so what exactly did you set the value to? which of those values?

I am asking, because I really can not see how changing the zoom used to display text could change anything in the manner you describe.

Have you rebooted your computer? I would suggest a restart is in order when the weird stuff starts happening. SOP for electronic devices, turn the off and on again.

I set it to 2 & I have tried rebooting. I was gone for a day & powered down comp, when I restarted, a new TB installed & the font size was small so I just wanted to make it easier to read, everything other aspect of TB seemed fine, emails downloaded as usual. So once I changed the value to 2 I closed TB so it would take effect as the mozilla forum I was reading said you needed to restart TB for changes to take effect.

When I restarted, a pop-up window appeared asking me to choose a user profile, there was only 1 profile on the list & it was "default", so I chose that 1. The pop-up window was a complete surprise to me as I don't think I had ever seen it before, unless it was when TB was originally installed way way back at least 10-15+ years ago.

So when I started TB a window/icon would appear in my bottom task bar & all open windows would freeze but I could still maneuver mouse, I had to use task manager to close TB & then open tabs worked fine. When the window was open in my bottom taskbar if I put mouse on it I could see, like any minimized window what was displayed on the window if it was full size. The TB minimized window did not show a normal open TB email page, but just a blank screen.

So, an option on the pop-up window was to create a new profile & I tried that out of desperation & was able to get TB working using a new profile & same email address, but of course that does not show all my old emails which I desperately will need.

I am just at my wits end as I absolutely have to have my old emails as my business emails & expenses are on there. I know they are out there somewhere, I just do not know how to retrieve them. Thanks, I hope this helps solve the problem.

I would think setting it to 2 would be huge, rarely is more that 1.5 required.

But that is not the problem, it is one of two things and from your description I am pretty sure it is one, but which I do not know.

Windows key +R Type %appdata%\thunderbird\profiles and press enter.

That should set you in the windows file manager open to the two profile folders you have. Open your old one and delete global database file. See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/rebuilding-global-database

Try restarting Thunderbird and switching to your old profile. See https://thunderbirdtweaks.blogspot.com/2019/09/i-lost-my-profilemail-on-update-to.html

That should provide some information about the new about:profiles in Thunderbird and allow to to do your profile swapping.

Sorry, did not work, still freezes up comp. I had no idea setting it at 2, I had no idea any update would cause this problem. Why is it so difficult or impossible for me to access the code where I can change it from to 2 back to a lower number?

I take it, the emails are still on my computer somewhere?

jim1024 said

I take it, the emails are still on my computer somewhere?

I doubt they are missing at all.

Locate the file prefs.js in your old profile make a backup of it because hand editing is very prone to user error open prefs.js it in notepad (first user error is editing it in word and then saving it as a word file) find (F3) the pref you changed. (and change the value to 1.25)

Save the changes, restart Thunderbird.

Are you going to astonish me that you issue is fixed. Or are we still looking for a cure?

Dude! it worked! Where do I send my 1st born son?

As much as I do not want to humiliate myself here goes. I was thinking I had entered 2.0, well I must have changed my mind & was going to try 1.25, so instead of 1.25 my fingers must have slipped & I entered 1025. So I ended up with a font size worthy of skywriting rather than a computer screen, thus ends my ulcer worthy fiasco of a self induced headache!

Thanks so much, jim

Now I know why is was probably appearing to freeze. I don't know windows would have enough memory to build and store a window that size, but I would say it was using hard disk space to expand it's real memory. I bet your hard disk light was very busy (hard on even) while things were frozen.

Sounded like a Geiger counter at Chernobyl.