Upgrading from very old version of Thunderbird. All messages have gone blank.
Just upgraded from very old 45.6 version of TB to 78.0. All messages in ALL mailboxes are now blank.
I quickly backed up the entire profile folder so haven't lost any data because I can still run the old version on the original profile. I'm just testing the new 78.0 version with a copy of the old profile.
I have tried various listed remedies such as deleting all the .msf files, or manually editing the X-Mozilla-Status values. None of this works. All of the message headers still show, and the e-mails are truly there in the mail box files (e.g. "Inbox") if I open them with a text editor, but they all show blank in the new version of TB.
Is there some incompatibility with the two versions (45.6 vs 78.0)?
Is there anything I can do to get the new version of TB working with the old profile?
Chosen solution
Okay thanks. Extremely helpful. You made a difference today, sleep well!
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If you run in safe mode (hold Shift when you launch TB), are the messages visible?
Okay, did it with the -safe-mode switch. And yes, yes yes, I can see the messages now!!!
WTH is up with that? Does that suggest a way to fix it?
BTW, running the new version appears to have trashed my address book (abook.mab) -- it was only 2kB afterwards. But there was a much larger abook.mab.bak that I was able to copy over the original and it recovered the address book. There's probably some other stuff that got lunched too but I have not found it yet.
Launch again in safe mode, check 'Disable add-ons' and 'Reset toolbars and controls', 'Make changes and restart'. Does it still work now in normal mode?
Migration of old profiles is possibly fixed in the upcoming 78.1. If you had asked me before, I would have recommended not reusing an entire, older profile, but creating a new one with 78 and migrating data manually.
Yep. Works now w/o safe mode. Thank you so much.
What I'm tempted to do then is wait for 78.1...but in the mean time, and since I still have a good copy of the original profile I will try creating a new profile in 78.0 and then manually migrating as you say. I think this means copying some of the old profile files over to the new.
The only thing I'm not clear on is just which files to copy -- or it might be easier to specify which files NOT to copy.
Also, if you want me as a guinea pig, I'll report back when 78.1 comes out as to how it handles the old profile.
Copy abook.mab (Personal Address Book) and history.mab (Collected Addresses) from the old profile to the new, while TB is closed. Copy mbox files - the large ones with no extensions, named after folders - from Mail\<popserver>, Mail\Local Folders and ImapMail\<imapserver> (if you haven't synced with the IMAP server) to Mail\Local Folders of the new profile, WHen you restart TB, the folders will appear under Local Folders in the Folder Pane. If you have network calendars, you will probably have to install an add-on such as TbSync 2.16 to sync them in 78. There are other files that can be transferred, but those are the main ones.
Chosen Solution
Okay thanks. Extremely helpful. You made a difference today, sleep well!
In version 78, addressbooks have been migrated to sqlite database file. Do you not see your addressbook(s) after starting thunderbird?
All I know is this:
1) The profile was created and used in TB 45.6. 2) After upgrading and running TB 78.0 the first time address book was empty, and abook.mab had been reduced from over 100kB in size to 2kB. 3) After overwriting abook.mab with abook.mab.bak and restarting TB, the address book was restored. 4) I did not touch any sqlite files during this process.