Update Tb 78 to Tb 91 on Linux

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kc8oye
Posts: 1
Joined: November 20th, 2021, 10:25 am

Update Tb 78 to Tb 91 on Linux

Post by kc8oye »

ok.. this might be a little off topic..

i'm fairly new to Linux (using Linux Mint 20.2 with Cinnamon)
Thunderbird is already installed but it's only version 78

when I try to import my profiles from windows 10, TB says it's too old.
I tried sudo apt-get install thunderbird it says it's up-to-date.

I went to tb's website.. downloaded and installed v91 and it works.. but my question is..
how can I get the package manager to handle the updates?

or am I stuck until the package manager gets updated?
Last edited by James on November 20th, 2021, 2:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: split post of from http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=3082862
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tanstaafl
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Posts: 49647
Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Update Tb 78 to Tb 91 on Linux

Post by tanstaafl »

"when I try to import my profiles from windows 10, TB says it's too old."

That's a very misleading error message. You're probably a victim of the dedicated profile per installation feature they added in version 68 where they add a hash string in the profiles.ini file for each profile saying what the installation directory was for Thunderbird. Most users are oblivious of that feature until they try to move a profile because automated updates continue to use the same installation directory. See http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... #p14902294

A description of how you tried to import (I assume you mean move) the old profile would have been useful.

Another workaround is to create a new profile by going to help -> more troubleshooting information, click on about:profile (a built-in replacement for the old command line argument based profile manager) and use the "create a new profile" button to create a new profile. Exit Thunderbird and copy the contents of the old profile over the new profiles contents. DO NOT copy the actual profile directory, just its contents. If your old profile worked with version 78 none of the file formats will have changed from 78 to 91 so you don't need to worry about backwards compatibility.
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tanstaafl
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Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Update Tb 78 to Tb 91 on Linux

Post by tanstaafl »

Linux distros frequently modify Thunderbird to use a slightly different default location for profiles and make it available as a package in their distro's repository. That can be more convenient for the distro user but you have to wait for updates to the repository to get newer versions, you can't get the automatic updates that Mozilla makes available in their generic Linux builds. Sometimes that can be a very long delay because some distros make you wait until a new release of the entire distro is available.

One workaround if you want to use apt packages and get updates much quicker is to use Ubuntuzilla at https://sourceforge.net/projects/ubuntuzilla/ . Its a APT repository hosting the Mozilla Linux builds of the latest official releases of Firefox, Thunderbird, and Seamonkey. https://sourceforge.net/p/ubuntuzilla/wiki/Main_Page/ has installation instructions.
CharlyMoz
Posts: 13
Joined: November 23rd, 2021, 8:47 am

Re: Update Tb 78 to Tb 91 on Linux

Post by CharlyMoz »

Hello

I can say for Linux Mint distro that the profile folder is under :

Code: Select all

<your-home-dir>/.thunderbird

This works for both the older version of TB found in the Mint repository AND the later TB downloaded from Mozlla site.

Charly
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