My Thunderbird program inadvertently 'blends' information from two different contacts in my Address Book into one.
I don't know why or when it does this, but occasionally I find that two different contacts have been blended. I then have to reconstruct the two old contacts, and often lose information from one or the other. I have no idea what I'm doing to cause this.
Thanks!
Endret
All Replies (13)
I think your address book may be corrupted.
Export the contents of the address book as an LDIF file. (If you select all address books then they will all be exported, one after the other. The repeated save as dialogs are not a bug)
On the toolbar > Help> Troubleshooting information.
Click on the show profile button. Close Thunderbird. Move all the files names with an MAB extension to your desktop. (I am assuming you exported them all.) Restart Thunderbird. Import the previously exported contacts. using the tools menu in the address book.
Start Thunderbird in safe mode. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/safe-mode-thunderbird
Does the problem still occur?
Thanks, Matt. This looks helpful. 'm going to wait until I've done an extra backup before trying this. Will let you know if the problem persists thereafter.
Christ1 - I can never predict when the problem occurs, so don't know if your technique would help me. Thanks, though.
Matt --
After mucho techno-intimidation, today I am attempting your fix. Unfortunately there are a few discrepancies that confuse me:
- You wrote to click on the "show profile" button in the Troubleshooting Information dialog box, but I cannot find it there. There is a "Profile Folder" row that has a box called "Show in Finder." Should I assume this is what you mean?
- When I do this I get a folder on my MacBook's Finder called "Profiles," with a bunch of files and folders in it. I see 5 of them have the .mab extension that you recommend moving to my desktop, but you assume I have already exported them all, and I don't know how I wold have done that already.
- I did export the three address books in my Address Book, they are sitting on my Desktop. Now I've quit Thunderbird. I understand that I need to import the three address books, but what do I do with the .mab files?
Thanks, Matt.
Tad
Your mention of "finder" is the first hint that you're using a Mac, not Windows, which will always be the default assumption if nothing is said to indicate otherwise.
There is a "Profile Folder" row that has a box called "Show in Finder." Should I assume this is what you mean?Yes!
Thanks, Zenos. What should I now do with the .mab files now sitting on my desktop? throw them back into the Profiles folder? Trash them?
They are there as a fallback if the export-then-reimport doesn't help out. You can at least go back to just where you were.
When .mab files become damaged, we find that exporting to LDIF fixes up the errors, and we can re-create the original address book by importing the LDIF file. If that has all worked for you, you no longer need the .mab files. But do check your imported address books carefully first!
Thanks, Zenos. My address books contain probably close to 1,000 entries, how would I check them? And to complicate matters, I have no idea how many corrupted entries there were before I undertook the LDIF export/import. Have you any suggestions for me on this?
Matt and Zenos --
I tried both your approaches, and the problem persists. Matt's protocol was complicated, perhaps because I'm running an old MacBook with OS 10.6.8, but I thought I'd followed every step eventually. Have you other suggestions? It's scary that I might lose contact information permanently.
Thanks, Tad
Please post your Troubleshooting Information. At the top right of the Thunderbird window, click the menu button , then select Help > Troubleshooting Information. Press the Copy text to clipboard button and paste the information into your reply.
Application Basics
Name: Thunderbird Version: 45.2.0 User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/45.2.0 Profile Folder: Show in Finder Application Build ID: 20160630070546 Enabled Plugins: about:plugins Build Configuration: about:buildconfig Memory Use: about:memory
Mail and News Accounts account1: INCOMING: account1, , (pop3) mail.sover.net:110, plain, passwordCleartext OUTGOING: , smtpauth.sover.net:587, plain, passwordCleartext, true OUTGOING: , smtpauth.sover.net:587, plain, passwordCleartext, false OUTGOING: , smtpauth.sover.net:587, plain, passwordCleartext, false
account2: INCOMING: account2, , (none) Local Folders, plain, passwordCleartext
Crash Reports http://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-7aad9206-b5ea-4fa8-b290-5ae542160701 (7/1/16) http://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-833e2b1f-5661-4197-a444-55a2e2151107 (11/7/15) http://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-ea801734-5159-4167-b11e-e0c302150111 (1/11/15) http://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-aba20351-0dcc-4acf-a415-0b77d2141207 (12/6/14) http://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-7006ded6-fb4d-4d88-b50f-4c4742141126 (11/26/14)
Extensions Lightning, 4.7.2, true, {e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103} Signature Switch, 1.6.14, false, {2ab1b709-ba03-4361-abf9-c50b964ff75d}
Important Modified Preferences
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Graphics
Vendor ID: 0x8086 Device ID: 0x2a02 WebGL Renderer: Intel Inc. -- Intel GMA X3100 OpenGL Engine -- 2.0 APPLE-1.6.36 GPU Accelerated Windows: 0
AzureCanvasBackend: skia AzureSkiaAccelerated: 0 AzureFallbackCanvasBackend: none AzureContentBackend: quartz
JavaScript
Incremental GC: 1
Accessibility
Activated: 0 Prevent Accessibility: 0
Library Versions
Expected minimum version Version in use
NSPR 4.12 4.12
NSS 3.21.1 Basic ECC 3.21.1 Basic ECC
NSS Util 3.21.1 3.21.1
NSS SSL 3.21.1 Basic ECC 3.21.1 Basic ECC
NSS S/MIME 3.21.1 Basic ECC 3.21.1 Basic ECC
There used to be an add-on (Addressbook in a Tab) which did cause problems for the address book. You do not appear to have that installed. In any case, try to start Thunderbird in safe mode to see if that makes any difference. This has been suggested before. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1124608#answer-881401
Ok, I'm in safe mode now. Will pay attention to see if the problem persists.
Thank you, Chris, for your support.