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default address book for contacts sidebar in Thunderbird 38 (bug 1142705)

  • 43 replies
  • 128 have this problem
  • 34 views
  • Last reply by Geert-Emo

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Thunderbird 38.0.1 Windows 7.1 Click on "Write". Contacts side bar opens with "All Address Books" as default. It used to default to the LAST USED Address Book. [I've only noticed this new behavior in the last few days.] No matter which address book I select, Write now always opens with "All Address Books". ["All Address Books" displays a combined list of ALL the contacts in ALL the address books]. How do it get it to default to the 'last used' address book please?

Thunderbird 38.0.1 Windows 7.1 Click on "Write". Contacts side bar opens with "All Address Books" as default. It used to default to the LAST USED Address Book. [I've only noticed this new behavior in the last few days.] No matter which address book I select, Write now always opens with "All Address Books". ["All Address Books" displays a combined list of ALL the contacts in ALL the address books]. How do it get it to default to the 'last used' address book please?

Modified by Wayne Mery

All Replies (20)

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All old versions can be found here:

https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/

No need to "reissue" anything.

Modified by Zenos

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Well As there has never been a version that listed a particular address book before others then there is nothing to revert to. I have tried to ne nice but I just can not do it anymore on this thread.

Sure it would be nice if Thunderbird remembered the last used address book. but it never has in the past, But the creation of another address book that occupies the place at the top of the list apparently has you folk in a lather for what I really do not understand. What do you do in the address book that displaying all of your contact instead of just some is an issue? In the past when the address book was used as a dump for the addresses that were allowed remote images I would have understood perfectly, as the address book was full of rubbish, but even then it was the personal address book that was full of rubbish and it is the one your lamenting does not appear first.

So please as I apparently have to read comments on this every day, someone please explain what the issue is. Without reference to "it used to" because I really do not understand this desire to use software that has known security risks over the existence of a new address book.

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Matt: Please refer to my original post - I thought the problem was reasonably clearly stated there. I am pretty certain that previous versions defaulted to either the 'last used' address book - but it might have been the 'Personal Address Book - I'm not 100% certain now. I have 3 address books. The 'annoyance' with "All Address Books" is that on every startup I now need to either change to my "Personal Address Book" or else scroll down through a long list of the combined contacts - I did not need to do this previouly. Does that explain the problem?

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Matt said

Well As there has never been a version that listed a particular address book before others then there is nothing to revert to. ... Sure it would be nice if Thunderbird remembered the last used address book. but it never has in the past, ...

Well, yes it did! Version 37.0 remembered the last used address book - I just now tested it and it works like a charm!

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Dickel said

Matt said
Well As there has never been a version that listed a particular address book before others then there is nothing to revert to. ... Sure it would be nice if Thunderbird remembered the last used address book. but it never has in the past, ...

Well, yes it did! Version 37.0 remembered the last used address book - I just now tested it and it works like a charm!

Close it and restart and it forgets, Just as all previous versions did. The current version remembers for the current session. The bug is about actually saving that information for latter sessions.

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Matt said

Dickel said
Matt said
Well As there has never been a version that listed a particular address book before others then there is nothing to revert to. ... Sure it would be nice if Thunderbird remembered the last used address book. but it never has in the past, ...

Well, yes it did! Version 37.0 remembered the last used address book - I just now tested it and it works like a charm!

Close it and restart and it forgets, Just as all previous versions did. The current version remembers for the current session. The bug is about actually saving that information for latter sessions.

Dear Matt,

I realy do not understand this "Yes it did" "No it didn't" game. As you can clearly see there are a lot of people reacting to a change to the address book. That fact alone is reason to assume something changed. I am a VERY content user of Thunderbird and praise it to anyone who I can praise it to, but being a user - not a historian - I could only tell you "it used to" even if you do not want to hear that. If it was remembering or just choosing the Personal Addresbook I really couldn't say, being such a simple user.

Up till the last version of Thunderbird I only saw the addresses I had put in my Personal Addressbook when I opened the Addressbook, since version 38 I am treated to ALL the addresses in all the Addressbooks.

The reason I have two different Addressbooks is that Thunderbird advised me to when I started using it long ago. The Personal Addressbook was for my contacts, the Collected Addresses (I hope I translate this correct from Dutch) was for all the other trusted addresses (e.g. newsletters etc.). If I am opening the Addressbook I would like to see my own, short list of family and friends, not the lóng list of trusted email addresses (like info at A, info at B, webmaster at C).

In an effort to cut the endless conversation short : if there are no changes with older versions of the addressbook - as you appear to try to convince us of - can you please take action to provide us with an old, same version of the addressbook please? You won't lose anything as it is the same and we will be happy because on our computers it does "something" that we like a lot.

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Matt said

Dickel said
Matt said
Well As there has never been a version that listed a particular address book before others then there is nothing to revert to. ... Sure it would be nice if Thunderbird remembered the last used address book. but it never has in the past, ...

Well, yes it did! Version 37.0 remembered the last used address book - I just now tested it and it works like a charm!

Close it and restart and it forgets, Just as all previous versions did. The current version remembers for the current session. The bug is about actually saving that information for latter sessions.

No, it does not forget! I repeat: Version 37.0 "remembers" which address book was used last time. Close it and on restart it reopens to the LAST USED addressbook. This is now broken and has been recognized as a bug by the team.

