I-Thunderbird Community Forum

End user here, with Thunderbird for years, now on several machines that I use. Keep getting the warning window about "ESR" change. I have no wish to re-install Thunderbird, on each machine, nor to go beyond the normal updates. Can't tell which "channel" I need to choose. Unwilling to just guess. Could re-install on all five machines, if that's truly necessary. Hope not. An explanation of the simplest way to dispose of this issue, is the help I'm looking for. I think I'm currently set to the lower case address. And arranged such that each machine updates to the current content.

I opened Thunderbird 140.9.1esr from flatpak on Debian 12 and today I noticed a message that says: "Flatpak ESR application ID change We're switching the Flatpak ESR application ID from org.mozilla.Thunderbird to org.mozilla.thunderbord_esr."

1. How does Thunderbird know it's flatpak name is changing? How do i turn off all auto updates including checking things like flatpak name changing?

It would have been highly beneficial to provide a function or procedure to migrate all files (if they existed) from org.mozilla.Thunderbird to org.mozilla.thunderbird. In the absence of such a mechanism, the update effectively behaves like a fresh installation, creating the impression that all user settings and data have been lost.

I resolved the issue by manually copying all files from /home/USER_NAME/.var/app/org.mozilla.Thunderbird/ to /home/USER_NAME/.var/app/org.mozilla.thunderbird/ and restarting Thunderbird, after which everything functioned as expected. This could also have been addressed through a symbolic link to the new path.

I believe more care should be taken when implementing breaking changes of this nature, as many end-users would not know how to resolve this issue on their own. Clear guidance or automated migration would help prevent unnecessary disruption and confusion.