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Getting "A newer version of Thunderbird may have made changes to your profile..." when trying to open a profile.

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 365 views
  • Last reply by moz1

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"A newer version of Thunderbird may have made changes to your profile which are no longer compatible with this older version..."

Problem is there is NO older version of Thunderbird being launched.

This happens with one particular profile that is being rebuilt with the current (78.13.0 64bit) version. It also happened with the original version of the profile, whatever it was named, which is why I decided to rebuild the profile. Fact is, there has NEVER been any but the current release version of Thunderbird running on these Windows 10 computers; it's happening on 2 different machines.

4 other profiles do not have this problem. They're all customized; I don't use the default profile.

Does anyone know what setting I can change to force T'bird to open this profile? There must be something that T'bird checks - in a sqlite db, json or txt file somewhere - that causes this error message to pop up.

"A newer version of Thunderbird may have made changes to your profile which are no longer compatible with this older version..." Problem is there is NO older version of Thunderbird being launched. This happens with one particular profile that is being rebuilt with the current (78.13.0 64bit) version. It also happened with the original version of the profile, whatever it was named, which is why I decided to rebuild the profile. Fact is, there has NEVER been any but the current release version of Thunderbird running on these Windows 10 computers; it's happening on 2 different machines. 4 other profiles do not have this problem. They're all customized; I don't use the default profile. Does anyone know what setting I can change to force T'bird to open this profile? There must be something that T'bird checks - in a sqlite db, json or txt file somewhere - that causes this error message to pop up.
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Modified by moz1

Chosen solution

If you're sure there's only one TB program installed, try launching Profile Manager from a Run window (Winkey+R): type thunderbird.exe -p --allow-downgrade

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Chosen Solution

If you're sure there's only one TB program installed, try launching Profile Manager from a Run window (Winkey+R): type thunderbird.exe -p --allow-downgrade

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Thanks for the workaround, @sfhowes. I always launch Thunderbird from a run window anyway (as a desktop shortcut) on one machine to force multiple instances with different profiles on different virtual desktops. I can't fathom what gets corrupted that T'bird thinks that this particular profile is from a "newer" version. I'll install 91 shortly to see if this might still be an issue...