Lost profile
I do not understand how profiles work, and hence don't know how to fix my problem. I had a problem with my printer connection, and tried to solve it by rolling back my Linux O/S, (using Timeshift) to a date prior to the printer not connecting. (It didn't help.) But what it *did* do was to screw up my TB, which when I tried to open it, after the roll-back, complained that the TB profile was "newer", and I needed to create a new one. I did this, but then found that all my old emails had disappeared and it had started a complete new collection of emails, and all the mail folders had disappeared . I went back to the data backups from prior to the rollback, (using Cronopete), and was able to find the TB profile (and 5 years' worth of old emails) in the .Thunderbird folder in the Home directory. And I have pursued the profile manager in TB, and located the profile from before my roll-back. But I can't figure out how to recover this old one. I have a button "Set as Default", (I hesitated to commit to this - should I?), and another for "Launch Profile". But when I click on this last, it drops right back into the requirement to create a new profile. I already have one new profile, (which was created when I tried to sign on to TB after the roll-back.) I can't see much point in making yet another one. And I don't really understand how the data are stored in the profile in any case. (emails seem to be in a Mail folder, but are scattered about in a whole series of sub-folders and files within the Mail folder). And some of the numbered "profiles" seem to refer to things other than Thuderbird, (they lack any folder named "Mail".)
All Replies (3)
Here are suggested steps to restore a profile that works:
- click help>troubleshootinginformationroll to 'profile folder' and click 'open folder'
- exit thunderbird - you should now be in the profile.
- now, paste contents of your old profile, overlaying contents of profile.
- if there is a compatibilitie.ini file, delete it
- restart thunderbird
I am terribly sorry, but I am unable to follow your instructions. I get as far as clicking on "Profile Directory". This brings up a file bt2p7ny9.default-release-2. This is in fact the profile which got created 10 days ago, after I rolled back my O/S, and has been delivering my mail for the past 10 days. There are no other choices displayed.
Going into the .Thunderbird directory, (Home/David/.Thunderbird), I get 5 more files labelled "xxxxxxxxx.default-release", two of which have "Mail" folders within them, (but none of them have anything more than recent emails). But in addition to these 5 "default release" folders, (at the .Thunderbird level), there is a folder "Profiles", and within *this* there are 2 folders: oot4skth.default and r0ozv5yg.default-esr. The first of these does not have any folder called "Mail". The second one is the gold: in the Mail folder there are two folders: "Local Folders" and "pop.chebucto.ns.ca". The first of these contains all the emails accumulated over years, divided into the folders in my TB install, and the second looks to be the contents of the inbox at the time when my system went south. What I am trying to do is get these two folders in the .Thunderbird/Profiles folder to be the current default profile, OR move the contents of the folders under the Profiles folder into the current default profile.
In step 3, I was referring to the profile you recovered from the Cronopete backup. If it works, you could paste the contents to overlay the other profile, unless there is content in that profile you want to keep. You posted many words, but we do best in assisting when you give as much detail on the files and folders. Maybe it will help if you list the various profiles and what you want from each. thank you. Once you establish a profile of choice, message folders from the others can be readily copied in.
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