This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Profile restoration

  • 3 replies
  • 0 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by david

more options

Further to my problem in https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1424732 where I describe a problem I have with accessing my mail server, I now have a self-inflicted new problem which merits a separate post.

I tried to fix the problem by uninstalling then reinstalling Thunderbird. I first put a copy of my Profile folder onto my desktop (it's 20GB, to big for the Export tool, apparently), uninstalled the product including my Profile and reinstalled Thunderbird. I then copied the backup Profile folder to the C:\Users\billh\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\ folder. I had assumed that the Profile would include all my account details (I had five accounts defined) and all the Local Folders where I have been archiving emails for 20 years, but none of these were restored when I started up the new Thunderbird. It was a blank canvas, asking me to define an account to get started, which I did.

I have seen other solutions to this given on the forum but they don't seem to apply specifically to my setup. Maybe they are for older versions. My Profile folder backup has three subfolders: 1oltjdxc.default, 1oltjdxcBKP.default and 5g4thnfjORIG.default-release My new install (after I copied in the backup) has five: The above three plus ewa0dnv6.default and pkon61kp.default-release

The previous solutions have been to look for files called 'prefs-n.js' where n is a number whose purpose I don't know, but apparently there can be more than one. Renaming the prefs.js file in one of the above folders to prefsBKP.js (or something) and renaming the prefs-n.js file that contains the account names to be included in TB to prefs.js seems to be the accepted solution. However each of the above folders except the '5g4...' and the 'ewa...' ones contain files called prefs.js containing references to the five accounts I had defined previously. None has a suffix number. The 'pkon...' folder has a reference to the one account I defined when starting up TB after the reinstall. I can't delete that account as TB won't let me.

Hope that's not too confusing, but the bottom line question is - how can I get TB to recognise the prefs.js with the full set of accounts and (quite important to me) all my archived emails? I'm assuming the folder called 1oltjdxcBKP.default is the 'master', but surely it would have been used when TB started up the first time after the reinstall?

However, it seems to me, perhaps, that pkon61kp.default-release has taken over from 1oltjdxc.default as the 'master'. Should I just rename the latter as the former (after renaming it as something else? And would it need a 'BKP' version too (presumably just a copy)?

Grateful for any advice. Bill (Windows 10, latest version of TB)

Further to my problem in [http://example.com https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1424732] where I describe a problem I have with accessing my mail server, I now have a self-inflicted new problem which merits a separate post. I tried to fix the problem by uninstalling then reinstalling Thunderbird. I first put a copy of my Profile folder onto my desktop (it's 20GB, to big for the Export tool, apparently), uninstalled the product including my Profile and reinstalled Thunderbird. I then copied the backup Profile folder to the C:\Users\billh\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\ folder. I had assumed that the Profile would include all my account details (I had five accounts defined) and all the Local Folders where I have been archiving emails for 20 years, but none of these were restored when I started up the new Thunderbird. It was a blank canvas, asking me to define an account to get started, which I did. I have seen other solutions to this given on the forum but they don't seem to apply specifically to my setup. Maybe they are for older versions. My Profile folder backup has three subfolders: 1oltjdxc.default, 1oltjdxcBKP.default and 5g4thnfjORIG.default-release My new install (after I copied in the backup) has five: The above three plus ewa0dnv6.default and pkon61kp.default-release The previous solutions have been to look for files called 'prefs-n.js' where n is a number whose purpose I don't know, but apparently there can be more than one. Renaming the prefs.js file in one of the above folders to prefsBKP.js (or something) and renaming the prefs-n.js file that contains the account names to be included in TB to prefs.js seems to be the accepted solution. However each of the above folders except the '5g4...' and the 'ewa...' ones contain files called prefs.js containing references to the five accounts I had defined previously. None has a suffix number. The 'pkon...' folder has a reference to the one account I defined when starting up TB after the reinstall. I can't delete that account as TB won't let me. Hope that's not too confusing, but the bottom line question is - how can I get TB to recognise the prefs.js with the full set of accounts and (quite important to me) all my archived emails? I'm assuming the folder called 1oltjdxcBKP.default is the 'master', but surely it would have been used when TB started up the first time after the reinstall? However, it seems to me, perhaps, that pkon61kp.default-release has taken over from 1oltjdxc.default as the 'master'. Should I just rename the latter as the former (after renaming it as something else? And would it need a 'BKP' version too (presumably just a copy)? Grateful for any advice. Bill (Windows 10, latest version of TB)

Chosen solution

I admit that I occasionally use a hammer - a big one. I'm glad all is well. :)

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (3)

more options

You mention multiple profiles. Normally, the profile is in the users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles folder, but that's not the one you said you used. Also, Thunderbird does not automatically recognize the right profile, but looks at the profiles.ini file to tell it which to open. If it is a new install, it creates an empty profile, which is probably what you see. I suggest you exit TB and use windows file explorer to browse the profiles and determine the one that has most recently been used, as that is probably your preferred profile. My thought then would be to copy that profile into the thunderbird\profiles folder, start TB, click help>troubleshootinginformation, scroll down to 'profiles', click 'about:profiles' and then select that profile from the list.

more options

Hi David and thanks for responding. Your information about profiles is useful to know but I have decided to take a 'sledgehammer' approach which will probably distress the technical purists but (spoiler alert) seemed to work..

I uninstalled TB then did a clean install and did not register any accounts. The help/troubleshootinginformation etc was not available in this empty installation, but on looking at the c:\users\my id\appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles folder, only jdz1j2bt.default-release and pnze9235.default were present, so I guess they're the active folders. I closed TB, made a backup copy of the first one of those just in case then deleted its entire contents. Then I copied the entire contents of my desktop backup of Profiles/1oltjdxc.default folder (which seemed to have all my accounts, archives, contacts etc in it) and pasted them in. Restarted TB, holding my breath.

Bingo. Everything is back. Case closed, except I'm still left with my original problem of TB not communicating with my British Telecom server which nobody has responded to. If that doesn't get fixed soon I will either have to abandon TB for Outlook or something or migrate to a new non-BT email address and tell the world, neither of which appeals.

more options

Chosen Solution

I admit that I occasionally use a hammer - a big one. I'm glad all is well. :)