You may bet everyone else reading this is wondering the same… Ah! You said in the the title of the post… OK :)

Is the Address Book the only thing that was affected in Thunderbird? Check the following article in case it's relevant to you:

https://support.mozilla.org/kb/recover-user-data-missing-after-thunderbird-update

The article did not provide me with anything helpful to this issue. Are you saying that EVERYONE has lost their address book?

No, I'm saying that something that might explain this could be that Thunderbird is using a different profile for some reason, but then I would expect you to miss more things, not just the Address Book, hence the question I asked.

If you do a search in the c:\users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles folder, you may find abook.sqlite and history.sqlite. These are the technical filenames of the addresssbook and the collected addressbook. You can import them with tools>import>importfromafile. This sometimes happens, that thunderbird creates a new profile and some content is left behind. No, this does not happen to everyone and is likely a glitch wherein an update was interrupted by another program, such as an antivirus product.

Yes, I have lost more than addresses. My history is missing as well as local folders. I thought I had risks well covered by doing regular backups to a local drive with Acronis True Image, and remote backups with Carbonite, but so far I have been unable to successfully recover the missing data.

It makes me irritated . . . was there no adult in the room when the latest release went out? Why wasn't an automatic backup of Thunderbird not made? Why was there no notice that gave an option of whether to proceed with the update? Why can't I go back to the previous version (which would assume a backup was made, I guess!!)

Your response is confusing. If you do regular backups with Acronis, a copy of your addressbook should be there. Thunderbird offers the option to allow automatic update or to do so only with your permission ( see setting>general). Did you check in profiles folder for abook.sqlite and history.sqlite? We are users, just as your are. We don't write the code or design features; we're here to assist. I think you will find them there and the tools>import>import from a file will restore them.

Well, this is looking more and more like the article I linked is relevant to you, since nowhere have you made any mention to having checked whether all your data could be in some other profile…

I have successfully gotten my address book back to what appears to be normal. Now I'm lookin for the subfolders under Local Folders. Should I look under AppData in Local, LocalLow, or Roaming? So far, I've not uncovered where any of them are.

Please take the time to read this article. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/dedicated-profile-thunderbird-installation

It appears to me you have "lost" your existing profile and what is needed is to get it back. I am guessing you were asked to restate your email account when the update occurred. Can you confirm this?

If you have had your profile "changed" to a new one for some reason the effort should be in setting it back to the default, not using an 8lb hammer and a box of railroad spikes to adjust settings on your computer. I am sure you think you know what needs to happen (finding the individual bits and reinstating them). I am also almost certain it is the wrong route.

You were provided this link early on https://support.mozilla.org/kb/recover-user-data-missing-after-thunderbird-update I think this is exactly what needs to happen. Unless some third party product has entirely removed your settings file (antivirus in my experience can do this) then restating the profile to use should be fairly simple.

If a third party product has crashed your data storage then we will have to resort to that hammer and box of railroad spikes. we may also be able to recover the settings file from your backup. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1494400#answer-1713698

But if you have a new profile a direct restore of the file may fix the profile, but it will not instruct Thunderbird to actually use it. The instruction in the recovery article outline the steps to force that. IF you encounter an error in restating the correct profile, there are further steps before you look at recovering individual files from the profile.

This might help. search for "abook.sqlite". Found it in a file, C:/windows.old.

"If you do a search in the c:\users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles folder, you may find abook.sqlite and history.sqlite. These are the technical filenames of the addresssbook and the collected addressbook. You can import them with tools>import>importfromafile. This sometimes happens, that thunderbird creates a new profile and some content is left behind. No, this does not happen to everyone and is likely a glitch wherein an update was interrupted by another program, such as an antivirus product."

This might help. search for "abook.sqlite". Found it in a file, C:/windows.old. look for last oldest.

"If you do a search in the c:\users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles folder, you may find abook.sqlite and history.sqlite. These are the technical filenames of the addresssbook and the collected addressbook. You can import them with tools>import>importfromafile. This sometimes happens, that thunderbird creates a new profile and some content is left behind. No, this does not happen to everyone and is likely a glitch wherein an update was interrupted by another program, such as an antivirus product."

This might help. search for "abook.sqlite". Found it in a file, C:/windows.old. look for last oldest.

"If you do a search in the c:\users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles folder, you may find abook.sqlite and history.sqlite. These are the technical filenames of the addresssbook and the collected addressbook. You can import them with tools>import>importfromafile. This sometimes happens, that thunderbird creates a new profile and some content is left behind. No, this does not happen to everyone and is likely a glitch wherein an update was interrupted by another program, such as an antivirus product."

This might help. search for "abook.sqlite". Found it in a file, C:/windows.old. look for last oldest.

Oh, forgot to add. then import to address book.

In searching for the sqlite files, I triggered an endless search loop. Explorer is asking for the password for each of 3 different email addresses that no longer exist. I have entered various password possibilities, but none stop the popup requests.

I have gone into Credential Manager and on the Windows Credential tab, I have been unable to find anything helpful. I did remove some of the credentials that I either didn't recognize or think were necessary, but I continue to get the popups.

SURE WOULD LIKE to be able to break this loop. Craig

You mention searching for sqlite files as triggering a search loop, yet you seem to be facing a problem of password error, not related to any searches for sqlite files. Does your account reflect the full email address or just the component that is to left of @ sign? Showing a screenprint of error message needs to be supplemented by screenprint of incoming server settings pane.

Both attached

what is shakjazzdeb?

One more question: If the accounts no longer exist, would that possibly account for the password error? I continue to be confused on this.

Yes, that is exactly the issue. The email accounts no longer exist (except that somewhere on my system a search is looking for them.) I thought that by entering the correct password, something productive would come up, or the issue would go away. I do not know what the correct passwords were, however, and multiple attempts with multiple possibilities has been unfruitful. Note: there are three different accounts that IT is looking for.