Local Directory Path Is Not Suitable For Message Storage

[Eckard]

These are the only "mail.root...." prefs in your prefs.js file?
So you have a single pop account.
I don't have a clue what these bizarre path lines mean.
But you may try this test:
first make a backup copy of your pref.js file.
Then either reset the long "mail.root..." paths in the config editor or (TB shut down) delete them in your prefs.js file.
Restart TB, go to your server settings and see what happens.

[mikael340]

Actually, I have 3 gmail accounts that I access as if they were pop accounts (not IMAP). Email is stored locally on my system. I don't use Google's web interface very often (literally months go by between web logins).

Browsing through prefs.js, I find similar bizarre path names in several places

user_pref("browser.download.dir", "AAAAAA **** bXAA//8AAA==");
user_pref("browser.download.downloadDir", "AAAAAA **** bXAA//8AAA==");
user_pref("browser.download.lastDir", "AAAAAA **** AgAW//8AAA==");
user_pref("browser.download.useDownloadDir", true);
user_pref("editor.lastFileLocation.image", "AAAAAA **** 1wAP//AAA=");

user_pref("mail.server.server6.directory", "AAAAAA **** CAA7//wAA");
user_pref("mail.server.server6.directory-rel", "[ProfD]Mail/smart mailboxes");
user_pref("mail.server.server6.hidden", true);
user_pref("mail.server.server6.hostname", "smart mailboxes");

I think I know what servers 1-5 are: the 3 Gmail accounts plus 2 ISP accounts that disappeared when I switched services (those 2 accounts can't be accessed by me and were deleted from TB approx 2 years ago).
What server6 is, I have no idea... 'hidden'? Must be a feature.

It's too late in the day to mess with this. Unless you think there's something nefarious going on (email virus -- though ClamAV didn't detect anything as of this past Sunday), I'm going to let this chill
til the weekend and then look at a fresh install of Thunderbird. I'll let it pick a path that it finds acceptable add my Gmail accounts and then try to migrate my old local mail into it. I was hoping not to
have to do this as there will undoubtedly be numerous duplicates downloaded from Gmail that will have to be cleaned up.

Thanks again for your time and patience Exkard.

/mike

[Krueger_Industrial]

that's not what I've been saying, there is a misunderstanding.
Maybe my writing was a bit confusing since I underlined the potential risk of mail store "de-localisation" for lesser experienced TB users. At least twice a week I'm reading threads from users having damaged their profile this way or getting into trouble when they want to migrate the profile.

It's not the fact that someone may have set, in a previous TB version, the path to a mail store outside the profile folder which triggers the error message since TB 24.
All users in the German TB forum having these error messages after the TB 24 update found obsolete "mail.root..." paths in their prefs.js files, paths which pointed to no longer existing directories, probably remainders from an older profile or message storage directories deleted some time ago. And all but one were using the default message storage directory in their actual profile folder!!
All of them could solve the problem by deleting the obsolete "mail.root..." lines in the prefs.js file!

So it seems that the simple presence in the prefs.js file of these "no longer used" and invalid paths is sufficient to trigger the message when a user tries to change the Server Settings.

Yesterday I upgraded from Thunderbird 17.0.6 to Thunderbird 24 and got this error message when I tried to go into account settings. My observations:

(a) My prefs.js file did contain "mail.root...." directories that are no longer valid. There directories were in the form C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\<Profile name> which indicates Windows XP or earlier. However I switched from XP to Vista in June 2007 and then Windows 7 in 2009, as well as changing computers a few times. So these invalid directories stayed on as I copied my profile from computer to computer over the years. And everything worked just fine for all those years and all those versions of Thunderbird..

(b) Obviously, somewhere between TB 17 and TB 24 there was a code change that now throws this error message when prefs.js contains invalid mail.root... entries.

(c) Displaying an error message which says "The path C:\Users\name\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\profile.name\Mail\Local Folders is not suitable for message storage" makes no sense since this is the same exact path that has been used for years and has not changed. The error message is incorrect, confusing and misleading, and should be changed to properly reflect what the real problem is.

