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The changes I make to my address book (either adding or deleting email addresses) disappear when I restart the program.

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  • Last reply by Zenos

smarks173
smarks173
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So when I go into my address book and delete an old contact, it deletes just fine. But when I close the program and open it back up, the contact is back again. Same thing happens if I add a new contact - it appears to add just fine, but disappears when I close and open the program back up. It is so frustrating. It's almost as if it's defaulting back to a certain version of my address book and I can't make any permanent updates to it anymore.

So when I go into my address book and delete an old contact, it deletes just fine. But when I close the program and open it back up, the contact is back again. Same thing happens if I add a new contact - it appears to add just fine, but disappears when I close and open the program back up. It is so frustrating. It's almost as if it's defaulting back to a certain version of my address book and I can't make any permanent updates to it anymore.

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Zenos
Zenos
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I would guess that one of your address book files has become corrupted and Thunderbird can no longer write to it.

Which address book is it? What is its name?

I would export the offending address book using LDIF file format, then remove the broken address book in Thunderbird. After that you can re-import the LDIF file.

If the affected address book is either Personal Address Book or Collected Addresses, it's a little more complicated. These are built-in address books that you're not allowed to delete in the usual way. So, I'd suggest you'd have to close Thunderbird, open your profile and remove the related data file (abook.mab for Personal Address Book, history.mab for Collected Addresses). When you restart Thunderbird, it will generate a new copy of the missing address book. Then you'll need to import the LDIF file to a new address book, and if you want the contacts back where they came from, move them by drag and drop back to the required address book.

Modified by Zenos