TB Acting Strange w/ Deleted Mail

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koolx
Posts: 532
Joined: July 11th, 2014, 7:37 pm

TB Acting Strange w/ Deleted Mail

Post by koolx »

TB is not doing what I want it to. Its making me mad. So far in account settings > server settings I got the following set up:

When I delete a message: Move it to this folder: 'Trash on Account 1'.
Clean up ("Expunge") Inbox on exit.


When I delete mail in TB's trash the same mail doesnt get deleted in gmail's trash. AND my profile size gets bigger!!! How is that possible if I'm deleting mail and I got it set to EXPUNGE INBOX UPON EXIT???!!
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tanstaafl
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Re: TB Acting Strange w/ Deleted Mail

Post by tanstaafl »

I logged into gmail using a browser and looked at settings -> "forwarding and pop/imap". It claims IMAP is disabled, yet the Gmail IMAP account in Thunderbird is still working. Weird bug. The only visible IMAP option is to enable/disable IMAP. I set it to true and that suddenly displayed the following, below it:

When I mark a message in IMAP as deleted:
(*) Auto-Expunge on - Immediately update the server. (default)
Auto-Expunge off - Wait for the client to update the server.

When a message is marked as deleted and expunged from the last visible IMAP folder:
Archive the message (default)
Move the message to the Trash
Immediately delete the message forever

Folder Size Limits
(*) Do not limit the number of messages in an IMAP folder (default)
Limit IMAP folders to contain no more than this many messages [1000]

See if you have the same settings. I have the TB Gmail account set to "just mark it as deleted", clean up (exppunge) on exit is disabled, and if I exit and restart Thunderbird I can still see the deleted message with a line drawn through it. So Gmail appears to be ignoring "Auto-Expunge on - Immediately update the server."

If that doesn't help I suggest you stop using "move it to trash" and use "just mark it deleted", and then set mail.imap.expunge_option to 2 so that when 20 messages have been deleted they are automatically physically deleted.

If you don't want to do that I suggest you see if you have the same problem with a non-Microsoft email client such as "em client". That will let you confirm whether its a gmail or Thunderbird problem. Or you could enable IMAP logging and look in the log file to see if it sends a "expunge" command when exiting. You don't have to understand the rest of the log file to look for that. See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Session_logging_for_mail/news

I have 9 accounts (2 of them gmail). All of them are free except for one, which is an inexpensive commercial account (fastmail.fm) that I use as my main account. This type of problem is why I do that. Sometimes you need to be able to file a support ticket with your email provider.

I edited your post to clean up the language. One of the rules is "We are here for people of all ages, and want everyone to feel comfortable. Moderators can and will edit posts with explicit language."

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Deleting_mess ... P_accounts
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koolx
Posts: 532
Joined: July 11th, 2014, 7:37 pm

Re: TB Acting Strange w/ Deleted Mail

Post by koolx »

Hi tanstaafl,

Yes I have those same settings in gmail's settings.

I tried using "just mark it deleted" with mail.imap.expunge_option set to 2. But the problems using it is mail marked for deletion gets automatically deleted in less than a minute which doesnt give me a chance to decide to keep it or not. In many cases the deletion is swift, within secs! The other issue with that is mail isn't retained at all. When I undelete marked mail, it still gets deleted which doesnt make sense and goes contrary against the very purpose of marking mail if you decide to keep it later.

Btw I didnt know the word 'hell' was comparable to the F word. Strange..
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tanstaafl
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Re: TB Acting Strange w/ Deleted Mail

Post by tanstaafl »

Sounds like some background process such as automatically compacting them if you waste more than X MB might be physically removing the messages. Try unchecking tools -> options -> advanced -> network & disk space -> compact all folders when it will save over X MB.
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koolx
Posts: 532
Joined: July 11th, 2014, 7:37 pm

Re: TB Acting Strange w/ Deleted Mail

Post by koolx »

tanstaafl wrote:Sounds like some background process such as automatically compacting them if you waste more than X MB might be physically removing the messages. Try unchecking tools -> options -> advanced -> network & disk space -> compact all folders when it will save over X MB.
Hey..

Yeah I already got that configured to 20MB. Do you think I should increase it to eliminate the problems I mentioned in my last post?

