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thunderbird opens in "set up your existing email address" no inbox or anything else

Thunderbird Profiles
Mapenzi replied
SuMo Bot
SuMo Bot

thunderbird opens in "set up your existing email address" no inbox or anything else

How do I get my email back to its normal state?

thunderbird opens in "set up your existing email address" no inbox or anything else How do I get my email back to its normal state?

All Replies (1)

Mapenzi
Mapenzi
  • Top 25 Contributor

This issue is rather typical for a corrupted prefs.js file, which is one of the most important files in the Thunderbird profile. The prefs.js file can get damaged because of a Thunderbird crash, a PC crash or power failure. When this happens Thunderbird renames the damaged prefs.js file in prefs-1.js (prefs-x+1.js) or invalidprefs.js and creates a new pristine prefs.js file of a 6 to 7 kB size which doesn't contain any account settings.

When you get the start page prompting to "set up your existing email address" go to Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Folder > Open Folder..., then quit Thunderbird . In the profile folder search for a prefs.js file of 6 - 7 kB size with the actual timestamp and a much bigger prefs-x.js with an actual timestamp.

If a damaged prefs.js file is the culprit the easiest solution would be to replace it with the prefs.js file from a recent profile backup.

SuMo Bot
SuMo Bot Question owner

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