Having found I couldn't get MPE to work with Thunderbird 60 in the way I used to, I have got it working again, on ubuntu 18.04, with MPE 1.8.11. I started with a fresh 32 bit wine directory (Windows 7).
I had been using the really neat method described by TreeNode on May 13 2017. However, I couldn't find a way to get it working with Thunderbird 60, so reverted to the old method. I'll briefly summarise what I needed to do.
0. Backup the whole linux Thunderbird directory - more than once depending on how paranoid you are, and then stop it (so no new changes get made).
1. Install Windows Thunderbird prior to version 60 (I used version 45) under wine
2. Start it, don't create an account.
3. Make sure the lightning extension is installed.
4. Open the Address book (is empty) and Calendar (also empty).
5. Close wine Thunderbird.
6. Fix the calendar access for the wine Thunderbird as follows:
◦ in the wine Thunderbird profile directory "cp prefs.js prefs.js.old" (i.e. take a backup)
◦ in the linux Thunderbird profile directory, use an editor to copy all lines in pref.js starting with "calendar."
◦ in the wine Thunderbird profile directory edit prefs.js and replace all "calendar." lines with the lines just copied
7. In the wine Thunderbird profile directory (where 'xxxxxxxx' is the profile directory id, 'me' is my home directory name, and 'abook-n.mab' is the current linux address book that I want to synchronise - I have several address books but only one to sync with my mobile):
◦ mv storage.sdb storage.sdb.old
◦ mv abook.mab abook.mab.old
◦ ln -is /home/me/.thunderbird/xxxxxxxx.default/storage.sdb storage.sdb
◦ ln -s /home/me/.thunderbird/xxxxxxxx.default/abook-n.mab abook.mab
8. Then in the calendar-data directory
◦ mv local.sqlite local.sqlite.old
◦ ln -is /home/me/.thunderbird/xxxxxxxx.default/calendar-data/local.sqlite local.sqlite
9. You have now got the wine Thunderbird to use the address book and calendar files created by the linux Thunderbird
10. Install MPE in the normal linux way, which I won't repeat.
11. Start MPE and get as far as getting it to install the MPE Thunderbird extension (to the wine Thunderbird).
12. Stop MPE for now.
13. Start the wine Thunderbird, and make sure the address book shows my linux addresses. Ditto the calendar. I had to stop and restart a few times, I'm not sure why, but eventually the wine Thunderbird was showing the addresses I want and the calendar I want.
14. Stop the wine Thunderbird.
15. Start MPE and finish setting up, making sure that it is set to ask first before making any changes to either the phone or Thunderbird data.
16. Pray.
17. Try a contact sync. If OK try calendar sync, and so on.
Treat yourself to something nice..., and say thanks to all at fjsoft for keeping this incredibly useful tool going. It's so long ago I can't now recall if I donated, but I may have to do it again just to be sure
