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Address book disappears every time I close Thunderbird; profile folder contains numerous abook.mab files (win10)

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by jsoboleski

jsoboleski
jsoboleski
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I just got a new Windows 10 computer and I installed Thunderbird on it. I also installed the Owl add-on so I could use Thunderbird with my company's Exchange Web Mail. Not sure if Owl is related, but mentioning it just in case.

Collected addresses book is not remembering any address I've used since the new installation, even in the same day, and even though I selected the option to automatically add Email addresses to Collected Addresses.

When I click on Tools > Address Book, it's all just blank. There are no address books showing in the list.

When I look at my profile folder, I see a glut of .mab files and it's creating new ones all the time. It's up to "abook-18.mab" so far. There are also numerous .bak files.

I tried deleting all the .mab files and restarting, but it just re-created them all, including duplicates & multiples.

I'm getting error messages like "Unable to load address book file abook-3.mab. It may be read-only, or locked by another application. Please try again later."

and

"Unable to open the summary file for Inbox. Perhaps there was an error on disk, or the full path is too long."

Not sure if the two messages are related, but I wanted to mention them both.

I just got a new Windows 10 computer and I installed Thunderbird on it. I also installed the Owl add-on so I could use Thunderbird with my company's Exchange Web Mail. Not sure if Owl is related, but mentioning it just in case. Collected addresses book is not remembering any address I've used since the new installation, even in the same day, and even though I selected the option to automatically add Email addresses to Collected Addresses. When I click on Tools > Address Book, it's all just blank. There are no address books showing in the list. When I look at my profile folder, I see a glut of .mab files and it's creating new ones all the time. It's up to "abook-18.mab" so far. There are also numerous .bak files. I tried deleting all the .mab files and restarting, but it just re-created them all, including duplicates & multiples. I'm getting error messages like "Unable to load address book file abook-3.mab. It may be read-only, or locked by another application. Please try again later." and "Unable to open the summary file for Inbox. Perhaps there was an error on disk, or the full path is too long." Not sure if the two messages are related, but I wanted to mention them both.

Modified by Wayne Mery

All Replies (3)

Toad-Hall
Toad-Hall
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re :It may be read-only

Exit Thunderbird and access the profile name folder. Right click on eg: abook-3.mab file and select 'Properties' Under Attributes: Is the 'read-only' box selected? If yes, then uncheck Is the 'hidden' checkbox selected? If yes, then uncheck and click on 'OK' also check the same for 'history.mab' (this is the 'Collected Addresses')

Wayne Mery
Wayne Mery
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  • Top 10 Contributor
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Q1: What is location of your profile per Help > Troubleshooting ?

Should be something like C:\Users\-name-\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\-profiledir-

Q2: Go up one directory and check the profile properties to make sure it is not read only. If it is not read only, start windows in safe mode and then try THunderbird. Better?

jsoboleski
jsoboleski Question owner
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Thank you, Wayne Mery and Toad-Hall for the tips on read-only. I followed both of your instructions and found that you were correct, some of the files were set to read only. I made sure they were not set to read only. Unfortunately, that only solved the problem temporarily, and then the next time I restarted my computer, the files were all read-only again. I ended up uninstalling & reinstalling Thunderbird. I also did NOT reinstall Owl. I think Owl might have been part of the problem. It was a great little add-on, but it seemed to make Thunderbird too unstable for me, and with Owl removed, I'm not longer having the issues above. Unfortunately, Owl had solved some other issues (Ghost folders that never disappear after rename/move/delete. Not syncing well with Outlook 365 mail that my company uses), so removing Owl brought those issues back. The result is that I don't use Thunderbird as my primary mail program any more. I've been using Outlook (gah!) and Outlook Webmail (bleh!). Sad. :(