Critical:Thunderbird 3.1.2 does not show my folders or inbox

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dikkekurt
Guest

Re: Critical:Thunderbird 3.1.2 does not show my folders or i

Post by dikkekurt »

yes,
'Samengevoegde mappen' translates to Unified Folders
and when I select 'All Folders' by clicking the right arrow to the right of these words,
or any other choice, nothing changes.
Neville
Posts: 715
Joined: April 7th, 2008, 1:14 am

Re: Critical:Thunderbird 3.1.2 does not show my folders or i

Post by Neville »

Inside your profile folder you should have a Mail folder. Can you describe the contents of the Mail folder?
dikkekurt
Guest

Re: Critical:Thunderbird 3.1.2 does not show my folders or i

Post by dikkekurt »

@Neville
the mail folder contains the mails linked to my accounts and there is a whole structure under 'local folders'
=> see 2 screenshots here : http://drop.io/insidemailfolder

by the way I did revert to Thunderbird version 3.1.1 by now.
(I did that in a controlled manner making backups so that I could restore the 3.1.2 situation safely)
I am currently on 3.1.1 and it made no change at all : I do not see my folders although they are
still there : I can see them in the top dropdown of the search screen
=> see http://drop.io/searchscreen
Neville
Posts: 715
Joined: April 7th, 2008, 1:14 am

Re: Critical:Thunderbird 3.1.2 does not show my folders or i

Post by Neville »

The structure looks OK.

I am not sure if this is important but I would prefer not to see mail file/folder names:

  1. containing a full stop '.' (Thunderbird extensions and server names are exceptions and are OK with full stops)
  2. containing only reserved words before the first full stop eg Inbox.zip.sbd

I say this because Thunderbird is JavaScript intensive so if something is not working it may be best to conform to JavaScript rules. I prefer not to start with underscores although they should be OK.

I will be surprised if the above solves your problem but I still advise making the changes. Do them inside your Mail folder after quitting from Thunderbird and making a backup of the Mail folder. Delete all msf files - they will rebuild when required. Do not delete sbd - these are directories with mail in them - not sure if some will have to be renamed.

Have you ever mixed different language versions of Thunderbird?

If your problem persists I advise doing a clean Thunderbird install.

  1. Make a note of all your account settings - taking snapshots may be quickest
  2. Quit from Thunderbird
  3. Backup your Profiles directory
  4. Delete all other Thunderbird directories/files you can find especially the Application and active Profiles directory and its outer directories etc
  5. Download and install the latest version from http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/t ... d/all.html
  6. Start by installing only one POP account - the install Wizard is known to have problems - you will probably have to hit Manual and enter details via Account Settings
  7. Immediately deselect 'Check for new messages at startup', 'Automatically download new messages' and 'Until I delete them'
  8. Assuming you now have a working Folder Pane, Quit from Thunderbird and replace the original mail directory for this account only
  9. Try hitting the Get Mail button to check if it works properly
  10. If it is OK try adding other accounts and their mail folders one at a time in exactly the same way - don't forget to immediately alter download settings
  11. Only return to your normal download settings after you have got the particular account working - my settings are here: http://links.open.ac.uk/thunderbird/server.png

Good luck
dikkekurt
Guest

Re: Critical:Thunderbird 3.1.2 does not show my folders or i

Post by dikkekurt »

@Neville
ehrm, I did not get your line :
"containing only reserved words before the first full stop eg Inbox.zip.sbd"
=> please specify what is not within conformity and what is
=> e.g. in this case, what should I change and how
many thanks for your time !
Neville
Posts: 715
Joined: April 7th, 2008, 1:14 am

Re: Critical:Thunderbird 3.1.2 does not show my folders or i

Post by Neville »

Do not use names like Inbox, or Trash etc unless they are modified with immediately adjacent letters or numerals.

