Thunderbird DAILY Update Problems
A recent Thunderbird DAILY update caused changes to my layouts and headings. Also, when I tag emails now they are not in color although the colors in the list of tags are all still there. And a new permanent Filter Bar showed up that I can't get rid of.
I had hoped that a subsequent daily update might correct these problems but that has not happened. This is the release I'm currently on: 111.0a1 (2023-01-26) (64-bit).
I sure would appreciate help in getting things back to the way they were last week. Thank you.
All Replies (4)
Here is a screenshot to go with the question I posted.
Thunderbird Daily is a development version and literally updated daily. It is meant for testing purposes, but certainly not for production use. Also, you should be prepared to experience problems at any time, since these builds aren't thoroughly tested. As a tester you're expected to raise bugs in Bugzilla, so that issues can be fixed quickly. If you don't know how to deal with problems in Daily, why are you running a daily build in the first place?
Christ1:
Since my question is far from the only one about DAILY here, I appreciate your taking time to respond. Perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me the easiest way to transition back to Thunderbird or point me to information on how to do that. Thanks again.
Downgrading from daily to release version is not a simple step and may take some effort. The reason is that Thunderbird does do some profile "migration" actions between major versions, e.g. when address book storage format has changed, just to give an example. So you may end up with an empty address book if you try to run the release version with the profile used with daily before. Before doing anything else make sure you do have a full backup of your current daily profile. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data#w_backing-up-a-profile
The following assumes you download the 64-bit Thunderbird release version from https://www.thunderbird.net/
Install the release version in a separate directory, but don't run it from the final window of the installer. Windows key+R and enter the path to the release .exe with these arguments:
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird Release\thunderbird.exe -p --allow-downgrade
The -p switch starts Profile Manager, where you can select a profile that was run in a beta version, and --allow-downgrade should allow access by TB release to a profile run with TB beta or daily.
More information at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/dedicated-profile-thunderbird-installation#w_what-happens-to-my-profile-if-i-downgrade-to-a-previous-version-of-thunderbird
If the forced downgrade fails for the reasons described above:
- restore the backed up profile for daily
- Install the release version in a separate directory, but don't run it from the final window of the installer.
Windows key+R and enter the path to the release .exe with these arguments:
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird Release\thunderbird.exe -p
The -p switch starts Profile Manager, where you can create a new empty profile. Start Thunderbird release only with the new profile.
You'll then need to re-create your account(s) in the new profile. Any data you do need from the daily profile (address books, local folders, pop folders, etc.) you need to either copy over from the daily to the newly created profile. Some data may need to be exported from the daily profile, and imported into the new profile.