Unable to load address book file abook.mab...

[mdb_uk]

Hi there,

I'm running Windows Vista Business, and the latest version of Thunderbird. Everything was fine until a few days ago when my system froze due to a hardware issue. I had no choice but to press the reset button on the PC, and now when I start Thunderbird I am getting the folowing error, and my address book appears empty.

Unable to load addres book file abook.mab. It may be read-only, or locked by another application. Please try again later.

I have found the file abook.mab, and it is not read-only. I can't find any think on the web documenting this issue, other than a problem caused by Google Desktop, which I do not use.

Can anyone help?

Thanks!

Marc

[mdb_uk]

Oops, I just read the sticky, and realise this should probably be in the Thunderbird Support forum. If a Moderator wants to move it, feel free.

[Daifne]

Moving to Thunderbird Support

Thanks to Paolo for the extension and the instructions:

Try this procedure:
- make a copy of abook.mab.bak and call it, for example, test.mab, then save it wherever you want
- install this extension --> http://nic-nac-project.org/~kaosmos/morecols-en.html
- once installed, open addressbook, go in Tools --> Actions for addressbook --> Import mab and import test.mab
- now you should have a new addressbook, but probably you don't see nothing inside
- select it right-clicking and choose "Restore/Recover"
- you'll have another new addressbook that could have your addresses

I don't know if in your case it can work, but you can try.
Let me know.
Ciao, Paolo

[mdb_uk]

Thanks for that, but it didn't work - there was nothing in the recovered address book either.

To be honest, I'm not that worried about recovering the addresses that were in my address book, I just want to be able to use it again - is there anyway I can scrap the current address book file and start again?

Marc

[Daifne]

If you're sure, you can delete abook.mab. It will be recreated blank by Thunderbird.

[cordis]

The same thing happens to me too, if I restart the tool it doesn't usually appear immediately, sometimes a day or two will go by, and then I'll read some new messages and it will pop up. I've also noticed that if I do get the message, it also stops spell checking the emails I write. Very weird. Glad I'm not the only one seeing this. I'll poke around some more and see if I can figure anything else out.

[spneese]

Has any one resolved this problem? I have been having problems with this (my address book won't load) since October 27th. It's not going away. Something has been corrupted, but I cannot figure out what. Any help would be appreciated.
Sherrill

[spneese]

PS I should have added that I am using Windows XP and Thunderbird version 2.0.0.6
Thanks!

[Daifne]

So, did you try my suggestion?

[spneese]

Do you mean deleting the abook.mab? I moved it to another folder. Started TB and it came up with a blank address book. I am able to add email addresses to it.

How do I recover my email addresses from my old abook.mab? When I try to import it using the tool mentioned above, I still game the error message.... "Unable to load address book file abook.mab. It may be read-only, or locked by another application. Please try again later."

[spneese]

PS I should also mention that I also renamed it and try the import and recovery process mentioned, but that also didn't work.

[Daifne]

What I meant was the procedure using the extension.

[spneese]

Oh ok. Yes. I used all the procedures with the extension. It did not work.

[Daifne]

Backup you entire profile, just to be safe ( http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup ). The concept we're working from is that the current address book file is fragmented or corrupted and should be rebuilt to correct the issue.

1) Open Thunderbird's Address Book window and create a new Address Book (File->New->Address Book). Name it anything except Personal Address Book. (I would call it Temp Data to indicate it's purpose.)

2) Click on the your current Address Book (I'm assuming it's called Personal Address Book). Now click on any name in the right hand list pane. Press Ctrl-A or use menu path Edit->Select All to highlight all entries.

3) Drag-and-drop the data to the entry in the left hand pane for the new address book. This will copy over all of your address information. Check a number of the contact entries in the new address book to ensure that things have been copied correctly.

4) Now repeat highlighting the contents of the Personal Address Book, then press the delete key to erase the information in that book.

5) Close and restart Thunderbird and open the Address Book window.

6) Highlight all of the contacts in the Temp Data (or whatever you named it) address book and drag-and-drop the data to the Personal Address Book.

7) Close and restart Thunderbird and begin using the "recreated" Personal Address book for addressing messages. See if there has been any improvement.

A variation on this process would involve creating a new profile ( http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager ) , which you would not plan to use, in order to generate a new, empty Personal Address Book file (abook.mab). Then, follow the steps above through step 3, after which you would close Thunderbird, navigate to the Profile for the real account in question, delete the file abook.mab and copy over the file with that name from the newly created profile. The result is a properly formatted abook.mab file with no contents and no file corruption. Follow from step 6 to complete the data transfer, then use Profile Manager to delete that new profile.

**all credit to Dan Raisch. Thanks, Dan.**

[spneese]

Daifne,
I am unable to do step 2. The "problem" address book will not load. I cannot view "any" email addresses at all. Nothing. Zero.

I can create new address books and they work just fine. The problem is with the one address book that has all my contacts, email addresses, phone numbers, etc. I cannot access any of this info. Do they have such a thing as an address book (abook.mab) viewer? If they did, I could just retype the addresses into a new address book.

Thanks for your help with this.

Sherrill