My profile size is now 850MB. I've deleted a lot of mail from like 5 - 6 years ago, sent and in inbox. I still got a way to go. I which theres a way to reduce this size further though.
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tanstaafl
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Re: TB Acting Strange w/ Deleted Mail

Post by tanstaafl »

I would uncheck it if all of your accounts are IMAP. That way you can rely upon the queue of 20 deleted messages before any are expunged.

See if http://kb.mozillazine.org/Minimize_the_ ... _a_profile is useful. Disabling the all mail folder if you use gmail, disabling both offline folders and global search/indexing make a big difference if you use IMAP accounts. For POP accounts there is little that you can do other than to archive mail outside the profile.
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koolx
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Re: TB Acting Strange w/ Deleted Mail

Post by koolx »

Hi tanstaafl,

I tried deleting files that have the name of folders like Inbox and Drafts (except for .msi files) in order to delete copies of messages. It cut my profile size in half. But the problem is it deleted a lot of my past attachments like images. Thank god I had backed up my profile in case. I had to restore it.

What does unchecking Account Settings -> Account Name -> Synchronization > ‘Keep messages for this account on this computer’ do? Does it stop TB from storing new mail with attachments?

BTW, looks like TB is working. But the only issue is when I delete mail and try to undelete it immediately thereafter, but it doesnt undelete. And the mail is expunged from TB completely. The only way I can undelete mail is if I wait 20 secs or more before undeleting it. Is there a tweak that can undelete mail immediately after deleting it??
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tanstaafl
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Re: TB Acting Strange w/ Deleted Mail

Post by tanstaafl »

Unchecking Account Settings -> Account Name -> Synchronization > ‘Keep messages for this account on this computer’ stops Thunderbird from downloading copies of messages for a IMAP account and storing them in "offline folders". However, if you don't also disable global search/indexing Thunderbird will download the same messages to build the search index. So disabling offline folders saves you some space, but nowhere near as much if you disable both offline folders and global search/indexing. I've had a profile with 8 IMAP accounts that was smaller than 40MB, doing that.

I have no idea whats going on with your account. Something is broken, perhaps on the server side. You don't need a tweak or an add-on, you need to figure out whats broken. One way to do that would be to create a gmail IMAP account with the "em client" email client. See if it has the same problem. If it does, then you know the problem is due to your google account, not your Thunderbird profile. I use the free version of em client (its limited to 2 accounts) when trying to figure out whether to blame the email provider, the network or the Thunderbird.

The reason for setting mail.imap.expunge_option to 1 is it makes Thunderbird predictable, even though it doesn't do what you want. Normally you can just set it to 2 (queue of 20 deleted messages) and you have either all the time you want to undelete a message (if you don't set cleanup expunge inbox on exit), or you can undelete it any time before exiting Thunderbird.
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koolx
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Re: TB Acting Strange w/ Deleted Mail

Post by koolx »

Hi tanstaafl,

But is there a way to undelete new mail as quickly as you delete them? This usually happens with new mail.

This doesnt happen with mail thats at least a day or 2 old.
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tanstaafl
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Re: TB Acting Strange w/ Deleted Mail

Post by tanstaafl »

Yes. However, it doesn't work on your system for some unknown reason.

You keep asking for some tweak or way to undelete a message as quickly as you delete them. Stop asking. I've already given you the answers multiple times. You're not going to get a better answer by asking again. You've been asking for help on this one problem in what, 3 threads?

The problem is that something is broken on your system. I repeat my suggestion that you test using the em client to see if the problem is with your Thunderbird profile or with your gmail account on the server. You could also get another email address from Gmail, add a Gmail IMAP account for it in Thunderbird, and test to see if that account has the same problem. I'm not suggesting you use it as a workaround, its a throwaway account just to help troubleshoot

If you don't like em client, pick some other non-Mozilla, non-Microsoft email client to test with. I suggested em client because its easy to configure, popular, and I've found it to be finicky about what the gmail webmail settings are. If it doesn't like your settings, it will tell you what you need to change.

http://www.emclient.com/
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koolx
Posts: 532
Joined: July 11th, 2014, 7:37 pm

Re: TB Acting Strange w/ Deleted Mail

Post by koolx »

tanstaafl wrote:Yes. However, it doesn't work on your system for some unknown reason.

