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|Strange Migration Problems - Multiple Profiles in New Install

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  • Last reply by AGB

AGB
AGB
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Longtime TBird user here. All my installatiions are under Win10, and I'm presently using 68.9.0 (32 bit). I'm very used to transferring the contents of my Profile folder from one installation to another, with very few problems.

HOWEVER, I've just bought a new laptop and installed 68.9.0 onto it. I simply cannot get my existing TBird data and settings to migrate. What has me baffled is that while in the old laptop installation, I have one profile folder (let's call it 12345678.default, the new installation has 2 new pofile folders (let's call them abcdefgh.default AND ab34ef78.default-release. I've never seen that before. And I can't seem to make any migration work.

Usually, I would make sure both TBirds are shut. Copy 12345678.default to a USB drive. Open abcdefgh.default and delete its contents. Then paste the contents of 12345678.default into abcdefgh.default. In the past, I've done that literally hundreds of times, without any significant problems (across 4 separate machines that I use in different locations).

It's not working this time. And it doesn't work if I paste into ab34ef78.default-release instead. Either the new TBird refuses to open; or it opens in SetUp mode, having created yet more profiles. I've tried this every which way, now about 10 times. And I've tried unistalling and re-installing the wholoe of TBird on the new machine "just in case".

What am I doing wrong? And what's that **.default-release profile about? All help gratefully received!

Longtime TBird user here. All my installatiions are under Win10, and I'm presently using 68.9.0 (32 bit). I'm very used to transferring the contents of my Profile folder from one installation to another, with very few problems. HOWEVER, I've just bought a new laptop and installed 68.9.0 onto it. I simply cannot get my existing TBird data and settings to migrate. What has me baffled is that while in the old laptop installation, I have one profile folder (let's call it '''12345678.default''', the new installation has 2 new pofile folders (let's call them '''abcdefgh.default''' AND '''ab34ef78.default-release'''. I've never seen that before. And I can't seem to make any migration work. Usually, I would make sure both TBirds are shut. Copy '''12345678.default''' to a USB drive. Open '''abcdefgh.default''' and delete its contents. Then paste the contents of '''12345678.default''' into '''abcdefgh.default'''. In the past, I've done that literally hundreds of times, without any significant problems (across 4 separate machines that I use in different locations). It's not working this time. And it doesn't work if I paste into '''ab34ef78.default-release''' instead. Either the new TBird refuses to open; or it opens in SetUp mode, having created yet more profiles. I've tried this every which way, now about 10 times. And I've tried unistalling and re-installing the wholoe of TBird on the new machine "just in case". What am I doing wrong? And what's that **.default-release profile about? All help gratefully received!

Chosen solution

To partly answer my own question...... I'm not sure why this should have worked, but here's what I did to get everything working as it should be (after many, many attempts).

All the Moz advice that I can find tells me to open the new TBird, use Help>Troubleshooting>Open Profile Folder; then to exit TBird without doing any set-up of accounts; and then to do the date transfer as above. However the only way I could get a data transfer to happen properly was to set up at least one of my email accounts , then open the new profile, then close TBird, then do the transfer into the *.default-release folder. On re-opening the new TBird, I saw all my email accounts, all up-to-date, with all my prefs and add-ons working.

So, there you go - one extra step to do, for a new set-up and data transfer.

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AGB
AGB Question owner
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Chosen Solution

To partly answer my own question...... I'm not sure why this should have worked, but here's what I did to get everything working as it should be (after many, many attempts).

All the Moz advice that I can find tells me to open the new TBird, use Help>Troubleshooting>Open Profile Folder; then to exit TBird without doing any set-up of accounts; and then to do the date transfer as above. However the only way I could get a data transfer to happen properly was to set up at least one of my email accounts , then open the new profile, then close TBird, then do the transfer into the *.default-release folder. On re-opening the new TBird, I saw all my email accounts, all up-to-date, with all my prefs and add-ons working.

So, there you go - one extra step to do, for a new set-up and data transfer.