so I am working through downloading python and chromedriver and dealing with PATH issues re: selenium, pip, etc when I start getting first an email error message: Thunderbird is already running, but is not responding. The old Thunderbird process must be closed to open a new window. I do not have thunderbird open. i confirm in task manager. don't think anything of it. then firefox starts doing the same thing. at this point, I am already uninstalling the other software above to try a new, clean install and I am required to restart. after restart, weird stuff. half my desktop icons and explore files are now faded. neither TB or FF will work. I use chrome, see a bunch of the messages on here to first look at uninstalling and reinstall. Do it. Doesn't work. Next step - run down through appdata, roaming, etc to get to the profiles folders and delete the "profile.lock" file Yes. This works for FF but WTH!!! I open TB and every email is gone. I go thru the process to zip my profile and import. Nope. Doesn't work. So i unzip the file into a thumbdrive and import using eml method. TB does not keep my original format, duplicates all folders, and anything older than early 2023 is there but there is no longer a subject, sender, etc I take a break. Today I am back at it. I cannot access new emails at all. I cannot delete the folders so I make a backup folder, uninstall and reinstall TB and the same thing. How can I reset TB, import the old emails? What is the importance if anything of profile.lock? Any thoughts if working through issues on python, etc caused this?