You keep asking for some tweak or way to undelete a message as quickly as you delete them. Stop asking. I've already given you the answers multiple times. You're not going to get a better answer by asking again. You've been asking for help on this one problem in what, 3 threads?

The problem is that something is broken on your system. I repeat my suggestion that you test using the em client to see if the problem is with your Thunderbird profile or with your gmail account on the server. You could also get another email address from Gmail, add a Gmail IMAP account for it in Thunderbird, and test to see if that account has the same problem. I'm not suggesting you use it as a workaround, its a throwaway account just to help troubleshoot

If you don't like em client, pick some other non-Mozilla, non-Microsoft email client to test with. I suggested em client because its easy to configure, popular, and I've found it to be finicky about what the gmail webmail settings are. If it doesn't like your settings, it will tell you what you need to change.

http://www.emclient.com/
tanstaafl,

I appreciate your help. But I respectfully ask that you not get angry. You said I made diff threads on the same topic. Thats true. But remember I asked you a question on my other thread and was waiting for your response. You never responded. I created a new one as a result. But dont worry I wont replicate another thread. Its all good.

Anyway I did install em client. But theres no option to undelete mail. So its not possible to test on it.

But I did create a new gmail account as you suggested. I tested it out by 1st closing TB. I then sent mail from a non-gmail web based email account to the gmail one assoicated with TB. I then restarted TB. At the first instance of receiving that mail I deleted it. But no sooner that I received it I undeleted it. Sadly it didnt undelete it. Funny, if I let the mail sit there for a while and delete it later, I then can undelete it.

It appears the only way for undeleting mail to work is to allow TB time to "absorb" new mail. How much time could be at least 5 minutes. The longer the better. This is why I asked for a tweak as it seems that theres a time delay before undelete can work in TB. To this end I feel strongly a tweak can be applied somewhere to reduce or eliminate this delay.


.
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tanstaafl
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Re: TB Acting Strange w/ Deleted Mail

Post by tanstaafl »

It has a delete button in the main toolbar. You can also select a message, right click on it and chose Delete. Pressing the Delete key in the keyboard (the one above the cursor, not the one on the aux. keypad) also works.

Menu -> File has a undo command (shortcut is Control Z). What it doesn't have is an option to specify what it should do when deleting. It seems equivalent to "remove it immediately" in Thunderbird.

Undelete (by deleting again, when the IMAP account in Thunderbird is set to "just mark it deleted") works instantaneously on my system and every other system I've used.

Since your problem occurs with a brand new Gmail IMAP account you might have no choice but to create a new Thunderbird profile and migrate your mail (from POP accounts, don't bother for the IMAP accounts as the mail is still on the server) and address books to it. You'd have to add the accounts again. If you copy over the old prefs.js you will defeat the whole purpose of creating a new profile.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_manager explains how to create a new profile
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Importing_folders explains how to import mail folders
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_addres ... n_profiles explains how to migrate address books between profiles.
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koolx
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Re: TB Acting Strange w/ Deleted Mail

Post by koolx »

Hi tanstaafl,

I went ahead and created a new profile. So far undeleting mail seems to be working very well. Will test further just to make sure.

The only issue I got now is to copy all my settings from my old profile to the new profile which includes custom settings from config editor. Its gonna be a bitch of a pain which I'm sure will take a while to do. Dont know if theres a file with all my old profile's config editor's settings only that I can transfer to the new profile. If you know how to do this let me know. Thanks.
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tanstaafl
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Re: TB Acting Strange w/ Deleted Mail

Post by tanstaafl »

The settings are in prefs.js in your profile. However, I suggest you do NOT copy that file. There is a good chance your problem is due to some settings in the old prefs.js file. If you've added the accounts again you've already duplicated most of the settings that you care about.

If you decide to copy the old file, backup the new profile first in case it causes problems. The reason why I suggest backing up the new profile and not just the new prefs.js is the prefs.js file may effect other data files.
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koolx
Posts: 532
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Re: TB Acting Strange w/ Deleted Mail

Post by koolx »

Hi tanstaafl,

Looks like everything is working smoothly now. Thank you for all your help!
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