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Loss of accounts from Tbird

  • 1 reply
  • 1 has this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by christ1

Compound65
Compound65
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Still trying to get a peculiar problem sorted. Started with an unexpected problem with Tbird on my Win10 laptop. I turned Tbird on to pick up mail, only to find a single Account on the left of screen 'Local Files' !! No folders, no Emails. Investigated further, and found that my Sky accounts were still listed, but my BT ones had disappeared. No way could I resurrect them - no way could I persuate the system to list the Sky accounts seperatly or show folders. After a while. some Emails began to appear in an inbox under the Local Folders on the left. I decided to overwrite the data on the laptop from my desk PC - using Mozbackup (no-one said this wasn't kept up to date !!!) Didn't work - nothing changed, so took the ultimate solution which works when any other program has crashed - delete prog & re-install. Lost the profile !! Copied it from Desk machine - no luck. My final solution is to sweep the laptop clear of all Tbird info, install a new copy, and put all my accounts and files back in. Will that work ??? Last question - WHY isn't Mozbackup being kept up to date ? It's such an easy program to use ! Far better than all this fiddlig around.

Still trying to get a peculiar problem sorted. Started with an unexpected problem with Tbird on my Win10 laptop. I turned Tbird on to pick up mail, only to find a single Account on the left of screen 'Local Files' !! No folders, no Emails. Investigated further, and found that my Sky accounts were still listed, but my BT ones had disappeared. No way could I resurrect them - no way could I persuate the system to list the Sky accounts seperatly or show folders. After a while. some Emails began to appear in an inbox under the Local Folders on the left. I decided to overwrite the data on the laptop from my desk PC - using Mozbackup (no-one said this wasn't kept up to date !!!) Didn't work - nothing changed, so took the ultimate solution which works when any other program has crashed - delete prog & re-install. Lost the profile !! Copied it from Desk machine - no luck. My final solution is to sweep the laptop clear of all Tbird info, install a new copy, and put all my accounts and files back in. Will that work ??? Last question - WHY isn't Mozbackup being kept up to date ? It's such an easy program to use ! Far better than all this fiddlig around.

All Replies (1)

christ1
christ1
  • Top 25 Contributor
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Investigated further, and found that my Sky accounts were still listed, but my BT ones had disappeared.

I can only guess, your Sky accounts are all POP, and they are set up for Global Inbox? http://kb.mozillazine.org/Global_Inbox

WHY isn't Mozbackup being kept up to date ?

It's an extension, and you should ask that question to the extension author.

so took the ultimate solution which works when any other program has crashed - delete prog & re-install.

You were wasting your time. Profile files are stored separately from the Thunderbird program files. The program files are static and do not change (except when you upgrade the Thunderbird application version). Because we store profile and program files separately, you can uninstall Thunderbird without losing your messages and settings, and if something goes wrong with a Thunderbird update your information will still be available. It also means that you don't have to reinstall Thunderbird in order to delete your information or troubleshoot a problem.

My final solution is to sweep the laptop clear of all Tbird info, install a new copy, and put all my accounts and files back in. Will that work ???

You can re-install Thunderbird as many times as you want, it won't change a thing - see above. If you want to start from scratch with Thunderbird on the laptop computer you should delete any existing profiles using profile manager. https://support.mozilla.org/kb/using-multiple-profiles

Using the profile manager for that ensures that also the entry in profiles.ini will be removed for the deleted profile.

Then follow the instructions in section 'Quick and Dirty without using Mozbackup' to copy over your profile from the desktop computer. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Move_to_a_new_PC#Quick_and_Dirty_without_using_Mozbackup

For the future, create a backup of your Thunderbird profile on a regular basis. https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data#w_backing-up-a-profile

Modified by christ1