Hi Phil. Did you get your problem resolved?

TB = thunderbird. v68 series TB & earlier TB, uses mab/mork based TB Address-book. v78 series TB & later TB, uses sqlite based TB Address-book.

in earlier versions (v68) export Contacts from TB AddressBook into CSV,txt,etc file. then after upgrade , you can import them back.

you can also use Converter tools to convert mab/mork based AddressBook file into CSV,txt,etc file then import into upgraded (v78 series) TB.

your earlier address-book files are: either *.mab or *.mab.bak rename *.mab.bak files into *.mab files

you will find those files inside your TB-profile folder here: "%APPDATA%\Thunderbird\Profiles\<TB-profile>\" that is usually here: "C:\Users\<WindowsUserName>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\<TB-profile>\"

By your answer, I can see that you are very knowledgeable of T-Bird. I am sure your directions would work.

However, please do not take this personally, Mozilla should "take responsibility of their mistakes". The address book problem is obviously (to me) an programming/update error. (With over 30 years as a S/W engineer I know coding.)

The typical end user should not be subjected to this sort of forum when mistakes of this sort are made. If users encounter this sort of oversight, it should be reported, yes. Then Mozilla should advise the community of the error and FIX IT... ASAP! (Not let non-employees users suggest esoteric fixes to non-technical users.) Asking end users to jump through technical hoops that they are typically unfamiliar with is just poor service. To simply advise the community of the error and state that a fix is short-coming (priority), is considered a much better customer support approach.

As for me, I exported my address book (backed up) and waited for updates. I updated the last fix sent out and my problem has been resolved -- with no effort from me!!! As it should be.

May I suggest that you pass this commentary on to Mozilla management as a suggestion for future implementation..?

Thanks for your input,

Phil

i completely agree to your good suggestions + advises. i have also said what you've said in my earlier multiple posts . i'm a volunteer.

TB uses Mozilla's core, etc materials, also many other components from many other devs.

TB & mozilla devs are slow at releasing tested+good solution for users/commmunity , but fast at releasing less-tested solution. Too much & rapid changes in source code without long time testing & perfecting by removing bugs , etc, etc have caused such havoc in such a stable software.

some supporters here sometime realized it , but i have not seen a DEV come here or notified the community on their errors. they dont even treat these as errors , or those who do are said/coerced to stay quite. ...

various forms of change is like destiny.

i post tech instructions as an option to solve user's problems , as it is a open source software suppose to be supported by community/users , and user of such software need to understand more than just consuming/using it , users need to participate+contribute their part for this interconnectedness benefit , as it is not a paid service/software.

A volunteer! Bravo! I don't think I've (knowingly) "met" one before, despite this being my.... 30th year online.. probably have talked to a few (outside of direct tech support - even though you are top 10, it's not the same, but a laudable feat on it's own, for sure, many praise and thanks than I could possibly communicate to you I'm sure are well deserved! Thanks to you, my fellow human.

See BELOW to skip my boring babble, sorry...

I sort of started becoming a volunteer myself - tried many times in different ways and places (all comp and prog., though) but nothing really panned out.. So a few years ago after being depressed and suicidal for pretty much 95% of that time.. one brilliant man, (IMHO) who interviewed many others, put a bunch of pieces together in my head. I'm no longer suicidal (as of about 3 years ago when I saw these interviews) and the depression has been helped more than any of the dozens of different concoctions Big Pharma had to offer.. literally infinitely better, since not one of them noticeably helped.. so any help is infinitely better, but actually it was significant (though not gone.. after 50 years... and it was there for good reason) Sorry, babble, cut. I volunteered myself to everyone, because I started programming in '78, and started AI in '86, and after watching some other brilliant newer AI sorta top line PhD types.. pieces came together, and I believe I can put them together when I can afford to and write one. A million in one shot due to the several hundreds of billion dollar organizations spending gobs of cash all trying to do the same thing (nevermind the thousands and thousands of lesser - rich people, down to me.. saving for my next AI workstation upgrade in 6 or 8 months.) All I have to do is beat all the billionaires, etc.. .because there's no 2nd place. But one in a million chance.. if I win the race, I will make as many people's lives on this planet better that they ever imagined could have been. Wish me luck. (I suspect mostly the only ones who won't benefit are/is that religion(s) who don't use technology.. not even light bulbs..)

BELOW to here:

I have a problem with TB I wrote a q around here somewhere about trying to go from v68xx to v78xx on Ubuntu (tried both on 18.04 LTS and 20.04 LTS, fiddling with the data files and all that, but I don't know much about their setup) Be glad all you lost was an address book... my first try, when I ran the new v78.xx, all my multiple email accounts were gone, including all the well over 60,000 emails they contained - like a fresh install. Was I ever relieved when going back to v68 put it right back. .. whew! - but I do need v78..

The thing though (since I've asked elsewhere) is the comments you made about the devs being slow except fast at releasing too soon. (and that version number from normal v1.3.6 or v3.72.185 etc. to one day it like v21.x and couple months later v22, v23.. forget the exact version but I thought that was pointless make-work.. and as I say the other comments you make.. the last couple weeks I've been hearing people complaining about mozilla and their doings.. The complaints I saw all seemed to assume that I already knew what they were talking about. One person even said they were so fed up they're dropping mozilla completely.

Do you know what's going on? I don't watch news (trying to spend every minute saving the world, y'know..) Did I miss something big - internal changes or restructuring, sell-out, whatever..? Do you know what's going on, and could you either give me a quick update, or point me to an article or some such thing.

(BTW.. the early to release thing... nobody will EVER beat Microsoft at that.. they release alpha stuff sometimes, and routinely release betas as Release products, and just let the complaints pour in from their thousands of QA testers who *pay MS* for the privilege of being a beta tester!

So sorry, enough babbling.. if you could help me understand what's going on, if you know what I'm referring to, etc..? I think someone else sort of mentioned something about selling out on privacy or similar(?) I hate having prob 700 or so passwords, but I really also don't like these "Now we've got the wonderful new single-signon for you) The first ones that did that, I think MS tried after not using hotmail really anymore (though I sill have a hotmail email) But now we have a whole bunch of different single sign-ons, so our credentials are flying around.. as soon as someone makes a Quantum computer with however many needed Qbits (few hundred? few thousand?) Every single interaction, I'm pretty sure even all the bitcoin stuff will pretty much as good as clear text... course they'll re-do it with quantum bits, but there will be a bizarre little while where you can walk into anyone's bank account, or whatever.. Not sure if that's at all related though.

Any thoughts or as I say even pointers to specific related articles would be much appreciated, as.. again.. is your Top 10 here, and any other contributions! Greatly!

Thanks for your time,. sorry if I bored you... Cheers! Andrew