Open Bug 1681685 Opened 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago

Some address books empty after updating to TB 78.5.1 32 bit (portable version), and cannot import .mab backup ABs

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Address Book, defect)

defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

UNCONFIRMED

People

(Reporter: jacq.hoerter, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Whiteboard: DUPEME)

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:56.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/56.0

Steps to reproduce:

I updated thunderbird to new version 78.5.1 32 bits ( use thunderbird portable version )

Actual results:

3 out of 6 of my adress books have kept their name but are completely empty disappeared .
I presviously saved them under abookx.mab but can not find the possibility of importing these extension I

Expected results:

Component: Untriaged → Address Book
Summary: adress book lost when updatingd thunderbird portable version → Some address books empty after updating to TB 78.5.1 32 bit (portable version)
Version: 5.0 → 78

This might be a bug in the portable version (not Thunderbird itself) that it doesn't migrate .mab ABs correctly.

The shocking part is that indeed Thunderbird does not have an option to import its very own .mab Address books from TB 68 (bug 121725 from the age of dinosaurs). On a quick search, I was not able to find an addon compatible with TB78 which still provides this import function.

Geoff, any inputs?

  • What might have happened for the migration to fail on the portable version (not ours, though)?
  • What's the path for users whose migration from .mab to the new AB formats failed, and/or who want to import .mab ABs from their archives after they have already updated to TB 78?
  • How hard would it be to allow importing existing .mab address books files into TB 78 (bug 121725), given that we already have the conversion code? I find it a bit strange that we cannot import our own legacy address books from the previous version (TB 68).
Flags: needinfo?(geoff)
See Also: → 121725
Summary: Some address books empty after updating to TB 78.5.1 32 bit (portable version) → Some address books empty after updating to TB 78.5.1 32 bit (portable version), and cannot import .mab backup ABs

(In reply to Thomas D. (:thomas8) from comment #1)

  • What might have happened for the migration to fail on the portable version (not ours, though)?

No idea. It should be the same as ours, not that that is perfect. Could've been a problem accessing files in the portable profile, at a guess.

  • What's the path for users whose migration from .mab to the new AB formats failed, and/or who want to import .mab ABs from their archives after they have already updated to TB 78?

Put the files in the profile, add some prefs to point to them, restart Thunderbird. The prefs needed are:

  • ldap_2.servers.<something>.description = what to call the address book
  • ldap_2.servers.<something>.dirType = 2
  • ldap_2.servers.<something>.filename = name of the .mab file

The <something> can be anything, but stick to letters and numbers to avoid problems.

  • How hard would it be to allow importing existing .mab address books files into TB 78 (bug 121725), given that we already have the conversion code? I find it a bit strange that we cannot import our own legacy address books from the previous version (TB 68).

Much harder than you think. This has actually been created post-78 but I'm unwilling to try to backport it as the import module is such a disaster zone.

Flags: needinfo?(geoff)

thanks for your help

A question to the developer - does this mean that address book from version 85.0a1 (nightly) is not useable on version 78?

In my particular case the 85 address book works fine but I need to get back to 78 for other reasons - and the 78 address book pane shows the message "This address book shows contacts only after a search"

To clarify the previous question - will the -allow-upgrade switch allow me to use addressbooks from the version 85 profile with version 78?
Or should I do export/import?

85 and 78 use the same format.
I'm pretty sure I saw a bug report about this before, indeed portable version only.

Whiteboard: DUPEME

(In reply to Magnus Melin [:mkmelin] from comment #6)

85 and 78 use the same format.
I'm pretty sure I saw a bug report about this before, indeed portable version only.

Was it in bugzilla?
https://mzl.la/3poKZb9 doesn't show anything

Flags: needinfo?(mkmelin+mozilla)
See Also: → 1676987

It was on bugzilla, but can't find it.

Flags: needinfo?(mkmelin+mozilla)
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