I lost Everything! Accounts had to be reentered (Win7)
Yesterday my Thunderbird crashed I suppose. When I tried to open it I kept getting that the shortcut for thunderbird. exe have been chenged or moved. I couldn't find thunderbird anywhere. So I downloaded again. Yesterday it worked fine had had all my emails, files and addressbooks. Today I try to open it and I got something that said I had to put in my name email password, basically like putting everything in. I did that for one email and I got my emails BUT I have no addressbook or files. I am at a loss. I am devastated because some of those file had things not only that I needed, but memories (like my father's last emails).
HELP! What do I do. Please understand that I am not a computer geek so please explain clearly, in a way I can maybe hopefully get my information back. I have used Thunderbird for years and this is the first time I have had a problem. Please help!
thank you.
Modified by Wayne Mery
All Replies (20)
No promises, but this may work. When you reinstalled Thunderbird, it didn't find the old profile, so it created a new one. But that doesn't mean the old one isn't there. You can check by going to help>moretroubleshootinginformation, scroll down to Profiles, click 'about:profiles, and the next panel you see will be a list of found profiles. Your old one may be there and you can activate it. If the profile was not compromised by the crash, Thunderbird will use it. And even if it won't use it, your addressbook (file named abook.sqlite, may be in that folder). If that is all you can salvage, thunderbird can import the old addressbook contents into the new one at tools>import>file.
david, thank you. However I cannot even find help. I did find support which got me here. I will keep looking if you can direct me, I will appreciate it.
David, I tried and it didn't work. the only profile listed is when I logged into one of my accounts. Thank you for the suggestion. I am still without addressbook or fiiles.
If the crash destroyed the profile, then all is lost. But you still may poke through the ruins to see what may be salvageable. Look for c:\users\<yourID>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles. Profiles will be in that folder. If there is more than one, the one is probably your original profile. Check dates there. Some components may still be there, such as addressbook (abook.sqlite), and some mail elements in either the Mail or Imapmail directories.
It appears that somewhere in the "update" it all got destroyed. I have looked. This really sucks.
Hi David, Thank you for your time and effort to help. I found a abook.sqlite but am not sure to to get it to work. It is in C:\Users\<my user name>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\rib0ydys.default.
How would I access it? On a good note I manage to restore some of an addressbook although not current. It is for a BOD that I am on.
In thunderbird, click tools>import>file and from there you can specify the addressbook to import.
I think I may have found the abook.sqlite. It is under C:\Users\<my user name>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\mml91npn.default-release. I do not know how to open it or get it on my Thunderbird so I am not sure if it us but it say there are 1536kb and was last modified 9-23 which sound about right.
I you can help me to get this out and working and I get my addressbook I will be grateful. With that being said, are my files and filters also stored somewhere there?
I am not doing anything else until I hear from someone. Thank you!
OK, you now have info to restore the addressbook. what happens when you attempt to use this profile? Was it a POP account? If so, messages may be accessible from the Mail folder in the profile.
David, bear with me. A POP account-- is that like an account that is from a server like cox? In that case it is a pop. I see when I access file through my c drive I get imap mail which are 3 of the ones I out in. When I did that it downloaded every stinking email from my cox emails on the cox email server. I haven't deleted them nor have I put any addresses there as I only used Thunderbird because it was easier to use. Right now I am at one of the email accounts that I had (reputting the name, email, pw). I am not sure how I managed to find the older BOD email list (I have...or had... several of them separate from the "collected emails")
I don't know now. When I hit addressbook it will not come up. It was there before with just the one email list. When I try to click the C:\Users\,my user name>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\rib0ydys.default\adbook.sqlite it says it cannot open it in windows and what program do I want to open it in. What do I do.
I appreciate your patience. As said originally I am not a computer geek although I know some.
Tell me what is now working. From your words, it sounds like Thunderbird is working and you are seeing messages and that your primary problem is the addressbook. True? What happens when you click Tools>addressbook? That is, do you see email addresses? an empty list? errors?
If there are no entries, go to Tools>Import>files and follow to import addressbook and when it prompts for the addressbook to import, select the abook@sqlite you mentioned. That is how you recover it.
When I go to Tools, import it gives me the choice to import everything and that doesn't work. It says impart data and mail photos not found. When I do the addressbook it asks me which file I would like to import. It gives me several choices; Becky Internet Mail, Mork database (.mab), Outlook, Seamonky, text file (then I have to tell it which one and where), and vCard (.vcf) and there I think I have to tell it where. I believe in one of these things is where I got the BOD list (I don't remember now). I will try again but I think it could not get the abook@sqlite to come up.
Thank you for your patience.
If you are using 102, one of the options would have been to import sqlite. If you're using prior release, there may be an abook.mab file you could import.
Modified by david
Yes it says when I go to the text file I can go to the webapp file where the abook@sqlite is but it will now not come up. However when I go through my c drive I can see it. I tried to go through all the choices. It actually showed up on text but then said it couldn't open it up with windows and gave me a choice of looking online or a choice of program options so I backed up. Now it doesn't show up when I try the import.
I looked. It says I have a 91.13.1. When Thunderbird got lost and said my shortcut didn't work. I looked to see if I could find TB and couldn't for some reason. So I downloaded from again from Thunderbird and the first day I was fine the next day (yesterday) was when everything got lost.
Should I update Thunderbird then to 102? I actually thought it would upgrade automatically.
Actually I have that update in my download. Did it hiccup and revert to an older version?
Make a backup of your profile first. Then do the upgrade.
How do I do that?
Copy the folder at c:\users\<yourID>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird somewhere else for safekeeping. You can confirm the location in Thunderbird by clicking Help>moretroubleshootinginformation, scroll down to 'Profile Folder', click 'Open folder' and the next screen will show you the exact location.