[Lee_Dailey]

howdy y'all,

if you work your way back in this thread you will find a link to the bug[s] that are related to this problem. there is a patch that changes the result from a total block to a warning.

from what i can tell, that patch will not show up in tbird for another few weeks - hopefully as a 24.0.x update.

in the mean time, the options seem to be ...
- use a different location for the mail store in question [one outside the profile & not in a system reserved folder will bypass the check]
- make a new profile
- use the "daily" version of tbird [version 27, i think]
- modify the appropriate code in tbird as documented in the bug [it's javascript and can be accessed and changed by a careful user]

take care,
lee

[JoeDaMole]

I have been getting this same error "local directory not suitable for message storage" ever since attempting to update from version 17.0.8 to version 24.0. Each time I had to reload the old version to get things functioning correctly.
I tried going to the Tools>Option>Advanced>General>Config Editor while in Thunderbird and entered "profile" in the filter/search box. In the results I can see several directories listed with the preference "mail..."
They appear as follows:
mail.root.none;C:\Users\Joe-Da-Mole\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\d6791ti5.default\Mail
mail.root.pop3;C:\Users\Joe-Da-Mole\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\d6791ti5.default\Mail
mail.server.server1.directory;C:\Users\Joe-Da-Mole\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\3nh9tnwc.default\Mail\mail.comcast.net
mail.server.server2.directory;C:\Users\Joe-Da-Mole\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\3nh9tnwc.default\Mail\Local Folders
mail.server.server4.directory;C:\Users\Joe-Da-Mole\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\d6791ti5.default\Mail\smart mailboxes

Their is a directory 3nh9tnwc.default which is the one used by my current version 17.0.8 and has multiple folders, Mail, Extensions, etc.
and one named d6791ti5.default which has only a Mail folder

As the first 2 "mail.root.." and last "mail.server.server4.." refer to the second profile folder and the 3rd and 4th to the first profile folder, what should I do.
The first profile folder shows a modified date for today (10/19/2013) and the second folder shows a modified date of (10/02/2013).

Do I change the d6791ti5.default folder references to the current folder 3nh9tnwc.default or do I delete references to the older profile?

[JoeDaMole]

As this site reformatted my previous details from prefs.js, I'll try again to be more readable.

They appear as follows (Preference String, Value) :
mail.root.none;
C:\Users\Joe-Da-Mole\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\d6791ti5.default\Mail
mail.root.pop3;
C:\Users\Joe-Da-Mole\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\d6791ti5.default\Mail
mail.server.server1.directory;
C:\Users\Joe-Da_Mole\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\3nh9tnwc.default\Mail\
mail.comcast.net
mail.server.server2.directory;
C:\Users\Joe-Da-Mole\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\3nh9tnwc.default\Mail\
Local Folders
mail.server.server4.directory;
C:\Users\Joe-Da-Mole\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\d6791ti5.default\Mail\
smart mailboxes

[Eckard]

In the results I can see several directories listed with the preference "mail..."
They appear as follows:
mail.root.none;C:\Users\Joe-Da-Mole\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\d6791ti5.default\Mail
mail.root.pop3;C:\Users\Joe-Da-Mole\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\d6791ti5.default\Mail

Their is a directory 3nh9tnwc.default which is the one used by my current version 17.0.8 and has multiple folders, Mail, Extensions, etc.
and one named d6791ti5.default which has only a Mail folder

If you no longer use the d6791ti5.default profile as a local directory for message storage, you can delete these two lines.
First make a backup copy of your prefs.js file.
Be sure that TB is shut down, then delete these "mail.root..." lines in the original prefs.js file and save the changes.
After that, you may update again to v24.0.1 and try to change your server settings.

[tanstaafl]

I wrote http://kb.mozillazine.org/Dangerous_dir ... hunderbird and edited http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_your_m ... hunderbird to recommend reading it before change the storage location. Please let me know if it has any errors, or you have any suggestions.

[Eckard]

I wrote http://kb.mozillazine.org/Dangerous_dir ... hunderbird

Thanks, tanstaafl! Nice work

[JoeDaMole]

Thanks much Eckard:

As I had 2 profiles (3nh9tnwc.default and d6791tif.default),
and the 3nh... profile was shown in the Tools>Account Settings>Local Folders as the current profile.
After shutting down TBird, I copied the prefs.js file from the active profile folder (3nh9tnwc.default) to preserve it. Then I edited the existing prefs.js file under the 3nh9tnwc.default folder and used Notepad to delete 5 lines under preference names which were the only reference to the other profile (d6791tif.default). These had names:
"mail.root.none"
"mail.root.none-re"
"mail.root.POP3"
"mail.server.server4.directory"
"mail.server.server4.directory-rel"

I then save the altered prefs.js file in the original location and restarted TBird. After selecting NO for using the Thunderbird update extension I was able to load the profile (3nh9tnwc.default) in the older version 17.0.8 with no problem. Then I restart TBird and selected OK for the Thunderbird update extension which loaded the newer version 24.0.1

I opened the Tools>Account Settings and selected Server Settings. This time I got no error message about the directory. I also downloaded new mail and everything seems to be functioning again with the newer version. I will keep all fingers and toes crossed that things continue the same.

