Thunderbird installation problem

Ask Fedora
,
1

I had to reinstall my Fed 42 sytem this morning–it would not reboot after a reload command. Looking good so far. But then I used the Software utility to install Thunderbird. When I try to open thunderbird, it tells me
“Your Thunderbird profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible.”

I managed to find my profile at /home/eric/.var/app/org.mozilla.Thunderbird/.thunderbird.
Why can’t TB find it there?

And most strange, when I try thunderbird -P in the terminal, I get this error message:
“thunderbird -P
bash: thunderbird: command not found…
Install package ‘thunderbird’ to provide command ‘thunderbird’? [N/y]”

What am I missing?

Ps: The Fedora software app lists two different entries when I search “Fedora,” but gives no indication if they’re actually different or just a repeat entry.

Thanks.

2

this is where flatpak Thunderbird profile would be stored. (flatpak install thunderbird)

Did you use the flatpak version before? Do you prefer flatpak over rpm?

4

I used whichever version of thunderbird came up in the Fedora (Gnome?) software app. Like I said, there are two that show up, but the app doesn’t say anything about either of them. Does that software app use rpms? Maybe I’ll just uninstall through that app and use your command to install the flatbak version. I don’t remember how i installed TB last time (several years ago, now, after Dell installed a new motherboard/ssd combo for my kaput XPS.)

I did ‘sudo flatpak install thunderbird’ and got this response which befuddles me:

"Looking for matches…
Remotes found with refs similar to ‘thunderbird’:

  1. ‘fedora’ (system)
  2. ‘flathub’ (system)

Which do you want to use (0 to abort)? [0-2]: "

5

Well, I said “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,” and ran
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo.

I then ran ‘sudo flatpak install thunderbird.’

It opened and wanted me to set up an email account. I exited that and now will try to figure out how to link to my existing TB profile.

6

All is good. Found instructions on line to set my old profile as the default profile.

Thanks for your patience with my “journey.”

2 Likes
7

fyi, flatpaks don’t need sudo to install an app

flatpak install

  • User-level installation
  • Installs the app only for the current user
  • Apps and runtimes go to: ~/.local/share/flatpak/ — that’s where your old profile was located

sudo flatpak install:

  • System-level installation
  • Installs the app for all users on your system
  • Apps and runtimes go to: /var/lib/flatpak/
8

Even without sudo, plain flatpak install does a system-level installation by default.

For user-level installation, you can specify flatpak install --user or flatpak install -u.

(See: Flatpak - non sudo install still installing as system)

9

When you search applications with Gnome-Software, depending on which repositories are selected, you are offered the same application in three versions, the “native” RPM, the Fedora Flatpak (if existing) and the Flathub Flatpak version (the two flatpaks can be different). You can select the version you want to install. I did not install any flatpak and so Thunderbird is the RPM version.

The drawback is the Flathub Thunderbird is the latest version while the RPM Thunderbird is the ESR version.