I advise changing Inbox.zip.sbd to eg Inboxzip.sbd
dikkekurt
Guest

Re: Critical:Thunderbird 3.1.2 does not show my folders or i

Post by dikkekurt »

@Neville
changing the names did not solve the issue
so I started the fresh install and manually migrating the emails as per your procedure (thanks for the info)
and now it gets a bit more complicated : as you may have seen in the pics I previously posted on drop.io,
I had a number of accounts merged into one common inbox, so that I did not have to check all these
accounts in separate folders.
So when I now follow your procedure, I notice that the inboxes in my backups are sometimes almost a year old.
I think they are all maintained and filled up under 'local folders'.
So copying the various emails form the account folders is not the right mechanism.
Can you let me know how I have to do the manual migration knowing that my backup contains merged accounts ?
many many thanks...
Neville
Posts: 715
Joined: April 7th, 2008, 1:14 am

Re: Critical:Thunderbird 3.1.2 does not show my folders or i

Post by Neville »

You should never store mail in Inboxes - it slows TB considerably.

You could try renaming your old Inbox eg Inbox-old before moving it into your new mail folder. You should then be able to put its contents wherever you wish. Please empty Inboxes about once a day I use the Archive facility for this.

If you don't replicate the whole of each mail directory with their popstate.dat files any mails on the server will download again.
dikkekurt
Guest

Re: Critical:Thunderbird 3.1.2 does not show my folders or i

Post by dikkekurt »

hmm,
now you lost me for a moment

I do not have the intention to store mail in Inboxes.
As you will see in the second screenshot http://drop.io/insidemailfolder
I have most of my email in local folders.
And the way I had my folder view organized was that I could read my incoming mail in one inbox
common to all accounts.

And unless I did not get what you intended to say in your last post, I am stuck with your procedure for the fresh install :
As my email seems not to have been received in the inbox files under my account folders
(as most of them have not been modified for several months...)

So it seems that copying the various emails form the account folders as you suggest is not the right mechanism
to get my emails back. I had about 500 emails in my commonly viewed inbox in the TB user interface.
How do I get those back in the same way ?

my best...
dikkekurt
Guest

Re: Critical:Thunderbird 3.1.2 does not show my folders or i

Post by dikkekurt »

or is it that the unified inbox is simply a different view on the same structure... guess so...
then I am still confused why the inboxes of my accounts on which I daily receive email have not been modified for months !!??
dikkekurt
Guest

Re: Critical:Thunderbird 3.1.2 does not show my folders or i

Post by dikkekurt »

@Neville
I have restarted doing your procedure and I have replaced the first account that I have manually reconfigured
(and renaming the old inbox as you suggested) with the result that I now have a TB that does not crash but
that does not want to show me the mails inside the migrated backup inbox as you can see here :
http://drop.io/emptytelenet
what now ?
Neville
Posts: 715
Joined: April 7th, 2008, 1:14 am

Re: Critical:Thunderbird 3.1.2 does not show my folders or i

Post by Neville »

The account appears to be called 'telenet prive account' but the view is called 'in.telenet.be' - why are they different?
dikkekurt
Guest

Re: Critical:Thunderbird 3.1.2 does not show my folders or i

Post by dikkekurt »

I changed the account name simply to have a more informative name.
Is that not allowed then ?
This difference between account name and folder name was always there the past year and it did never give any hickups...
dikkekurt
Guest

Re: Critical:Thunderbird 3.1.2 does not show my folders or i

Post by dikkekurt »

... I just tried bringing back the account name to the folder name so that they are identical
then restarted TB, with no difference...
Neville
Posts: 715
Joined: April 7th, 2008, 1:14 am

Re: Critical:Thunderbird 3.1.2 does not show my folders or i

Post by Neville »

I strongly advise quitting TB and changing both back to what they were (hopefully identical) and unless you can edit prefs.js to be in agreement you may have to start the whole of my procedure again.

In a standard installation account name, folder name and prefes.js must all agree. You can edit account names within TB once everything is working properly.
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