re :Thunderbird updated itself July 2 to the most recent version and this morning, my profile was not there and I had to put in the email account.

Sounds like it started on a new profile.

see if the old profile just needs selecting.

• Help > Troubleshooting information

At the bottom of the 'Application Basics' section you will see 'Profiles' and to the right 'about:profiles'.

• click on 'about:profiles'

Its open in a tab and you should see a list of profiles.

Each profile details will say:

• Profile : Name of Profile
• Default Profile yes or no
• Root directory
• Local directory

Currently, the profile set as default is a new one and it might be called 'Profile: default release'

One of the other profiles is your old profile and it is likely to be called 'Profile: default'

Below are the profiles not currently set as default you will see some buttons.

• for the correct profile, click on 'set as default profile' button.

• Exit Thunderbird.
• Wait a short while for background processes to complete.
• Start Thunderbird.

Did it start on the correct profile and show you all folders?

Thanks for the info. I had a look at it and there is only 1 profile there called default. There are 2 directories - root and local. root is in appdata\roaming and local is in appdata\local. The lost folders remain that way.

If someone has additional thoughts, they are welcomed!

Windows key +R Type %appdata%\Thunderbird\profiles

In Windows file manager, what sub folders appear in the profiles folder? There should be a default, but I would expect there to be a release one as well if you are using the current Thunderbird.

Corrupt prefs.js file can cause this symptom, but it is far more common for the profile to simply be "lost" hence my first question. Regardless a new profile should have been created when you re entered your account information, so I still expect more than one folder there.

When I did that, I was directed to appdata\roaming and I find one folder llgdfovw.default there is no release folder visible.

re : I was directed to appdata\roaming and I find one folder llgdfovw.default

Whilst in the appdata\roaming\Thunderbird\'Profiles' folder, where you see the llgdfovw.default folder listed. Enable the column headers for 'Date Created' and 'Date Modified' and post an image showing the information.

I have the photos.

I notice that although the llgdfovw.default folder was created 4th July, it contains files that are older. In particular there are a series of 'prefs' files and the latest one 'prefs.js' is smaller than the previously used one.

• Exit Thunderbird
• Access llgdfovw.default

Delete these files and they will get recreated later when you restart Thunderbird

• folderTree.json
• panacea.dat
• session.json
• xulstore.json

• Rename 'prefs.js' as 'prefs-5.js' - (an unused number so we can reselect if required.)
• Rename 'prefs-3.js' (previously used one with a better size) as 'prefs.js' (so it becomes the one TB will use)

• Delete 'prefs-1.js' - (it has zero size, so contains nothing.)

Start Thunderbird.

Report back on results.