Thunderbird's profile is in the remote folder... not the local one.

C: Users My Name App Data (hidden folder) Remote Thunderbird Profiles

Thanks Matt-I have 3 folders in the App Data hidden folder to choose from: Local, LocalLow, and Roaming. Is Roaming the same as Remote? Within both Local & Roaming folders, I see a Thunderbird folder & then Profile folder beneath them.

I hope replacing the profile in C: Users MyName App Data(hidden) "Local" folder didn't cause an ongoing or irreversable problem if I should have used the Remote or Roaming folder instead to update the profile. I assumed an uninstall & re-install would wipe everything clean for another attempt & get the initial profile back for me to replace, but with the Local profile update I made, Thunderbird is'nt even loading up each time I re-install it (same profile error message).

Related Question: I have a similar issue. I'm not clear on the difference between the "local" and "remote" profile locations.

Will the profile I find via this path work?

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data Is an XP file location

Vista changes this to C:\Users\[User name]\appdata

And yes,, it was late when I replied to you. Roaming is what I meant to say.

I don't profess to understand the local, locallow and roaming really. I just use them. But I do claim the right to quote :) the following is extracted from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955555

Windows uses the Roaming folder for application-specific data that is independent of the computer and that should roam with the user profile, such as a custom dictionary. The AppData\Roaming folder in Windows Vista is the same as the Documents and Settings\UserName\Application Data folder in Windows XP.

Edit: Had to edit remote out of this reply as well... I must need more sleep, or drugs.

Thank you so much for clarifying re XP. (I got a little worried there when you cited a different path, cause I had felt pretty confident up to that point that I had understood the location path (for XP) correctly.)

I just selected all the files inside the profile folder on my XP machine and put them on a USB drive, then opened the profile folder on my windows 10 machine and overwrote the files with the same name. Still getting the same error and unable to open thunderbird.

Any advice on if I can completely erase thunderbird form my new windows 10 machine and start over?

If originally you copy pasted the actual profile folder name, but the second time just copy pasted the Contents from profile folder name into new profile folder name over writing the Contents.

check the 'profiles.ini' file is actually pointing to the profile folder name.

I searched my new windows 10 machine for the profiles.ini file, but was unable to find it. Where is it usually located? Alternatly, can I erase all folders named theunderbird on the new machine in addition to uninstalling thunderbird again before re-installing it & copy & pasting it from my old XP machine to my new 10 machine again? It did initially ask me my e-mail server settings/wizard for time warner cable, so this might have confused it if I used 2 diff. servers (TWC & Bluehost serves)? I'd be happy to manually adjust my settings once I have the profiles (3 e-mail accounts, 2 TWC, one Bluehost) transferred over.

When I opened up the notepad file (next to the profile & crash reports folders), the text line was path=Profiles/_______, not my current profile, so is this the old profile I deleted just after install instead of the profile I want to swap? If I change this name to the desired profile, will this do the trick if this is the pointer file?

btisllc said

When I opened up the notepad file (next to the profile & crash reports folders), the text line was path=Profiles/_______, not my current profile, so is this the old profile I deleted just after install instead of the profile I want to swap? If I change this name to the desired profile, will this do the trick if this is the pointer file?

Probably, as long as there is nothing else worng

The 'profiles.ini' file is in the Appdata/thunderbird folder along with 'Profiles' and 'Crash Reports' folders. 'profiles.ini' file can be opened using Notepad.

As an example: In the 'profiles.ini' file there is a line:

• Path=Profiles/yba3h802.default

where the profile folder name is 'yba3h802.default'. Obviously, it will not have exactly that profile folder name as it is only an example.

This is the line you need to alter, so that the actual profile folder name is shown in the profiles.ini file, then thunderbird will look for that profile folder name. Currently, it probably has the new, but deleted, profile folder name which you overwrote with the one copied from the XP machine. Modify the details so it has the one you copied from XP. Save the file. Start Thunderbird.

Yes, that's what I did and it worked! I forgot I had to rename that wordpad line to the profile I wanted for it to re-direct it inn addition to replacing the profile folder. Thanks for your help!