabled for all profiles.

The differences from BUG 1732515 are that I'm working with 64bit TB 91 and I'm working with a Windows 10 and Windows 7 installation. My primary installation is the Win10 installation which is upgraded to TB 91. The Win7 is still at TB78 (poised to move to 91 with the next restart). This report is the result of my Win10 64bit TB 91 update experience.

On the Win10 installation, as noted above, I created a new TB 91 installation from scratch and have pretty much finalized it after a week of intensive rebuilding and two weeks of tinkering.

I still have my old TB78 based profiles around and I would gladly roll back to TB78 if I knew how to do it and it would help the cause.

I will test the TB78 profile with TB 91 on my Win10 machine turning on/off the online-offline prompt for the profile and report back.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1732515 shipped in 91.3.1, November 12