Moved profile isn't working

Hi, I wonder why you have located your Thunderbird profile in that directory Path=C:\Dropbox\Applications\Thunderbird\0q9jw2nn.default

If Thunderbird in Dropbox\Applications\ is really the program (application) Thunderbird, the path is invalid and your PhiLho profile cannot be opened. Also see "Dangerous Directories" https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/dangerous-directories-Thunderbird-account-settings

An easy way to recover your profile would be:

• move the 0q9jw2nn.default profile folder from its actual location to C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\ here

• StartWithLastProfile=0 in your profiles.ini file means that actually when you start Thunderbird it first opens the profile manager: so start Thunderbird and when the profile manager is displayed, create a new profile, click on "Choose Folder...", navigate to Profiles, select your profile folder 0q9jw2nn.default and click "Open button, then the "Done" button and finally "Start Thunderbird".

Thank you for your answer. No, this folder in Dropbox is for applications' settings, not for program themselves, which I don't care to backup. They are outside Dropbox. I will try this "create profile" workflow, that's a step I didn't take. ... No, that didn't work, still "No message found", everything is still empty.

No, that didn't work, still "No message found", everything is still empty.

If you get "No message found" when opening your old profile this means that Thunderbird can access it but for an unknown treason doesn't display messages. Please show a screen shot of the Thunderbird start page where you see "No message found". It may be a "View" problem...

Here is the screenshot.

I fear something critical didn't get moved and is missing to Thunderbird. The error I made is to move the profile folder instead of copying it, because it is much faster on Windows. Although is something was locked, I should have an error message, probably. Or Dropbox was able to manage a file? Unlikely too. Note that Thunderbird was closed when I did the move.

Right now, I have no access to the original computer (will have it later), so I can't tell if TB still works on it. It should be on the latest version or near, I update regularly.

Very strange image: all your accounts seem to be missing. But I am able to reproduce your issue: I removed the folder "Thunderbird" (containing profiles and profiles.ini file) from its standard location in my user Library (mac) to my Desktop. When I restarted TB the start page displayed the new "Account Hub" prompting to add my email address (image) When I closed the account hub I had the same window as shown in your screen shot! (second image).

This means that Thunderbird has created a new profile, and maybe the logic explanation is the following. when you created a new profil in the profile manager you did not "link" the new profile with your old profile folder 0q9jw2nn.default, but clicked on "Done" (Terminé) instead. And Thunderbird logically created a new virgin profile... When you had created and named the new profile in the profile wizard you should have clicked on "Choose Folder ..." (Choisir un dossier), then navigate to your old profile folder 0q9jw2nn.default in Profiles, select it and click the "Open" button, then the "Done" button and finally "Start Thunderbird" (just as I'd explained in my first reply)

Thanks for taking the time to try and reproduce my issue. Although I did follow your instructions. As I said, Thunderbird acts like it doesn't recognize the folder as a profile. Perhaps something is missing. Alas, there is no trace of error in the logs. When I go back to my old computer, I will try to launch TB, hoping at least to recover the data. I hope I don't have years of mail archives lost. I chose TB precisely because it keeps the mails in plain text archives (classical, standard Mime format). So there is a chance to recover data, at least.

Oh ! You might have put the finger on something.

I have a pref.js and a pref-1.js, differing mostly by the stored timestamps. I also have an older one as I zipped the profile, but a bit too late, and it is similar to the other two. But if I compare the pref.js of my profile to the one in the xxx.default-release profile created on the first launch of Thunderbird, I see all the "mail.xxx.yyy" lines are missing, particularly the mail.root, mail.server, mail.identity, and so on.

That's the missing piece, certainly.

I might have an old backup of the profile (too old, I was careless), maybe I can salvage the data from there, when I will be back. Thank you for the hint.

Oh ! You might have put the finger on something. I have a pref.js and a pref-1.js, differing mostly by the stored timestamps.

They also should differ by their sizes! The new prefs.js file must be smaller than the renamed corrupt prefs-1.s file.

But if I compare the pref.js of my profile to the one in the xxx.default-release profile created on the first launch of Thunderbird, I see all the "mail.xxx.yyy" lines are missing, particularly the mail.root, mail.server, mail.identity, and so on.

This is the definitive proof that your old prefs.js - now renamed in prefs-1.js - is our culprit since it doesn't contain any account data (See my attachment of a valid prefs.js)

I might have an old backup of the profile (too old, I was careless), maybe I can salvage the data from there, when I will be back.

Anyway you might make test with the prefs.js file from the profile backup if you didn't add email accounts lately.