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Portable Thunderbird 107 Will Not Open

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Spiceskull
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Portable Thunderbird 107 Will Not Open

Hi,

I placed PTB 107 into its own folder, got all my settings etc from my old setup just right, and imported all my mail/profile. Everything was working fine until this morning. Now all I get is an "empty" thunderbird screen. By this I mean that there are no folders or messages, and the only menu at the top of the program is "Folders"

I have a screen grab (reduced) if it will help get an idea of what I can see...please help me as I am pulling my hair out over this...

Thanks,
Adam.

John T. Haller
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Early unplug?

Did you happen to unplug it before Thunderbird was done writing? It can take a full minute after you close the Thunderbird window on a slower drive. That would corrupt your prefs.js and would result in the issue you see.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Spiceskull
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Hi John, Pretty sure it had

Hi John,

Pretty sure it had finished writing all files to profile. As it was working okay yesterday evening, with all (500Mb) of mail profile, but not working this morning, and the machine was switched down the proper way, I can't see why it is causing this problem.

However, I will try to rebuild my profile with a new PTB folder, and do it a step at a time. Would you like to see a screen grab, or do you know the screen I am getting?

Regards,
Adam.

John T. Haller
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Pretty sure I know

I've seen it when a profile has been corrupted.

Before you rebuild, give your portable drive a reformat, just to ensure it's happy. I recommend doing this every once in a while. One session with a slightly misbehaving PC can cause issue with the file structure.

After you rebuild, backup your profile directory, so if it happens again, you'll be prepared. I'd wager all your mail files are completely intact and that just the profile (prefs.js, etc) is what's corrupt.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Spiceskull
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Would you suggest just

Would you suggest just overwriting the prefs.js file as a first step?

John T. Haller
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Give it a shot

That might do it.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Spiceskull
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The reason I ask is that I

The reason I ask is that I am using a USB hard drive, which was only formatted at the weekend. Everything has been working fine until this morning.

I will try overwriting the file, and if that fails will do a re-install of PTB.

Thanks for all your help and suggestions - will let you know how I get on.

Adam.

Spiceskull
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Hi John, Just to let you

Hi John,

Just to let you know - overwriting the prefs file didn't work, and looking at the size of the two files it is hardly surprising...

However, a rebuild of my profile, with an incremental import of files was reasonably trouble free - it took me about an hour.

Thanks for your help,
Adam.

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