All Accounts Except 1 Per Domain Vanished After TB17 Update

Discussion of bugs in Mozilla Thunderbird
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llamafood
Posts: 1
Joined: December 11th, 2012, 7:04 am

All Accounts Except 1 Per Domain Vanished After TB17 Update

Post by llamafood »

his is the kind of trouble report I hate to receive but it's the best I can do, as I use TB like a normal person, not as a developer. I allowed the TB17 update, and when I next launched TB, I noticed that most of my accounts / inboxes were GONE. Also, all outbound SMTP server settings were deleted,additional Identities were lost as well.

Before:
user1@domain1.com user2@domain1.com user3@domain1.com
user4@domain2.com user5@domain2.com
user6@domain3.com
user7@domain4.com user8@domain4.com

After:
user1@domain1.com
user4@domain2.com
user6@domain3.com
user7@domain4.com

I'm not certain what the common element is among either the accounts which were eaten nor those which remained. I can't be too specific, because I've used TB without trouble for a few years, adding accounts from time to time, but not keeping a change log or anything like that, because it's one of the few programs I've come to depend on. I'm horrified at the idea that this happened at all, that it's even possible for TB/the updater to arbitrarily decide to remove user data without notification or permission, and that I have no real idea even of the extent of my loss here.

The only point I can see from which to begin investigation is that Preferences : Security : Saved Passwords appears to still contain information from all accounts - those remaining, those lost in the update, and (unfortunately) those intentionally removed over time (prior to the update).

Anyone else suffer this occurrence? Anything I could/should have done to prevent/mitigate the situation? Does this by any chance resemble some other, commonly encountered failure mode, ideally one with a known resolution process? Sorry for such a thin and likely unreproducible report, but I'm having the same feeling one gets the first time a reliable vehicle refuses to start in the morning, and for a software developer, I'm woefully ignorant of anything 'under the hood' in TB, precisely due to the years of reliable use it's given me until now.

Update: It appears all of the accounts are still in my prefs.js. I don't see anything like user_pref("mail.identity.id2.hideAccountFromUser","true"), so I'm still at a loss.
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Lee_Dailey
Posts: 14194
Joined: July 27th, 2004, 4:33 pm
Location: milky way galaxy, sol system, terra, north america, usa, tx, bedford

Re: All Accounts Except 1 Per Domain Vanished After TB17 Upd

Post by Lee_Dailey »

howdy llamafood,

i've no idea what could have caused the problem. [*sigh ...*]

however, there are a few things that may help others figure out how to help you ...
[1] what are the account types?
IMAP or POP, for the remaining and the missing accounts.

[2] what happens if you try mozilla safe mode?
you get to mozilla safe mode thus ...
- help/restart-with-addons-disabled
[alternately, you can hold the SHIFT-clicking on the icon you use to start the app]
- leave the checkboxes UN-checked
- hit the continue button
- test
- when you restart the app you will be in normal mode again
[more info about it here - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_Mode]

[3] are the files for the missing accounts still there?
the following link has info on finding your profile and the mail folders.
Profile folder - Thunderbird - MozillaZine Knowledge Base

again, i have no earthly idea what happened. here's hoping someone who is better informed drops in! [*grin*]

take care,
lee
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