Weird stuff in THunderbird that keeps coming back

[Rekrul]

I'm asking this for a friend. Her Thunderbird is up to date. She wants to know what's causing this;



I'm referring to the lines that start with dashes.

She does have the option to file replies in the same folder as the original message turned on, but she says that there is no content in these. If she deletes them, they just come back when she restarts Thunderbird.

I use an old version of Thunderbird, do not have the option to file replies with the original messages and I've never seen anything like this in my copy, so I have no idea what this is.

Can someone please explain what's happening?

[DanRaisch]

What version of Thunderbird does your friend use?
Ask your friend how the account is set up in Thunderbird, as POP or IMAP. She can find out under menu path Tools ->Account Settings->Server type.
Also suggest that she right click on the folder names Inbox and Deleted (one at a time) and select “Compact folder “ from the context menu.

[Rekrul]

What version of Thunderbird does your friend use?
Ask your friend how the account is set up in Thunderbird, as POP or IMAP. She can find out under menu path Tools ->Account Settings->Server type.

Her Thunderbird should be the most recent one. As far as I know she has auto-updates turned on. She's always complaining that the latest version changed things and she doesn't like it and wishes she could change parts of it back to the way they used to be.

All her accounts are POP.

Also suggest that she right click on the folder names Inbox and Deleted (one at a time) and select “Compact folder “ from the context menu.

I'll tell her to try that, but I think she already does compact the folders.

BTW. she sent me email that she now has even more of those empty entries.

[DanRaisch]

OK, your friend may be compacting folders periodically but with what looks like 1,273 unread messages in the Inbox folder that operation may not be done often enough. Storing messages in the Inbox of any POP type email account is a very bad practice. As the busiest area of the system, the Inbox is most at risk of data corruption and corresponding data loss. The more messages in the Inbox, the more messages at risk of loss. Creating an organization of folders, like those folders under Archive, and moving all but the most recent messages from the Inbox to that structure, will help to minimize risk of loss and improve performance.

Her Thunderbird should be the most recent one.

Saying "the most recent" can be ambiguous. Please ask her what version number is identified under menu path Help->Troubleshooting information.

If she compacts folders now and doesn't see any improvement it may indicate serious file corruption. Suggest that she try the following procedure:
First, backup your Profile ( http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup ) The utility mentioned in that link, MozBackup, has not been maintained in years and we don't recommend that it be used. Simply copying the profile folders to another location on the hard drive or to removable media would be effective.

Create a new sub-folder under Local Folders. Move all of the messages currently in your Inbox to that new sub-folder.

Confirm that you have made the recommended backup of your Profile.

Close Thunderbird and navigate to the \Mail sub-folder of your Profile folder. Delete both the file Inbox.msf and the file Inbox with no extension.

Restart Thunderbird and you should find a new, empty Inbox folder in place. Copy any messages you MUST have in your Inbox from the sub-folder created above to the new Inbox. Compact the Inbox after those messages are copied in.

The "Real Fix" entry in this article -- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders#Real_fix also describes this process.

[Rekrul]

OK, your friend may be compacting folders periodically but with what looks like 1,273 unread messages in the Inbox folder that operation may not be done often enough. Storing messages in the Inbox of any POP type email account is a very bad practice. As the busiest area of the system, the Inbox is most at risk of data corruption and corresponding data loss. The more messages in the Inbox, the more messages at risk of loss. Creating an organization of folders, like those folders under Archive, and moving all but the most recent messages from the Inbox to that structure, will help to minimize risk of loss and improve performance.

She recently used Import/Export Tools to save some of them to an external drive, but wasn't completely happy with her options for viewing the saved messages. We hadn't gotten so far as to have her install an Mbox viewer program and save the messages in that format. Having an old system, I'm limited in what software I can vet for her. My own attempts to find a decent Mbox viewer program (that will work on my system) haven't been the most productive.

On the advice of her ISP, she did recently try to move/copy those messages to another email address. I don't know the exact procedure that she used, although I imagine that it was accomplished on her ISP's webmail page rather than in Thunderbird itself because they told her to create a new account to hold the messages and she would have called me if she was creating a new account in Thunderbird.

If she compacts folders now and doesn't see any improvement it may indicate serious file corruption. Suggest that she try the following procedure:

I was going to have her try your suggestion, but after having her look at her profile, I have no idea which directory is the problem. She has 2-3 email accounts configured in Thunderbird, but there are a ton of sub-directories in Mail, including some that are prefaced with a number and which were created in the last few days. I really don't want to use trial and error, over the phone, to find the right one.

