Thunderbird hasn't changed. What worked a week ago should work today.

I just got Thunderbird latest up. My address list was there. It wanted me to get thousands of gmail already downloaded over years, All of my folders that I have created to organize my emails are gone. When I search for emails from someone who as sent me hundreds I can not find one.

No choice but to recover my old c partition and NEVER let Mozilla upgrade Thunderbird again.

I am upset. WHAT HAS THUNDERBIRD DONE.

I am running Windows 11 if that makes any difference.

The other 57 times that I have upgraded Thunderbird there has been no problem. Just click the requestor yes Thunderbird closes and then comes right back up with the new version. This time when I tried going back to a previous version (which I have several times before) because there was a problem with it not connecting to comcast. When Thunderbird came back it obviously did not recognize that I already had Thunderbird on my computer and wanted me to put POP3 and IMAP and set up the program for the first time. That is why my file folders and old email were not recognized. This is the first time I have done this since I installed Windows 3. Just a thought. If Thunderbird has not changed then something else has. I run a very up to date computer.

Going backwards is not only no longer supported, it is actively prevented. So a change of approach on your part to problems will be required.

Having said that the change forces a new profile. You can force a return to the old profile using command line startup options. but as the storage formats of various profile components is not actively being changed, for the first time in many cased in more than a decade, some data loss is almost guaranteed from a downgrade. That is why the downgrade protection exists.

I discuss the downgrade process at the bottom of this blog post https://thunderbirdtweaks.blogspot.com/2019/09/i-lost-my-profilemail-on-update-to.html

Trying a Feb 22 version must have done something because even trying the most current non BETA version will still bring up the start over POP and IMAP start up sequence. I will have to recover my c drive but I have to be careful because of Windows 11 I now have UEIF instead of BIOS.

I want to thank you for helping me with my problem. I appreciate this.

Bill Detert / Springfield / IL

I have no idea what you are talking about here "will still bring up the start over POP and IMAP start up sequence. " Are you expecting one particular server to be polled for message before another.

That did occur in the days of a single threaded Thunderbird where each task had to complete before the next could start, but now mail fetch spawns multiple threads to fetch mail from multiple account simultaneously. I fail to understand what the fetch order should make in any case.

I think that I have figured out what is happening. If you have never had Thunderbird on your computer and you download a version (current or older) it presents you with a screen that wants your name, email address, password. It also asks you to select POP or IMAP. After this it shows the amount of email on the email site (this case gmail) and lets you download it (it could be in the 10s of thousands). it also does not contained the emails that Thunderbird has downloaded over the years. It does not have the folders like "purchases", "finance" etc. I have a thunderbird folder on my D:\ Data partition. It still has over 3.5 Gigs of previous email.

The bottom line is something is triggered on my computer so that no matter what I download from the Thunderbird site it thinks that this is the first time. Everything that used to come back after an upgrade is not found by your program.

Again, thanks for you help. I appreciate it.

Bill Detrt / Springfield / IL

I see no alternative other than to recover the C drive. If I uninstalled the Thunderbird that is now on my computer, I do not know what it would do all the emails that I have.

I see no alternative other than to recover the C drive.

I think that would be a very poor choice.

Try locating the profile that was apparently lost that caused the appearance of the new account wizard. I discuss the loosing of a profile in this blog post. https://thunderbirdtweaks.blogspot.com/2019/09/i-lost-my-profilemail-on-update-to.html

We are getting close. My result is this:

Profile: Thunderbird Default profile NO (your example YES) Root directory E:\thunderbird

                             "set as default profile"

Profile: default-release This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted. Default profile YES (your example NO) Root directory C:\xxxxxxx Local directory C:\xxxxxx

wouldn't just clicking on "set as default profile" solve my problem rather than continuing on with your instructions?

for a volunteer you have been very kind on helping me through this. Thanks

The simplest way to work out which is your old profile, and I hope one is, is to use the Launch profile option in the about:profiles.

I do not know how many profiles you have, when I wrote that, I did a lot of trimming as I have some 14 profiles in Thunderbird for various tests, If you only have two, then launch the one that is not the default and see if it works and if it is the correct one. and report your result. It is still possible it will not open, instead complaining about the version it was used with and we may have to force it.

I set E:\Thinderbird as my default profile. Everything came back as before: email, address, folders. My last emails on Thunderbird was 3/28/22. I have not been able to download anything newer even though I can see them on Google.com and Xfinity.com.

If you would please tell me how to reconnect to my email sites. Thanks

Pressing "get messages" does nothing. Including get all new messages, gmail.com and pop2.comcast.net. Thunderbird did not load anything new when relaunched.

Just a thought. Maybe the bad default had already downloaded them before I made the default change. I will wait a couple of hours to see if I get something new and I will let you know.

Everything is working. Thanks and Goodbye. Now if I can just make it so that it never upgrades again.