no new address appeared in the list of addressbooks, and 
  the option to create a new addressbook is no longer avaiable/showing.

I feel rather obtuse asking, but how do I get my Thunderbird addressbook to sync to gmail contacts? I uninstalled Cardbook, because Thunderbird now does CardDav, I treid to create a new CardDav addressbook by opening my addressbook, selecting new addressbook, and going through the steps to give Thunderbird access to my Google account. But, no new address appeared in the list of addressbooks, and the option to create a new addressbook is no longer avaiable/showing. Addressbook is still not syncing. My server settings are IMAP. I still have three address books: All, Personal, and Collected. I am flumoxed. John