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

Changes to e-mail signature in Thunderbird don't persist after restarting TB

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by sfhowes

more options

I am trying to modify my e-mail signature. I can change it under Account Settings, and it will work as such until I quit TB and restart it, whereupon it reverts to the original signature. The same thing is true for settings to add the signature on forwarding or replying to a msg. I've tried changing the signature in plain text and in HTML in the dialog box, and also saving it as an HTML file and checking the "Use HTML" box. I think this might have something to do with migrating my Thunderbird profile to a new M1 MacBook Air from a backup of an account on my old Intel MacBook Pro. I doubt it has anything to do with the change in processor, but suspect something (perhaps the prefs.js file) got corrupted, or had its permissions messed up, in the migration, and I don't know how to reset it/them.

Tabs also are not saved between sessions of TB, and tabs don't work properly - e.g, sometimes the last tab will replace all the previous ones (so as one closes the last tab, the one to the left of it gets written over by what the last tab referenced, and this continues with closing each tab). I don't know if this problem is related. I tried deleting "session.json" as suggested by someone (but not session.json.backup), and it does not solve the tabs issue.

Any help will be greatly appreciated, thanks!

I am trying to modify my e-mail signature. I can change it under Account Settings, and it will work as such until I quit TB and restart it, whereupon it reverts to the original signature. The same thing is true for settings to add the signature on forwarding or replying to a msg. I've tried changing the signature in plain text and in HTML in the dialog box, and also saving it as an HTML file and checking the "Use HTML" box. I think this might have something to do with migrating my Thunderbird profile to a new M1 MacBook Air from a backup of an account on my old Intel MacBook Pro. I doubt it has anything to do with the change in processor, but suspect something (perhaps the prefs.js file) got corrupted, or had its permissions messed up, in the migration, and I don't know how to reset it/them. Tabs also are not saved between sessions of TB, and tabs don't work properly - e.g, sometimes the last tab will replace all the previous ones (so as one closes the last tab, the one to the left of it gets written over by what the last tab referenced, and this continues with closing each tab). I don't know if this problem is related. I tried deleting "session.json" as suggested by someone (but not session.json.backup), and it does not solve the tabs issue. Any help will be greatly appreciated, thanks!

All Replies (3)

more options

Transferring profiles seldom produces a clean result unless the TB version is identical on both computers. It will be faster and more effective to create a new profile on the Air, add the accounts, and manually transfer the contacts, local mail etc. from the Pro to the Air. Help/More Troubleshooting, about:profiles, to create and manage profiles. The same procedure is also recommended for the annual major TB update to avoid countless upgrade issues.

more options

Thanks very much for your reply. Unfortunately, this doesn't solve the issue. The method you suggest is actually how I transferred the profile. Any other ideas? Thanks...

more options

If all these errors happened on a new profile, you might have some external 'cleaner' app that resets TB preferences. Note also that signatures are a per account setting.

If you had really created a new profile, there would have been a new prefs.js file - not the one from the old computer, so no chance of transferring a corrupt file.