Well Wayne, maybe this is just a glitch with Thunderbird but after about a day, and turning my pc off a couple of times, Thunderbird will not even load now. I guess I am SOL. Maybe tomorrow will give me a pleasant surprise.

Wayne has stepped you through this fairly carefully. But one "test" it do not see and I think would be beneficial is to start your computer in safe mode with networking and see if the issues magically go away. This is particularly relevant as you now down to "it won't start" Safe mode may well allow it to start.

Somewhere back in this very long thread on the first page I am sure I saw something about Norton. It was a search in windows, but when I do a search for addons there that is not what I see. So I suspect that there may be invisible addons being installed that break Thunderbird most probably by your anti virus (not that I have seen it mentioned, but I am guessing you use Nortons) product.

The safe mode test will disable that and exclude it as a probable cause. (I am thinking address book issues primarily here but with these injected addons from anti virus / Security suites anything is possible as they do not go through the version checking process that installed addons do.

Matt, thank you. I am going to try this shortly. A few notes.

• I was able to load Thunderbird this morning, but no better than before (no access to Address book, not able to send emails, etc.)
• Yes, I do use Nortons.
• I appreciate your comment about running in Safe Mode with Networking and the hypertext. I use Safe Mode once a month to clean my computer but forgot about with Network because I don't use it for what I do. I will be trying that in a few minutes and see if that resolves my issue.

Again, Thank you for you assistance and I will post results when done.

Matt, I did as you suggested:

• I rebooted in Safe Mode with Networking
• Loaded Thunderbird
• Address book still not available
• I still cannot send an email (email address I type in is still red and the Send button is still faded out and not accessible.)

Thanks for trying. :0(

I think we are all missing something obvious here but have no idea what it is so I am going to ask you a couple of things... I do not think they are here, but if they are I will apologies upfront.

Open your profile folder (you apparently know the way) and check the properties of the following files. abook.sqlite, history.sqlite. Are either of these set to read only? if they are make them not read only

Rebuild the global database. see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/rebuilding-global-database

Use the config editor to check and set the following setting to default if necessary. (Right click them and use the menu)

ldap_2.servers.OE.description
ldap_2.servers.OE.dirType
ldap_2.servers.OE.uri

I had those set on update to 78 because I still used the windows address book in my Thunderbird and my address books did not show after the update.

Next go to the address book in Thunderbird and try and add a contact. Then try and add another address book. Can you? then add a contact in it.

If the rebuild did not make a change, I think the next step after this is to create a new profile and see if it works. For the exercise I suggest you add one of your TWC accounts to the profile as IMAP as that will not mess up your existing pop arrangements on the original profile but will test if the issue lies in the existing profile. When you swap back to the existing pop profile everything will be unchanged.

"I think we are all missing something obvious here but have no idea what it is so I am going to ask you a couple of things... I do not think they are here, but if they are I will apologies upfront.

Open your profile folder (you apparently know the way) and check the properties of the following files. abook.sqlite, history.sqlite. Are either of these set to read only? if they are make them not read only"

They are both not read only.

Moving on.

"Rebuild the global database. see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/rebuilding-global-database Steps to Rebuild the Global Database

   Quit Thunderbird.
   Locate the global-messages-db.sqlite file in your Thunderbird Profile.
   Delete the global-messages-db.sqlite file.
   Start Thunderbird. The re-indexing process will start automatically. Depending on the number of messages, it might take some time for the indexing to complete. You can continue to use Thunderbird, but performance might be affected and search will return only partial results or even no results until the indexing is complete. The indexing progress can be monitored through the Tools > Activity Manager menu. "

I have done these step so far but no action apparent yet. I have Activity Manager open but no progress. My Thunderbird screen is almost blank. Waiting for action.

How long before I should see action, and some of my file in Thunderbird? You have me real nervous now.

I think I goofed up. I, after about 1/2 hour it looked like it stalled, with only 1 file selected. I once again deleted the global-messages-db.sqlite file, copied the old one from my backup files and tried again. After about 2 hours nothing happened. I have again deleted the global-messages-db.sqlite file and copied my backup.

With this I tried using the configure editor like you said and to my surprise there were not files named:

ldap_2.servers.OE.description ldap_2.servers.OE.dirType ldap_2.servers.OE.uri

In fact there were no files named ldap_2.servers.OE.

