Changes made to contacts in address book are lost the next time I startup Thunderbird.

Please check Tools > Error Console for warnings or errors.

Have some errors as follows but no solution?

gloda.indexer: Problem during [job:folder id:64 items:0 offset:0 goal:null], bailing: NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND: Component returned failure code: 0x80520012 (NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND) [nsIMsgLocalMailFolder.getDatabaseWithReparse]

   _indexerEnterFolder resource:///modules/gloda/IndexMsg.sys.mjs:638
   _worker_folderIndex resource:///modules/gloda/IndexMsg.sys.mjs:1258
   workBatch resource:///modules/gloda/GlodaIndexer.sys.mjs:1071
   callbackDriver resource:///modules/gloda/GlodaIndexer.sys.mjs:858
   _timerCallbackDriver resource:///modules/gloda/GlodaIndexer.sys.mjs:784

GlodaIndexer.sys.mjs:1159:21

Hi mikeh5,

Thanks for posting the Error Console output. The NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND message is related to Thunderbird's Global Search (Gloda) indexer, so by itself it doesn't necessarily explain why changes to your contacts aren't being saved.

Since the changes appear to work until Thunderbird is restarted, the address-book database may be having trouble being written or may be corrupted. Similar Thunderbird cases have been resolved by rebuilding the affected address book.

Before making any changes, I'd recommend backing up your Thunderbird profile. Then, if this is your Personal Address Book, you can export the contacts to an LDIF file, close Thunderbird, and rebuild the address-book database. If you tell us which operating system you're using and whether the affected book is the Personal Address Book or another address book, we can give you the exact steps.

I am using Windows 11 on a laptop and the address book is Contacts that I uploaded from another previous older laptop that I used to use. Please provide instructions as I do not know how to backup profile or rebuild address book database.

Hi mikeh5,

Yes. Since the contacts were imported from your old laptop, let's make a backup first and then rebuild the address book. Don't delete anything until the backup and export are complete.

Back up your Thunderbird profile. In Thunderbird, go to ≡ > Tools > Export, choose Export, and save the ZIP file somewhere safe. This includes your accounts, messages, address books and settings. Open the Address Book. Select the “Contacts” address book in the left-hand pane, right-click it and choose Export. Save it as an LDIF file somewhere safe. This gives you a separate copy of all the contacts. Close Thunderbird completely. Open Thunderbird again and go to Help > More Troubleshooting Information. Find “Profile Folder” and click “Open Folder”. Then close Thunderbird again. In the profile folder, look for the address-book database. Since you're using a recent version of Thunderbird, the address book is stored in an SQLite database. If “Contacts” is the imported address book, its filename may not simply be abook.sqlite, so don't delete or rename files at random.

Because your address book is named “Contacts” rather than the default “Personal Address Book”, I'd like to avoid telling you to remove the wrong database. If you can post a screenshot of the files in the Thunderbird profile folder, we can identify the correct one before you change anything.

Once we identify it, we can rename the database rather than delete it, restart Thunderbird so it creates a fresh address book, and then import the LDIF backup. This approach has resolved cases where Thunderbird accepts address-book changes but does not retain them after restarting.