Yours is the first I've heard report this - consider yourself unique.

A. Collect some data please - shut down Thunderbird, start it up, click in the message list, open error console (ctrl+shift+J), have "Errors" and "Warnings" visible only, right+click in the error list and pick "save all messages to file".

B. Do Help > Troubleshoot Mode - does the problem go away?

no that didn't change anything

how do I send in the error file you asked me to create?

Do you have Cards View?

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1427384

I finally uninstalled TB and reinstalled it and that restored the column headings when nothing else worked. Thx for all the suggestions.

You can email the console error log to me please wayne@thunderbird.net

I have the same problem. No column headings. The information that IS displayed is unusable to me. No correspondent or "from" column, only other column, 90% of width, is the subject and first line of the message. Very hard to use. Ronk uninstalled TB, and reinstalled to fix the problem. I am afraid to do this because I fear that when I re-install TB, I will need to reinstall every e-mail account (I have about 8), redo and replace all the settings. Should I worry about this. I know if I just got the headings back, and could edit the headings and solve all of my other related questions. I was advised by my guru, in response to a different problem, to delete my e-mail account, and reinstall. It solved my problem, but I had to re-establish my settings. But that was for only one e-mail account; how much worse for eight accounts.

Here is a screenshot for the question on "no columns."