Thunderbird hyperlinks not working

Occasionally something changes in my Thunderbird v38.6.0 profile folder, causing hyperlinks to become inactive. In other words, clicking a hyperlink does absolutely nothing--no error messages, no anything. Changing the default browser has no effect whatsoever.

Reverting to a previously saved profile folder solves the problem every time. This is forcing me to backup that folder pretty frequently.

Unfortunately I'm not knowledgeable enough about Tbird to detect what's changing. Has anyone else suffered this problem? If so, have you found a solution?

My OS and hardware are listed in my profile, but the long and short of it is--MS Surface Pro 3 with 8 GB, running an up-to-date version of Win 8.1.

I hasten to add that I've searched this forum and the Mozilla Support forum and have not found this problem described anywhere (doesn't mean it's not there, just that I can't find it).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

TIA,
Larry

As silly as this sounds, have you tried to rollback t-bird one or two versions back? If everything works for about a week, then after making your regular OS backup image, roll forward again.

Thanks for the reply.

Few things in the world of computing sound silly to me anymore. I have my doubts, but I'll try it.

Anyone else have an idea?

Larry

I had a blissful several-week holiday from the problem, but then it struck again--hyperlink clicking became futile. While I still haven't a clue why it happens, I did come up with a workaround that doesn't require daily profile backups.

This is what appears to work:

1. Using the profile manager (Win-R==>thunderbird /p), create a brand-new, tabula-rasa profile, having no connection with the old one.

2. Quit the profile manager.

2. Copy the Mail folder and the prefs.js file from the old to the new profile, in appropriate locations.

3. Start Thunderbird by using the profile manager and specifying the new profile name.

That's it, aside from providing your password(s) anew when prompted. Hyperlinks work again!

Larry