Did this ever work? If so, when did it stop working? Are you new to Thunderbird? What method are you using? Typing+auto-completion, Contacts Sidebar in the write window, starting directly from within the Address Book, or something else?

A common cause for problems like this is that Contact details were imported into Thunderbird's Address Book from a CSV file but items such as email addresses landed in the wrong field.

I have tried all available methods to select a contact from the address book when sending an email. Nothing works. The contact list was transferred into Thunderbird from Windows Live Mail using a CSV file method. Is there anything I can try to correct this problem? Thank you.

Have a close look at the Thunderbird Address Book. Are the email addresses in the email address box? They often seem to find their way into the nickname field.

The name column contains the name and e-mail address all together. the e-mail column only contains the e-mail addresses for about 6 contacts, the rest show nothing in that column. there are no nicknames for any contact, and that is the way it should be. what should I do? I did the import from Windows Live Mail two times using CSV method. Thank you.

Did you use the Import tool to align the fields in the file with the fields that Thunderbird uses? I describe one way to do this here:

http://xenos-email-notes.simplesite.com/417788922

How many entries do you have?

If it's a few dozen, I'd probably just unpick them by hand.

If it's hundreds, I'd go back to the CSV file and check it is correctly structured. The email address should be separated from the name by a comma, or maybe a tab. If names are presented in the form of a single item, such as "David Jones" or "Jones, David" then I'd look at doing a search and replace to split surname from forename with a comma and remove the quotation marks. Thunderbird prefers to work with separate names parts.

The following link takes you to an article that lists the data fields that Thunderbird recognizes in a csv file.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Import_address_list_from_text_file

You may be able to rearrange your CSV file in your spreadsheet program.

I have 60 entries, not so bad. I have tried adding the contact to the "to" line selecting one of the contacts that does not have the e-mail address in the name field, and it worked. Think I know now what to do. Thank you for all your help.

Once the details are correct in address book, you can also use the 'Contacts Sidebar' to add email addresses.

In a Write window, you can enable/disable the 'Contacts sidebar' by using F9 key or 'View' > select 'Contacts sidebar'.

select address book select contacts (hold down Ctrl key to select various) click on eg: 'Add to TO' button