TB Program 'Empty/Bare' after Copying Profile to Portable Drive but Still Visible in Laptop Folder(s)
Greetings. I copied my TB profile to a portable HD last night and something went sideways. TB comes up bare. I did not delete anything purposely. In this stressful state now I am unsure now which folder I copied it from, whether local or roaming. Baffled what I could have done wrong on something so simple as copying.
Am I missing a prefs.js or something, please? Photos attached show portable drive on left and roaming + local on the right.
Thank you!
Isisombululo esikhethiwe
FIXED! Here's what I discovered and did in case it can help someone else. I just knew something was missing and was determined to find just what, though I wasted time thinking it was the prefs.js.
It occurred to me to check my profiles.ini and installs files to see what they referenced, and sure enough, they were old and stale profiles.
The 'real ones' got moved, not copied, to the portable HD. Simply copying them back over to TB roaming folder (after renaming the two stale ini files) did the trick.
All folders, mail, address book, open tabs and files, blah blah -- ALL are there and PERFECT.
THANK YOU SFHowes, for trying hard to help. I appreciate you.
Funda le mpendulo ngokuhambisana nalesi sihloko 👍 0All Replies (6)
Are you trying to copy a setup from a laptop to another computer?
Copy the Thunderbird folder on the source computer:
C:\Users\sourceusername\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird
Delete the existing Thunderbird folder on the target:
C:\Users\targetusername\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird
Copy the source Thunderbird folder into Roaming on the target:
C:\Users\targetusername\AppData\Roaming
Try to have the same version of TB installed on source and target, or at least the target version newer than the source version. Ignore anything in AppData/Local.
Thank you for writing to help; I apologize for not being more clear. No, not a new setup, I was only trying to back up my TB profiles.
1. Very late last night I decided to copy by TB files to a portable drive.
2. I thought I copied from roaming, but it may have been local.
3. Whichever it was 'should not have' disturbed the original laptop TB program or folders/files, but now the program opens up new and wants a new setup, but troubleshooting does show profiles.
4. Two of the 4 profiles in the profiles folder(s) (roaming & local) show up but will not launch.
5. I do remember that during the copy-over phase in the middle of the night, there were files it could not/would not copy and gave the 'skip' option. I did check 'skip all these files' (again those were files being copied to a portable usb drive.
6. Something must be missing in my folders now. I need to get the emails (which still show as 20mg in a mail folder + address bk + calendar even if I have to do something unconventional.
- 7* By now those 2 photos above may not be accurate due to my attempts to experiment for a fix today. If it would help I should delete them. However, any missing files may pop right out to an expert.
-- Is there a way to find out what little file(s) may be missing and keeping it from launching any profiles at all -- or --
Can I copy just the info I need somehow and 'plug those files and preferences' into a fresh install?
Thank you!
Okulungisiwe ngu Catherine_B
I don't know how you could disturb the existing setup merely by copying to a flash drive, even if you copied the wrong folder. Files may have been skipped if they were larger than 4GB and the flash drive was FAT32 format.
Try this: close TB, Windowskey+R, type thunderbird.exe -p This will show Profile Manager, where you should be able to choose a profile, probably named default, and open TB with all your data. Does that work?
I agree with you! It is a mystery. I was way too tired but have done this before in past years and never had a problem.
I followed your instructions exactly and when TB launched, it did not populate with a profile. It launched 'bare'.
The same 2 profiles I referenced above can still be seen in the help/troubleshooting page from the menu, but no luck launching with either profile).
At this point, it's probably faster and easier to transfer data from your old profiles into the 'bare' one that at least opens in TB. With TB closed, copy abook.mab and history.mab from the newest other profile into the bare profile, to copy the Personal Address Book and Collected Addresses. If your accounts are IMAP, add them again, and the mail will download when they sync with the IMAP server. For POP accounts or Local Folders mail it's a bit more complicated, but first try copying the Mail subfolder of the old profile over the one in the bare profile.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Thunderbird
Isisombululo Esikhethiwe
FIXED! Here's what I discovered and did in case it can help someone else. I just knew something was missing and was determined to find just what, though I wasted time thinking it was the prefs.js.
It occurred to me to check my profiles.ini and installs files to see what they referenced, and sure enough, they were old and stale profiles.
The 'real ones' got moved, not copied, to the portable HD. Simply copying them back over to TB roaming folder (after renaming the two stale ini files) did the trick.
All folders, mail, address book, open tabs and files, blah blah -- ALL are there and PERFECT.
THANK YOU SFHowes, for trying hard to help. I appreciate you.