- click help>moretroubleshootinginformation - scroll down to 'profiles and click 'about:profiles' - click 'create profile', click 'next', enter a name (e.g.PROFILE), click the browse button to locate and select the profile that you say is the right one.

These steps should activate that profile unless the profile is somehow corrupted.

Hi. Thanks for the reply.

Unfortunately, when there are no profiles listed in Profile Manager, there is no Help menu. So those steps couldn't be done.

But I created a new folder, and copied all my files into that, and then did Create Profile from the Profile Manager and pointed the new profile to that folder, and that worked.

(I suppose I could have just pointed to the existing folder. But I was concerned that there might be some internal corruption with that listing or whatever, so I wanted to just create a new profile at a new location.)

Thanks!

I'm glad all is working. As a note, anytime Thunderbird starts with the email setup wizard, you can click 'alt' key to bring up menu, and can then click the help option. I should have mentioned that. Thanks for sharing the good results. :)

Ah! Good to know. Thanks!

Also want to note that I copied the files into a new folder because I didn't want to do "Create Folder" and use a location that already existed, as that might have wiped out my files. But I'm fine with the current config.

So currently there's only the new profile I created (called "Main"). There's no "default" or "default-config" profile. I suppose that won't be a problem for TB?

Also, any idea what caused this and what I can do to prevent it? I have TB and my profiles stored on C:. And I didn't get any error message. Nothing unusual. Just TB was open and working fine. And then when I went back to it (left open) to check my mail, what I described happened. Any ideas about it?

Thanks!

I am clueless on what caused it. And that is why I regularly create full profile backup. The easiest way is to install the importexport addon and use its simple 'export profile' menu.

I have a batch file that nightly backs up important files from my disk to an external drive. I suppose just copying the profile folder via xcopy would work the same, right?

BTW, I noted that there was only one profile in Profile Manager, but that was an assumption, since there had been no profiles previously, and then I created a new one (called "Main").

However, I just went into Profile Manager, and, after creating my "Main" profile and setting it as the default, "default-release" now appears in the list again! Weird.

Yes, xcopy should work as long as thunderbird is not running. I think thunderbird creates that extra profile as a backup. I just ignore it. It can be safely deleted, once your main profile is active.

What would happen if xcopy is used while TB is running?