Profiles missing in Thunderbird

[nalag46]

Hello,
I have had to reinstall my OS in my second computer and when moving my working Profiles from my first computer according to your guide:
3.Locate the backed up profile folder on your hard drive or backup medium (e.g., your USB-stick).
4.Open the profile folder backup (e.g., the xxxxxxxx.default backup).
5.Copy the entire contents of the profile folder backup, such as the mimeTypes.rdf file, prefs.js file,
bookmarkbackups folder, etc.
6.Locate and open the new profile folder as explained above and then close Thunderbird (if open).
7.Paste the contents of the backed up profile folder into the new profile folder, overwriting
existing files of the same name.
8.Start Thunderbird.

Thunderbird cannot start up. I get the message:

[u]Your Thunderbird profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible.
I have uninstalled TH and loaded it again butt he same message keeps showing up.
What have I missed or done wrong?

[DanRaisch]

Did you edit the file profiles.ini so that it will point to the location on the new installation of the OS? http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_ ... hunderbird
For a concise, less detailed version of the process, see this thread --
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=1421375&p=7251375#p7251375

[nalag46]

I do have a back up of my working profile (main computer).
I copied and pasted all the files into the new profiles created by new installation in second computer and nothing happens.
I thought I would delete the new profiles folder and just leave the uploaded (working default profile) only and now TH will no start and gives me the error message mentioned.
I have tried to do a back up of this profile and I now get the message that "profiles could not be backed up because they are corrupted".
I have read the topics mentioned in your link about creating a new profile but I cannot find or access Profile Manager by following all those complicated instructions.
So where do I go from here?

[DanRaisch]

The instructions for starting Thunderbird in Mozilla Safe Mode are not complicated. Simply hold down the Shift key while launching Thunderbird by double clicking on the desktop shortcut for the program or selecting the icon and pressing the Enter key.

At this point it might be better to wipe out any transferred data and start with a clean slate. To do that:

Clear the browser cache and the Windows Temp directory.
Shutdown any anti-virus software you are running.
Download a new copy of the full installer from http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/
Delete the directory C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird
Delete the directory C:\Users\WINUSERID\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default (WINUSERID is your Windows user login ID and xxxxxxxx is a random string of letters and/or numbers generated when Thunderbird was installed.)
Run the Thunderbird installer. (Thunderbird Setup 31.6.0.exe)
Restart the anti-virus program.

This thread viewtopic.php?f=39&t=996475&p=5239885#p5239885 has a more detailed version of the above instructions if needed.

[nalag46]

Ok. Thanks for all that.
I have now got a new TH installation with a new default profile being created.
I have three email accounts with all their corresponding folders in my "working" computer and now need to transfer them to the above installation. I have created the three accounts there and they are receiving new messages
so I assume it is all working fine, so how do I safely transfer all my folders from the working computer?
As mentioned, all the trouble started when I copied and pasted my working default profiles file to the previous new one and had no respond.

[DanRaisch]

See the link in my first reply in this thread.

[nalag46]

I had already looked that up but I cannot find the profiles.ini anywhere. The link says it is in %APPDATA%\Thunderbird but that just opens the usual XXXXXXdefault folder and there isn't anything in that folder called profiles.ini so what am I supposed to
edit or do? This is where I went wrong before by just copying and pasting before which clearly does not work. I am confused......

[DanRaisch]

By default the profile folder is hidden by the operating system. Did you set Windows to display hidden files and folders? To show hidden folders, open a Windows Explorer window and choose "Organize → Folder and Search Options → Folder Options → View (tab) → Show hidden files and folders".

Did you do a Windows search for profile.ini? It should be in that AppData\Thunderbird directory, not lower down in the directory tree.

[nalag46]

I would not have been able to access the Profiles folder without the hidden files and folders being unticked from hiding?. So back there I had not realised that the INI file I was supposed to be looking for is just a small Notepad file with six shorts lines as it only appears as Profiles. Is this the file?
[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=Profiles/xxxxxxy7.default
So do I just edit the Path name to the one with all the data needing transferring?
Thanks

[DanRaisch]

That's correct.

Note that there is a second option in the path "Organize → Folder and Search Options → Folder Options → View (tab)" to hide the extensions of common(?) file types. It can be helpful to uncheck that so all file type information is displayed by Windows.

[nalag46]

Hi again,
I am still stuck here. I really cannot believe such a procedure should be so complicated? Done all of the above, changed the path in Profiles.ini to new "working" profiles, opened the Profile Folder default back up. copied the entire thing and pasted in the new
profile folder overwriting existing files etc. and after turning on TH, the same message that it cannot be loaded etc. What else have I done wrong here?
I notice that on the Local Folder that also contains Thunderbird/Profiles, the profiles folder showing in there has not changed and is still the original one?? the word puzzled is an understatement.
Help please.

[DanRaisch]

So you still have access to the data on the other computer. Is that correct?
If so, the next thing to try might be to create a new profile ( http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager ) and start the copy process over again. This time, be sure that you are copying only from the xxxxxxxx.default and below. That should leave the profiles.ini file in place on the new profile.

[nalag46]

Yes, the above is correct but how do I create a new profile from "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe" -P ?
I can access the file thunderbird.exe but double clicking on it (with TH closed) all this file does is simply opening TH Inbox and I haven't got a clue on how to access Profile Manager. Where is it? and what is the ending -P for? The file is just thunderbird.exe and has the blue globe icon.

[DanRaisch]

Just hold down the Shift key when double clicking on Firefox.exe to access the Profile Manager.

[nalag46]

I am sorry but the above procedure does absolutely nothing in Windows 8 except opening the program Inbox page. The file thunderbird.exe in this computer/s is the command file to open TH or exactly the same as clicking on the desktop Mozilla blue icon. I do not have Firefox installed in either of the computers.
This is just too time consuming and I just cannot understand why it is such a tedious and complicated task for what it should be a simple operation?
Don't know what to do now except waste some more endless hours by transferring each individual folder/files (hundreds of them) manually? Perish the thought.