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Thunderbird opens blank, no folder or message pane, on linux

  • 5 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 15 views
  • Last reply by dsims1

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this is a surprise. Thunderbird has always been very reliable. but today, after a Restart my thunderbird just opened up blank. No accounts, no folders... nothing (see attached.)

and nothing responds. Edit > Account Settings does nothing.

Help > Troubleshooting information does nothing.

I thought I had pushed my profile onto a seperate partition but I cannot seem to find it now (the profile that is.)

as of 14h52 this afternoon (that is to say 1 hour ago) I had a Profiles.ini file which showed: [Profile2] Name=PeterTB IsRelative=0 Path=/media/peter/Seagate Expansion Drive/data Default=1

[Profile1] Name=Peter Tbird Email IsRelative=0 Path=/media/peter/Internal 250GB/data/Thunderbird/o7z44xbg.default

[Profile0] Name=o7z44xbg.default IsRelative=0 Path=/media/peter/Internal 250GB/data

[General] StartWithLastProfile=1 Version=2

[InstallFDC34C9F024745EB] Default=/media/peter/Seagate Expansion Drive/data

but I am not seeing that Internal250GB partition.

what am I missing here? I expect I can recreate my email accounts by reinstalling Thunderbird and readding all the accounts (three of them) but that would be a hassle.

where has my profile disappeared to?

plus, I cannot even seem to get into Account Setting even if I wanted to recreate my accounts.

this is a surprise. Thunderbird has always been very reliable. but today, after a Restart my thunderbird just opened up blank. No accounts, no folders... nothing (see attached.) and nothing responds. Edit > Account Settings does nothing. Help > Troubleshooting information does nothing. I thought I had pushed my profile onto a seperate partition but I cannot seem to find it now (the profile that is.) as of 14h52 this afternoon (that is to say 1 hour ago) I had a Profiles.ini file which showed: [Profile2] Name=PeterTB IsRelative=0 Path=/media/peter/Seagate Expansion Drive/data Default=1 [Profile1] Name=Peter Tbird Email IsRelative=0 Path=/media/peter/Internal 250GB/data/Thunderbird/o7z44xbg.default [Profile0] Name=o7z44xbg.default IsRelative=0 Path=/media/peter/Internal 250GB/data [General] StartWithLastProfile=1 Version=2 [InstallFDC34C9F024745EB] Default=/media/peter/Seagate Expansion Drive/data but I am not seeing that Internal250GB partition. what am I missing here? I expect I can recreate my email accounts by reinstalling Thunderbird and readding all the accounts (three of them) but that would be a hassle. where has my profile disappeared to? plus, I cannot even seem to get into Account Setting even if I wanted to recreate my accounts.
Attached screenshots

Modified by Wayne Mery

All Replies (5)

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I should add, I am using Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS

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I have seen some reports where deleting the global-message-db.sqlite from the profile folder helps with this post Thunderbird 68 in every case I have seen so far.

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thank you. but strangely I don't even see my old profile any longer.

in the end rather than mess around with trying to get the old version functioning again I did the following: - I took a backup of a Thunderbird profile from my laptop, - installed a fresh version of Thunderbird on my desktop (where I was having trouble), - copied that backup profile to the location teh new install of Thunderbird was expecting. - modified the profiles.ini file to specify the name of this backup profile folder, - launched the new Thunderbird (and "removed" the old Thunderbird.)

and it opened up correctly.

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deleting "deleting the global-message-db.sqlite" didn't seem to do anything.

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I am seeing the same behavior when upgrading from 60.8 to 68.6 on OpenSUSE 15.1. Everything blank except the menus and such. No mail or accounts.

IMO, this is terrible. Silent fail is the absolute worst behavior in the world. You should at least give the user some clue as to what is wrong.

I downgraded to 60.8 and all is well again.

If someone would like to get some debug info, I will be willing to assist.

Thanks

Dwain