At this point I am at a loss.

I tried "Next go to the address book in Thunderbird and try and add a contact. Then try and add another address book. Can you? then add a contact in it." Could not.

I need more direction on your directions that follows:

'If the rebuild did not make a change, I think the next step after this is to create a new profile and see if it works. For the exercise I suggest you add one of your TWC accounts to the profile as IMAP as that will not mess up your existing pop arrangements on the original profile but will test if the issue lies in the existing profile. When you swap back to the existing pop profile everything will be unchanged."

The global database is nothing more that a glorified cache, restoring it from backup is almost guaranteed to mean it will be invalid as it is a database file. Thunderbird will build a new one based on your existing emails. It might be slow. It took a day in my case, and most of that movements was only obvious because Thunderbird searches got better as the new database got more complete.

However creating a new profile is going to the about profiles Wayne had you go to and creating a new one using the create button.

But I have to wonder if perhaps the issue might be with your hard disk, not Thunderbird at all. I suggest you check the hard disk for physical errors. This is extremely slow usually and occurs on restart, so set it off and go to bed is my method of doing it on the occasions I need to. I do not use the computer while it is checking despite assurances you can as it just slows the thing way down. See https://neosmart.net/wiki/chkdsk/#From_My_Computer-5

I am not full of ideas, I am to the point of just plodding through the what could cause issues at this point.

NOW that the user was able to start in safe mode, I'm a stumped as well. Certainly chkdisk is worth a shot. I'd also try installing a reputable AV product and do a full scan.

Still, for my money, everything points to read-only address books. The mystery is why. So I think it is time to create a new profile (keep the old one) and see if the problem still reproduces after adding an account and some contacts to an address book. See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/using-multiple-profiles

Another observation, that I do not know if it means anything or not. I am once again trying to rebuild the global database. I started the process and after about 4 hours I saw a couple of files but it was incoming mail, using filters I had set up, moving incoming email to a saved folder I had created. This was "Inbox -> "Sale Emails". I do this to save me some effort cleaning out my inbox all the time. It moves email to predetermined mailbox / folders, based on criteria I set up, that I then determine a what age I automatically delete these messages. It works great for me. Then, based on the comment one of you gave me, I could continue to use my email, even though the folders are not there. I tried sending an email from the Thunderbird main screen. The email address I entered was still red but the write and send buttons were accessible. I gave it a try but it did not send the email and when I thought I was closing the attempted to send email I closed Thunderbird, thus I started all over. I will let this run until tomorrow and see what happens. Then, if it does not work, I will trying creating a new profile. I with great trepidation am about ready to walk away from Mozilla. I know we are all just trying to make educated guesses but I strongly feel that something in the programming that Mozilla did is causing this problem, not anything about my system. The worst part of it I have a lot of items in my address book or group texts. I for example coordinate twice a year breakfast get together's for my graduating class. With the Covid I am waiting to the spring to put out another email and hope we can get together. At our age we are loosing more ever year and it would be sad if I loose this ability and cannot do this. Bummer of a year for us all. We have not been able to get together since September of 2019.

Oh well.

After 3 hours it appears that the file is not being rebuilt. When I do a properties it shows 0 bytes. Only the new emails coming to my inbox are being sent to the folders based on my filters and that is all, no rebuilding.

The pic of the Activity Manager shows what it coming through, just folder expiration dates thus deleting emails. This is after about 6 hours.

The pic of the Activity Manager shows what it coming through, just folder expiration dates thus deleting and moving emails.

This is after about 19 hours.

Saw one of the posts on your website as follows:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1304550?page=2

Should I consider throwing in the towel and going this route and if so could you let me know the steps and potential downfalls or fixes I might encounter afterwards.

Thank you.

Wayne and Matt, 25 hours and still all I see is actions from the filters I had set up, no rebuilding of anything. When I look in the profile the global-messages-db.sqlite is still 0 KB.

Wayne and Matt, 25 hours and still all I see is actions from the filters I had set up, no rebuilding of anything. When I look in the profile the global-messages-db.sqlite is still 0 KB.

If you quit Thunderbird is it still 0kb?