ابحث في الدعم

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

Thunderbird profile transplant fails, gives "Unable to open summary file" errors and duplicates folders.

  • 1 (رد واحد)
  • 1 has this problem
  • 21 views
  • آخر ردّ كتبه Toad-Hall

more options

I've been trying to transplant my Thunderbird profile from a computer running Windows XP to a computer running Windows vista. Both machines have Thunderbird 53 installed.

The profile is large, with multiple IMAP and POP and Usenet accounts, and a lot of emails stored in "Local Folders" as well, so it's not feasible to rebuild it all by just re-create all the accounts on the new machine, one at a time (41 different accounts). And that wouldn't work for "Local Folders" anyone. So I need to transplant a copy of the profile to the new computer and get Thunderbird to recognize the profile.

However, profile transplant has consistently failed. I wasted over 5 hours on this (from 1AM to 6AM Thursday morning) with nothing but failure after failure.

My transplant technique is simple: 1 I drop a copy of the profile being transplanted (wuerhbg9.default) into the C:\Users\UsrName\AppData\Thunderbird\Profiles folder. 2. I change the "Path" in C:\Users\UsrName\AppData\Thunderbird\profiles.ini from "vrbq8vzg.default" (the skeletal profile created when I installed T'bird on the new machine) to "wuerhbg9.default" (transplanted profile). 3. Start T'bird.

The failure is always the same: T'bird recognizes all my accounts and folders, but gives an endless string of "unable to open summary file for Inbox" errors. If I let it run for a minute, it first erases all my folders, then recreates them, then DUPLICATES them (each folder has a duplicate with the same name except for a "-1" suffix, eg, "Forums_Facebook" and "Forums_Facebook-1"). If I click on any of the folders, I get "Unable to open summary file for inbox", "Unable to open summary file for Forums_Youtube-1", "Unable to open Summary file for Forums_YouTube", etc, etc, etc.

I thought it may be a permissions error, so I made sure that my current user id "owns" the entire "C:\Users\UsrName\AppData\Thunderbird" folder tree and all of the subfolders and files in it. I also made sure that all files and folders have permisisons set so that all of the following get "Full Access": 1. Current user id 2. Administrators group 3. System That's the same permissions as on the "skeletal" profile, which works. So I don't think it's a permissions error.

So, why can't T'bird open any of the summary files (I assume it means the "*.msf" files?)? And why does it first erase all of my folders and emails, and then re-create them, and then DUPLICATE them? I need to get this working, as the old machine is too slow, and Local Folders can't be "re-created" as they exsit on one machine only. Anyone have any idea of what's going on here?

I've been trying to transplant my Thunderbird profile from a computer running Windows XP to a computer running Windows vista. Both machines have Thunderbird 53 installed. The profile is large, with multiple IMAP and POP and Usenet accounts, and a lot of emails stored in "Local Folders" as well, so it's not feasible to rebuild it all by just re-create all the accounts on the new machine, one at a time (41 different accounts). And that wouldn't work for "Local Folders" anyone. So I need to transplant a copy of the profile to the new computer and get Thunderbird to recognize the profile. However, profile transplant has consistently failed. I wasted over 5 hours on this (from 1AM to 6AM Thursday morning) with nothing but failure after failure. My transplant technique is simple: 1 I drop a copy of the profile being transplanted (wuerhbg9.default) into the C:\Users\UsrName\AppData\Thunderbird\Profiles folder. 2. I change the "Path" in C:\Users\UsrName\AppData\Thunderbird\profiles.ini from "vrbq8vzg.default" (the skeletal profile created when I installed T'bird on the new machine) to "wuerhbg9.default" (transplanted profile). 3. Start T'bird. The failure is always the same: T'bird recognizes all my accounts and folders, but gives an endless string of "unable to open summary file for Inbox" errors. If I let it run for a minute, it first erases all my folders, then recreates them, then DUPLICATES them (each folder has a duplicate with the same name except for a "-1" suffix, eg, "Forums_Facebook" and "Forums_Facebook-1"). If I click on any of the folders, I get "Unable to open summary file for inbox", "Unable to open summary file for Forums_Youtube-1", "Unable to open Summary file for Forums_YouTube", etc, etc, etc. I thought it may be a permissions error, so I made sure that my current user id "owns" the entire "C:\Users\UsrName\AppData\Thunderbird" folder tree and all of the subfolders and files in it. I also made sure that all files and folders have permisisons set so that all of the following get "Full Access": 1. Current user id 2. Administrators group 3. System That's the same permissions as on the "skeletal" profile, which works. So I don't think it's a permissions error. So, why can't T'bird open any of the summary files (I assume it means the "*.msf" files?)? And why does it first erase all of my folders and emails, and then re-create them, and then DUPLICATE them? I need to get this working, as the old machine is too slow, and Local Folders can't be "re-created" as they exsit on one machine only. Anyone have any idea of what's going on here?

All Replies (1)

more options

You mention OS XP and Vista. Version 53 states system requirements Win 7 earliest OS. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/53.0beta/system-requirements/

I suggest you uninstall version 53 and install version 52.1.1 https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/all/

You may find it actually downloads an earlier version than stated, then you need to update to get 52.1.1 note: OS Vista is ok for version 52.1.1 https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/52.1.1/system-requirements/