email accounts disabled

Did you have a Thunderbird or a PC crash yesterday? Your screen shot shows the same main window on Thunderbird startup as my attached picture after I deleted the most important prefs,js file in my Thunderbird profile folder before starting Thunderbird. So I presume that your prefs.js file in the Thunderbird profile has been damaged for an unknown reason and renamed in prefs-1.js oder invalidprefs.js. At the same time Thunderbird has created a new pristine prefs.js file of a 6 to 7 kB size which doesn't contain any account setiings. This is the reason why your Thunderbird window displays an empty folder pane, and probably your Account Settings tab is empty, too.

Please go to Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Folder > Open Folder, then exit Thunderbird. In the profile folder search for a prefs.js file and retrieve its size. Also look for a (bigger) prefs-1.js (or invalidprefs.js) file with a an actual time stamp.

Hi , thank you very much for your reply.

The PC and Thunderbird did not have a crash, I had checked emails 2 days ago and all was working fine.

Regarding your advise

"Please go to Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Folder > Open Folder, then exit Thunderbird. In the profile folder search for a prefs.js file and retrieve its size. Also look for a (bigger) prefs-1.js (or invalidprefs.js) file with a an actual time stamp."

Since I am not a very PC "wizard" could you please explain better what should I do with these files? Should I erase them?

Please check attached image

Thank you for your excellent screen shot! It proves that your "old" prefs.js file with a size of 64 kB has been renamed in "invalidprefs.js" for an unknown reason (most times this is caused by a crash or a power outage), whilst a new virgin prefs.js of 7 kB size has been created automatically. So the culprit for the loss of your accounts is known. The good news is that accounts and messages are still stored in your profile folder.

How solve this problem? If you have a recent backup of your profile folder make a copy of the prefs.js file in the backup and replace the prefs.js file in your actual profile folder with the 64 kB copy. You must exit Thunderbird before the replacement. Probably you have no backup, so go back in your profile folder, exit Thunderbird, remove the 7 bB prefs.js file and rename "invalidprefs.js" in prefs.js Then restart Thunderbird and report back.

If your old prefs.js file is really corrupted, renaming the "invalidprefs.js" won't work and you'll have to recreate all your accounts manually. If you have been using the IMAP protocol you'll automatically retrieve your folders and messages. If you have been using the POP protocol and/or the Local Folders to store messages it will be a bit more complicated to retrieve folders and messages, but I'll direct you until you got them back.