Transfer address book from dead PC
Hi, I'm struggling to access my address book from my old PC, which died.
The hard drive still works so I have been able to access the old profiles (why are there 2?) and replaced in the install of this new machine:
"Your Thunderbird profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible."
So.. that didn't work then. I cannot even load Thunderbird now, just gives that message.
The original machine was Windows 7. I cannot run it, so cannot tell you what version of Tbird it was but it was reasonably up to date. Current install is the very latest.
So... what to do next? I can put a copy of the profile back... OK, can start Tbird again, but how to access the old profile with many years of address book?
Manually copying the profile files into the profile folder doesn't seem to work, even after removing the (new) originals. Rather than using the old ones it's just saying it can't find the newer ones, so I presume there's some way of telling it to use those older ones?
Thanks!
Chosen solution
The key is the little text file, profiles.ini, located at c:\users\yourID\appdata\roaming\thunderbird. If that file can't be located, or if it points to a non-existant profile, TB does not load. The format of profiles.ini is simple to figure out. If you know which profile is the right one, set profiles.ini to point to it and all will be okay.
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Chosen Solution
The key is the little text file, profiles.ini, located at c:\users\yourID\appdata\roaming\thunderbird. If that file can't be located, or if it points to a non-existant profile, TB does not load. The format of profiles.ini is simple to figure out. If you know which profile is the right one, set profiles.ini to point to it and all will be okay.
That absolutely sounds like it should work!
Strangely, it didn't. Upon restarting it asked which profile did I want to use? Default or default release? I don't know the difference so picked one, the release one I think, and it's exactly as before.
So it noticed the change to the .ini file, but despite me naming the old file as the one to use, upon choosing "default release" it's just using the old file again.
Never mind, I think I've given up at this point. I'm sure you're solution would/should work, as it's exactly what I was trying to do, to point the thing at the older file, but somehow it didn't take.
Maybe Windows 7 profiles don't work on Windows 10 or something? I see someone else asked the same question in 2019 and never received an answer, so progress I guess?
Let me look at the ini file again.... yeah, it's just reverted back to the name of the newer file. So even when the .ini was pointing straight at the newer file it just refuses to see it. Yes the file names are correct, as I pasted them; I made a backup copy of the .ini and then changed the file names to the old files but it just cannot see them, somehow.
OK, I accept defeat, seems today's Tbird can't handle Win7 files :/
Okay, the official approach, since TB is working, is to do this : - go to tools>moretroubleshootinginformation - scroll down to 'Profiles' in left side bar. - click 'about:profiles' link - if your profile is in traditional location, it will appear and you can select it. - if it is not, click the 'create profile' button, and then
1. first, create a name. 2. click the browse button to locate your profile
This process lets TB update the profiles.ini file to ensure it's done properly. Let me know how it goes.
Nope, tried that, now I cannot access that screen again because I now just have:
"Set Up Your Existing Email Address
To use your current email address fill in your credentials.
Thunderbird will automatically search for a working and recommended server configuration."
This is a nightmare... OK, I have managed to get back and replaced the ini again with a backed-up ini file. At this point I'll just have to stop.
New PC, new start I guess. It's functional, I just can't access my data (which is dysfunctional really, but..)
Thanks again for trying!