One confusion I found was the instructions online for editing the configuration files for TBird state for the user not to use a text editor (such as Notepad) but also that the user cannot used the Config Editor in TBird as changes will be removed on exit from TBird. No problem resulted when I used Notepad anyway and it seems the instructions need to be updated to allow the non-expert user some option for changing these.

Once again, thanks to all for the help.

After I am convinced everything works again, I will have to remove the extra, not used profile (which I have no idea how it was created).

[gooseman]

I have a Linux server and multiple Windows clients (most XP). Every person has their own email account. When trying to make any changes in the Account Settings (specifically change the number of days email stays on the remote server), we started getting the not suitable error message today.

The Server Settings Local directory is:
\\star\tbird\Bill Gates\mail2012
The Local Folders Local directory is:
\\star\tbird\Bil Gates\local folders
where "star" is the name of our server, and "Bill Gates" is the name of the employee (changed both for privacy).

The only mail.root entries I can find are:
user_pref("mail.root.none", "\\\\star\\tbird\\bill gates\\Mail");
user_pref("mail.root.none-rel", "[ProfD]Mail");
user_pref("mail.root.pop3", "\\\\star\\tbird\\bill gates\\Mail");
user_pref("mail.root.pop3-rel", "[ProfD]Mail");

The other maybe useful references are:
user_pref("mail.server.server1.directory", "\\\\star\\tbird\\bill gates\\mail2012");
user_pref("mail.server.server1.directory-rel", "[ProfD]mail2012");

An example of a second person's local directories would be:
\\star\tbird\Steve Jobs\mail2012
\\star\tbird\Steve Jobs\local folders

I believe we automatically updated to 24.0 a couple of weeks ago. Is there something wrong with the path? Is there a variable I can change so Thunderbird can use this path?

Thanks

[graziano]

today I had the same issue too

I have problems after upgrading to 24 in this folder

C:\Users\graziano\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\4vyfdyrt.default\Local Folders

Any help please ? I removed invalid mail.root and mail.server rows , but it didn't help .

I tried 25.1 beta , same issue .

I have this now

Code: Select all

user_pref("mail.root.imap", "C:\\Users\\graziano\\AppData\\Roaming\\Thunderbird\\Profiles\\4vyfdyrt.default\\ImapMail");
user_pref("mail.root.imap-rel", "[ProfD]ImapMail");
user_pref("mail.root.none", "C:\\Users\\graziano\\AppData\\Roaming\\Thunderbird\\Profiles\\4vyfdyrt.default\\Mail");
user_pref("mail.root.none-rel", "[ProfD]Mail");
user_pref("mail.root.pop3", "C:\\Users\\graziano\\AppData\\Roaming\\Thunderbird\\Profiles\\4vyfdyrt.default\\Mail");
user_pref("mail.root.pop3-rel", "[ProfD]Mail");


do you see something wrong ?

[graziano]

to solve I did this

copied all C:\Users\graziano\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\4vyfdyrt.default\

in

F:\thunderbird

then I assigned new locations for each my email and "Local Folders", in F:\thunderbird

so now I have

F:\thunderbird\email1
F:\thunderbird\email2
F:\thunderbird\Local Folders

All is working now , however I have some filter is no more working and TH is still saving prefs.js in
C:\Users\graziano\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\4vyfdyrt.default\

I would TH works all with new F:\thunderbird (save prefs.js in F:\thunderbird and other settings in F:\thunderbird)
I would remove C:\Users\graziano\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\4vyfdyrt.default\ and
use only F:\thunderbird
How to to do that please ?

Thank you

[graziano]

ok I applied this
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_: ... r_Location

[graziano]

after moving the profile I have the problem again , damn !