1420481 - empty addressbook on client PC, although server PC has the data

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Thunderbird :: Address Book, defect)

Description

[Peter Bernfeld]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:57.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/57.0
Build ID: 20171112125346

Steps to reproduce:

I installed my second PC (formerly running XP pro 32bit) with a clean Windows 7 64 bit install, and got the then new Thunderbird 52.4.0. 


Actual results:

Up to the install I could read and write mails and had full access to the addressbook on the first computer (Win 7, 64bit, Thunderbird 52.4.0), where we have stored about 200 addresses. 
After the installation of the second computer the addressbooks here are empty, although I still get all mails via the first one (= server) and can send them by the same way.
And no change with the new 52.5.0 version!


Expected results:

I would have expected to have access to the addressbooks on PC 1 again, as I am using the same profile to do my mails as I had used on the XP-machine. Interestingly I found out that the personal addressbook on PC 2 remains empty (I had copied those addresses I use the most to the collectet one)

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Does it happen in safe mode?  https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/safe-mode-thunderbird

Comment 2

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Please clarify how you access an address book on the "PC 1" computer. Via LDAP?

Comment 3

[Peter Bernfeld]

@Wayne Mery - 
@Jorg K the address book is stored by Thunderbird usually in the profile folder which in my case is 
D:\documents\user..\xxxxxxxx.default\mail\pop.chello.at
The file abook.mab is in the mail folder which now is one level higher than it was in the versions before 52.x.
And for more than 20 years I have copied the mail-in server-link from PC1 to the second computer and had no troubles whatsoever.
I have tried to copy abook.mab to the mail folder, but without success.
Seems that having mail access on 2 PC simultaneously is no longer possible?(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #1)
> Does it happen in safe mode? 
> https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/safe-mode-thunderbird

even in safe mode there is no access to the address book.

Comment 4

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Hmm, my address books are in xxxxxxxx.default, not in xxxxxxxx.default\Mail, since clearly there is also xxxxxxxx.default\ImapMail. I'm not aware of any change in this area.

> And for more than 20 years I have copied the mail-in server-link from PC1 to the second computer ...
Sorry, what is a "mail-in server-link"?

As a temporary solution I suggest this:
On PC 2, replace the empty abook.mab that got created by default with abook.mab from PC 1.

Aceman, any suggestions here?

Comment 5

[Peter Bernfeld]

re mail-in server-link - that is the local folder at the bottom of the account-settings/server-settings on PC1, and quite rightly there is abook.mab in xxxxxxxx.default, just I can't access it from PC2.

I think I will have to copy it to PC2 as per your advice, but I found that abook.mab on PC2 does not collect any addresses - in my opinion it should have all new emails there but I can find only those I had put into the personal section manually, the second folder which should collect all outgoing? remains empty.

In my opinion there should be some settings (in the registry ?) where I could redirect the local PC to use all data from the server?

Comment 6

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

I am really confused here for various reasons:
1) There is no address book in the xxxxxxxx.default\Mail folder.
2) The "Local Directory" in Tools > Account Settings, (account), Server settings
   points to the local mail storage.
3) TB is not set up for concurrent access to mail storage or address book.
   If on PC 2, you set the "Local Directory" to point to PC 1 (using some link tricks),
   then you're absolutely playing with fire if you start TB on PC 1 and PC 2 concurrently.

If you want a client/server model, you need to set up IMAP and LDAP.

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

This really doesn't sound like something we support.

There are things like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/addressbooks-synchronizer/ and http://kb.mozillazine.org/Sharing_address_books#CardDAV  which get you there

Comment 8

[:aceman]

Yes, we always put the addressbook in profile\xxxxxxxx.default, not in any mail or imapmail subfolder.
If you had some file sharing set up between 2 computers, it may be you didn't set it up the same way now on the new computer. It may also be Win7 as a slightly different sharing semantics than Win XP so the file is not accessible in the same way when you run 2 instances of TB on the same file (the file may be locked). It could be Tb changed some small detail of using the addressbook file, e.g. it may be kept open (thus locked) for a longer time than it did before. But as this is TB's internal file, it can do changes as we see fit. It was never supported that the same file can be accessed from 2 TB instandes in parallel. It could have worked in the past by luck, or you didn't notice corruption.

Comment 9

[Peter Bernfeld]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #8)
> Yes, we always put the addressbook in profile\xxxxxxxx.default, not in any
> mail or imapmail subfolder.
> If you had some file sharing set up between 2 computers, it may be you
> didn't set it up the same way now on the new computer. It may also be Win7
> as a slightly different sharing semantics than Win XP so the file is not
> accessible in the same way when you run 2 instances of TB on the same file
> (the file may be locked). It could be Tb changed some small detail of using
> the addressbook file, e.g. it may be kept open (thus locked) for a longer
> time than it did before. But as this is TB's internal file, it can do
> changes as we see fit. It was never supported that the same file can be
> accessed from 2 TB instandes in parallel. It could have worked in the past
> by luck, or you didn't notice corruption.

Well, anyway a great thanks for trying. The old saying -never change a running system- is true even today. Pity.