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Fresh installl of neither version 60 nor 68 can find my existing profile on file server

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  • Last reply by Matt

JonathanWexler
JonathanWexler
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I have a Thunderbird profile on a file server that can be accessed by any one of the computers on my LAN (obviously, only one at a time). I had to reinstall Thunderbird on one of my systems, and I cannot get it to access the existing profile storage - I keep getting the new account dialog.

I have tried a bunch of variations to the profiles.ini. The following profiles.ini file works on every computer I have except the one I am struggling with.

[General] StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0] Name=default IsRelative=0 Path=\\FAMILYROOM\F\TbirdDad

Additional thoughts: 1. Setting StartWithLastProfile to 0 makes no difference 2. ProfileManager is of no use to me, I do not want to create a new profile. 3. The path (\\FAMILYROOM\F\TbirdDad ) is accessible on the machine in question. 4. prefs.js is not corrupted - other systems can use the profile without issue

And by the way, Is there an old archival version that will work?

Thanks Jonathan

I have a Thunderbird profile on a file server that can be accessed by any one of the computers on my LAN (obviously, only one at a time). I had to reinstall Thunderbird on one of my systems, and I cannot get it to access the existing profile storage - I keep getting the new account dialog. I have tried a bunch of variations to the profiles.ini. The following profiles.ini file works on every computer I have except the one I am struggling with. [General] StartWithLastProfile=1 [Profile0] Name=default IsRelative=0 Path=\\FAMILYROOM\F\TbirdDad Additional thoughts: 1. Setting StartWithLastProfile to 0 makes no difference 2. ProfileManager is of no use to me, I do not want to create a new profile. 3. The path (\\FAMILYROOM\F\TbirdDad ) is accessible on the machine in question. 4. prefs.js is not corrupted - other systems can use the profile without issue And by the way, Is there an old archival version that will work? Thanks Jonathan

Chosen solution

Have you tried using the profile manager to simply "restate" the profile location by creating a new profile in the same physical location. ie new profile at \\FAMILYROOM\F\TbirdDad

See https://thunderbirdtweaks.blogspot.com/2019/09/i-lost-my-profilemail-on-update-to.html

I document to some extent the new about:profiles and how to invoke the profile manager in Thunderbird 68

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Matt
Matt
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Chosen Solution

Have you tried using the profile manager to simply "restate" the profile location by creating a new profile in the same physical location. ie new profile at \\FAMILYROOM\F\TbirdDad

See https://thunderbirdtweaks.blogspot.com/2019/09/i-lost-my-profilemail-on-update-to.html

I document to some extent the new about:profiles and how to invoke the profile manager in Thunderbird 68

JonathanWexler
JonathanWexler Question owner
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That worked. Thanks. Although I am a little surprised, since the profiles.ini file created by profile manager is about identical to the one I hand-edited. There must be some persistent storage in addition to that ini file.

Thanks again

Matt
Matt
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The issue is in the last version the profile was used with. This is particularly an issue in windows when changing from 32 to 64 bit executable because the path to the EXE file changes.

The test involves checking the update history, and I think this becomes a problem when it is not there, like in a new install and you copy in the profile. But I don't really understand the code and reading the bug reports since it was released, I am not sure the Mozilla engineers are fully across it either. It looks simple, but it keeps breaking kind of complex.