adding to this, I went through a spell when I could not move messages from my inbox (unified or otherwise) to sub folders, until I restarted Thunderbird.

This is painful.

The developer of cardbook has updated it to deal with 78. +1 to make cardbook THE addressbook for Thunderbird.

FWIW There is a fair chance that provider will be available the week after this week.

Thanks, here's hoping.

It seems strange that the 68 -> 78 'upgrade' came down my ordinary apt channel on 17 July, when the web site clearly says that it will NOT be offered as an upgrade, only a new install.

Thanks, here's hoping. It seems strange that the 68 -> 78 'upgrade' came down my ordinary apt channel on 17 July, when the web site clearly says that it will NOT be offered as an upgrade, only a new install.

Nothing strange at all. Updates on Linux are managed by repositories and their distributions maintainers. So the Thunderbird team has nothing at all to do with the update process on Linux, only Windows and Mac. It is up to the Linux maintainers to make themselves aware of things like this. It will be a disaster for enigmail users on your distribution as as enigmail /PGP is no more as an addon and the integrated release will not appear until Thunderbird 78.2. Lets hope the read the update notice in Enigmail and don't accept the update when offered.

Actually, I am on the "thunderbird-mozilla-build/stable" package, not the one from my distribution.

Still maybe a different group of people again...

Nothing strange at all. Updates on Linux are managed by repositories and their distributions maintainers. So the Thunderbird team has nothing at all to do with the update process on Linux, only Windows and Mac. It is up to the Linux maintainers to make themselves aware of things like this.

The official Linux builds from https://www.thunderbird.net get updates the same way as the Windows and Mac OSX builds. It is the third-party package builds that get updated separately from the official Thunderbird updates.

the releases the Thunderbird team have control of are here https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/all/

You will be getting your packages through your distributions package manager. That is a distribution thing. Nothing to do with the folks that build the software. Thunderbird or any other packages really. What packages are added to the package manager is set by your distribution and generally the distribution builds the package from source, that is how they know what the dependencies are.

There is no Mozilla stable package, because Thunderbird does not come from Mozilla. So I am guessing your dealing with things that were automated years ago. Human involvement is probably minimal. After all, the default code base involves reaching out to Thunderbird.net servers to check for updates and Linux distributions build versions that do not do that, the reach out to the package manager. On non linux distributions the preferences > Advanced panel has an update entry with setting to check for updates, does yours?

Thanks Matt and James for your input.

It's a worry that I may be dealing with some abandoned (but still running) automated output. I need to get off that moving walkway since it's obviously leading me astray. I was trying to get compatible addins (needing a newer point version than my distribution was then offering) without going away from the apt/synaptic system.

I don't have Advanced under Preferences, but I do have Updates under General. The two options are Allow Thunderbird to O Automatically install updates

• Check for updates but let me choose whether to install them. <-- selected

No-one seems to be suggesting how I can go back to 68 and keep my converted-to-78 profile (which means several years of email in some folders). Is that out of the question?

If it is, should I be uninstalling the thunderbird-mozilla-build/stable package of 78 using apt, and then install what instead?

For now I have locked the thunderbird-mozilla-build/stable package in synaptic so hopefully I will stop moving forward until my distribution catches up (or I upgrade my distribution- not preferred).

Best Graham

Here's how the thunderbird-mozilla-build/stable package is described: "Mozilla Thunderbird, official Mozilla build, packaged for Ubuntu by the Ubuntuzilla project."