Writer cannot find my Thunderbird Address Book

[wrighch]

I’m running libreoffice-6.3.3.2-snap1 and Thunderbird 60.9.0 (64-bit) on Ubuntu 18.04. When I attempt File > Wizards > Address Data Source > Thunderbird and then click Next, LibreOffice Base responds with

The File /abook.mab could not be
loaded.

My Thunderbird profile is located in /home/(username)/.thunderbird/(random).(username) – right where Thunderbird’s profiles.ini says it should be. And the abook.mab file is located in the profile folder with 0644 permissions. Is there some trick I’m missing?

[Ratslinger]

Hello,

Have same set up with one difference. LO is same version but from TDF (The Document Foundation) not snap. Have no problem.

[wrighch]

I note that this post on askubuntu.com indicates that “Using TBird addressbook has never been implemented in the Canonical version of Libre/Open Office. You need to UNINSTALL the version that ships with Ubuntu and install the version downloaded directly from the LO website.” But since that post was from 7 years ago – referencing LO version 3.5 – and since my installed version of LibreOffice explicitly offers Thunderbird as an option in the Address Data Source wizard, I assumed (no snarky comments, please) that my version of LibreOffice actually did support the T-Bird address book. Is the 2012 answer on askubuntu.com still valid?

[Ratslinger]

Can’t answer that since I now only use TDF versions after having too many problems with others - especially distro versions. As stated before, the TDF version, just tested with your posted question, works for me.

It is possible there is a problem with the ‘snap’ version in that regard and maybe file a bug report.

[wrighch]

I’ll try that out and post back tomorrow.

[wrighch]

As suggested by @Ratslinger on 23 Nov, I dumped the Snap version and installed Version: 6.3.3.2 (Build ID: 1:6.3.3-0ubuntu0.18.04.1~lo1) using:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/libreoffice-6-3

sudo apt update

sudo apt install libreoffice

and the Address Data Source Wizard successfully connects to my Thunderbird address book without issue. So, I guess the 7-year-old post from askubuntu.com I referenced above remains correct – the Canonical version does NOT work with the Address Data Source Wizard, and the LO version DOES work.