Thunderbird 78 upgrade. Lost data (win10)
After 15 years of faithful service Thunderbird has betrayed me, just after I made my annual donation too!. In response to an invitation this morning I upgraded to V. 78 expecting the transition to be seamless from v. 68 where I had the latest upgrade installed. I had to create a new profile but was then unable to find any folders or messages relating to the old profile. I can see the data is still there in the original Default profile but when I try to run that profile a message tells me it can't be done. I've searched everywhere for a simple solution but nothing I've tried seems to work. I tried uninstalling v.78 then re-installing the previous version but it refused to run telling me a newer version had amended the profile. I have used PCs professionally but now aged 81 I'm beginning to feel things may have moved a bit too fast for me. Is there a simple answer, please? My wife uses Thunderbird as much as me and is equally dismayed to be unable to find previous correspondence, address books etc.
Modified by Wayne Mery
Chosen solution
old Address-book is in the "abook.mab" & "abook.mab.bak" , "history.mab" & "history.mab.bak" files , "impab-1.mab" & "impab-1.mab.bak" files, etc inside the TB-profile sub-folder.
all TB profiles are here: "C:\Users\<WindowsUserName>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\" under above folder-location, you will very likely find multiple TB-profile sub-folders: they look like: "xxxxxxxx.profile-name-01" , "xxxxxxxx.profile-name-02" , etc, etc.
more info on: Convert MAB/mork Files Into Other Format Files see if any tools from above linked page is useful or not.
inside the mab/mork based TB Address-Book , if it has any complex/custom fields/categories,etc then v78 series TB cannot sometime convert it into SQLITE format successfully , but with newer (TB) versions its becoming better in that conversion process, i guess.
if that does not help or you cannot do/apply any, then i suggest to downgrade to previous version TB first & use older TB-profile folder with it , then manually convert the Address-Book into simpler addess-book , OR , from TB, EXPORT into CSV,txt,etc file, which you can later import into v78 series.
please see below linked pages+info, try to understand steps, & apply what is useful for your case.
INFO for related/other problems/solutions:
• Disabled auto-update of TB : inside the linked page , click on the topside 1st link to goto the auto-update disable instruction page into another website.
• Regain old data(in Windows, by using: downgrade process, or second-TB, or manual file-transfer,etc).
• Downgrade TB in macOS: downgrade by using second-TB , upgrade TB.
• ATT-Yahoo related settings for TB.
• Yahoo related settings for TB.
• Microsoft related settings for TB.
All Replies (2)
Chosen Solution
old Address-book is in the "abook.mab" & "abook.mab.bak" , "history.mab" & "history.mab.bak" files , "impab-1.mab" & "impab-1.mab.bak" files, etc inside the TB-profile sub-folder.
all TB profiles are here: "C:\Users\<WindowsUserName>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\" under above folder-location, you will very likely find multiple TB-profile sub-folders: they look like: "xxxxxxxx.profile-name-01" , "xxxxxxxx.profile-name-02" , etc, etc.
more info on: Convert MAB/mork Files Into Other Format Files see if any tools from above linked page is useful or not.
inside the mab/mork based TB Address-Book , if it has any complex/custom fields/categories,etc then v78 series TB cannot sometime convert it into SQLITE format successfully , but with newer (TB) versions its becoming better in that conversion process, i guess.
if that does not help or you cannot do/apply any, then i suggest to downgrade to previous version TB first & use older TB-profile folder with it , then manually convert the Address-Book into simpler addess-book , OR , from TB, EXPORT into CSV,txt,etc file, which you can later import into v78 series.
please see below linked pages+info, try to understand steps, & apply what is useful for your case.
INFO for related/other problems/solutions:
• Disabled auto-update of TB : inside the linked page , click on the topside 1st link to goto the auto-update disable instruction page into another website.
• Regain old data(in Windows, by using: downgrade process, or second-TB, or manual file-transfer,etc).
• Downgrade TB in macOS: downgrade by using second-TB , upgrade TB.
• ATT-Yahoo related settings for TB.
• Yahoo related settings for TB.
• Microsoft related settings for TB.
> In response to an invitation this morning I upgraded to V. 78
Does that mean you went to the website to download the program and then install it?
Because if you used the "in product" update process (not a website download) then you would never have been asked to create a new profile?