As a side note, she also looked in Extensions and saw a bunch of stuff in there, only one of which is actually visible on Thunderbird's Extensions window; Import/Export Tools.

[tanstaafl]

See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Mail_Utilities#MboxViewer

If she is seeing "Import/Export Tools" (its meant for version 60 or earlier) instead of ImportExportTools NG (version 68 and later) then she is not using the latest version of Thunderbird (78.8.1)

[DanRaisch]

I was going to have her try your suggestion, but after having her look at her profile, I have no idea which directory is the problem. She has 2-3 email accounts configured in Thunderbird,

OK, within the Mail sub-directory there will be further sub-directories which will be designated by referencing the email provider they are associated with. For instance, an account with Google will be represented by a sub-directory named pop.gmail.com or pop.googlemail.com; an account with Outlook will be represented by a sub-directory named pop3.live.com; etc. Does this help to narrow down which directory to work on?

[Rekrul]

Sorry for the late reply...

OK, within the Mail sub-directory there will be further sub-directories which will be designated by referencing the email provider they are associated with. For instance, an account with Google will be represented by a sub-directory named pop.gmail.com or pop.googlemail.com; an account with Outlook will be represented by a sub-directory named pop3.live.com; etc. Does this help to narrow down which directory to work on?

She has seven email accounts (personal, her home business, one for just friends, etc) and they're all with Shaw Internet in Canada.

I had her take a screenshot of the Mail directory and there are eight directories that reference Shaw, plus two others;



I know from looking at my own Profile directory that Thunderbird sticks some of the databases from one of the accounts in Local Folders rather than the directory associated with that particular account. I'm not sure what governs that or why they aren't all in the directory associated with the account.

So how do I figure out which directory is associated with the account that's the problem, so that she can delete the proper inbox files for that account?

[DanRaisch]

Unless the user elects to set one or more accounts to use the Global Inbox option ( http://kb.mozillazine.org/Global_Inbox ) messages of each account are stored in the pop-shwa.ca sub-directories, not under Local Folders

You can use a text editor to view the file prefs.js in the profile folder. Look for strings like user_pref("mail.identity.idN.useremail", "xxxxxxxx@shaw.ca"); where the N after "identity"represents a number. Each such line will identify an identify number associated with the email address later in that line.

[tanstaafl]

"So how do I figure out which directory is associated with the account that's the problem"

Look at the local directory setting at the bottom of each accounts server settings (its next to a Browse button). That specifies the directory tree used by the account to store its files. For example I have a Gmail POP account whose local directory is C:\Users\Eric\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\feu8hx1l.default-release\Mail\pop.gmail.com

Another way (not recommended) would be to look at the Mail & News Accounts section in help -> troubleshooting. It will list the child directory within ..\Mail (POP account) or ..\ImapMail (IMAP account) that the account uses, next to the account name. That's more cumbersome because you'd have to look in tools -> account settings to find the account name for each accounts email address.

[Rekrul]

Unless the user elects to set one or more accounts to use the Global Inbox option ( http://kb.mozillazine.org/Global_Inbox ) messages of each account are stored in the pop-shwa.ca sub-directories, not under Local Folders

For some reason, one of my accounts is set to use a global inbox.

The link you gave mentions changing it, but it doesn't specify exactly what happens if you do. If I change it from using the global inbox to using the inbox for that account, will it move the existing messages, or just start downloading new messages to an account inbox?

Look at the local directory setting at the bottom of each accounts server settings (its next to a Browse button). That specifies the directory tree used by the account to store its files. For example I have a Gmail POP account whose local directory is C:\Users\Eric\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\feu8hx1l.default-release\Mail\pop.gmail.com

And now I feel dumb for not seeing that myself. Thanks.

I helped her delete the problem files and her Thunderbird is back to normal. Unfortunately now she has actual computer problems. I was on the phone with her when she tried to reboot, got just a blue screen and now her system won't boot at all. She said it was acting strangely when she came home, but it seemed to sort itself out. I guess it was on the verge of failing and the reboot killed it. She's going to get a computer tech there to look at it as I wouldn't even attempt to diagnose it over the phone.

[Rekrul]

Apparently all fixed now.