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They sure are not in any hurry to fix this. Are they hoping we get tired of complaining and just accept their PITA software? They screwed it up - FIX IT. Thanks

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@JohnDough, The minimum release cycle is 6 weeks, miss one and your automatically moved on the the next cycle. I read previously here that the person that volunteered to make the enhancement is on Holidays. Given we do not pay him, I guess he is entitled to do exactly whatever he likes. Do you disagree?

@Dickel. Version 37 was not a release version. The last release version was 31. If your going to be undertaking test to demonstrate functionality, please use a release version. pre-release software often exhibits behavior not associated with a release version.

However I have downloaded and tried V37. It does not remember the selected address book from one opening of the address book to another. Let alone one start of Thunderbird to another. It just stubbornly keeps opening the first address book in the list (personal Address book). That is exactly the behavior your complaining about. The address book opening the first address book on the list, which is no longer the personal address book.

If your unable to accept facts, there is no point continuing on this thread as I prefer my fiction written by people like Heinlein.

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Matt said

@Dickel. Version 37 was not a release version. The last release version was 31. If your going to be undertaking test to demonstrate functionality, please use a release version. pre-release software often exhibits behavior not associated with a release version. However I have downloaded and tried V37. It does not remember the selected address book from one opening of the address book to another. Let alone one start of Thunderbird to another. It just stubbornly keeps opening the first address book in the list (personal Address book). That is exactly the behavior your complaining about. The address book opening the first address book on the list, which is no longer the personal address book. If your unable to accept facts, there is no point continuing on this thread as I prefer my fiction written by people like Heinlein.

Matt: I don't particularly care whether V37.0 (NOTE: V37.0) was a release version or not - all I was trying to point out is that V37.0 'remembers' the LAST USED Address Book and the current version (release or not) does not.

I have just now installed v37.0 and tested it again. I have 3 address books: Personal, Homers, and Collected.

1. I selected Personal. Closed TB. Reopened TB. The Contacts Sidebar opens with Personal. Shut down and restarted computer and TB. Contact Sidebar opens with Personal. 2. I selected Homers. Closed TB. Reopened TB. The Contacts Sidebar opens with Homers. Shut down and restarted computer and TB. Contact Sidebar opens with Homers. 3. I selected Collected. Closed TB. Reopened TB. The Contacts Sidebar opens with Collected. Shut down and restarted computer and TB. Contact Sidebar opens with Collected.

So, at my end at least, the address book in V37.0 ALWAYS defaults to the LAST USED book - both after a TB restart AND after a computer restart. I have done the exercise TWICE now and it works EXACTLY as I have stated.

It seems that you have convinced yourself that V37.0 works the way you THINK it works - HAVE YOU ACTUALLY TRIED IT? SERIOUSLY? Why would it behave differently on your machine compared to mine?

I am not given to writing fiction but there is nothing I can do to help you from thinking otherwise. Kindly install and test V37.0 on your machine and then perhaps you may care to apologize.

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Since it seems to be near impossible to fix these new versions, why not rerelease the version that worked, opens to last used address book, so we can use that until you fix the new versions.?

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You have already been told where to find old versions. Your choice.

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Guess I missed that. Could you please tell me again Thanks

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jondough said

Guess I missed that. Could you please tell me again Thanks

I would suggest you open the forum and scroll thought the list of responses and read them. It is what I have to do every time someone posts to this thread as I do not recall the content from one posting to the next. There are too many threads.

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Wayne Mery said

It's pretty well stalled. Might not even make the next one in 4 weeks. But I'll try to move it along

Hello Wayne,

I just installed the upgrade to version 28.3, but the problem persists. Can you please give us an update on the status?

Best regards, Geert-Emo

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Thank you all for your feedback regarding this particular issue. We (at the support moderation side) received an escalation from a user regarding this thread. I'd to clarify some things, but do pardon me a I am not a Thunderbird expert. I understand the frustration this has caused, but please keep in mind the people who respond on this forum are not staff/employees for Mozilla, but volunteers. Your time is as expensive as is theirs. There is a bug on file to get this fixed, unfortunately with not ETA; a workaround solution has been provided to aid you through this time, should you choose to use the workaround solution provided during the time being is your choice, but we are unable to fast track or speed up the ability for the issue to be fixed any faster. I will ping the bug again for an update regarding the progress (please, and I beg you to not post in the bug, unless you have substantial information as this will annoy the developers, and possibly slow down the progress for the bug to be fixed). I thank you for your cooperation and patience while we wait this out. You will be notified here when the issue is fixed.

Thank you, Andrew

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Hi Andrew Thanks for your update - much appreciated. You mentioned, "workaround solution has been provided" - does that refer to using a previous version or was there some other workaround? Thanks.

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Another update without a fix. It has been four months since this message thread was started. It looks like the bug was first reported in March, 2015.

I know that people are volunteers, have lives, etc. but I really do wonder about an organization that ignores it's users for so long. I'm not any more dedicate to Mozilla than they are to me.

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wharfrat73 said

Another update without a fix. It has been four months since this message thread was started. It looks like the bug was first reported in March, 2015. I know that people are volunteers, have lives, etc. but I really do wonder about an organization that ignores it's users for so long. I'm not any more dedicate to Mozilla than they are to me.

Hello wharfrat73,

I do understand your frustration and the complexity of the issue, I know it isn't quite the result you've expected after using Thunderbird for a long time. There has been some progress in the bug where a patch has been made and has been approved. The next process can take a while to get placed back into Thunderbird. Please feel free to let me know here if there is no movement within the next few weeks in regards to the patch being pushed through.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Edited for clarification regarding the actual bug progress

Modified by Andrew

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