Email Client Profile Confused

[Falcon_Man]

Hi,

Not new to Thunderbird, but have run into a problem that forced me to look for another email client. I'll explain why in a moment.

In the process of importing, I discovered that something in the user profile stored under 'NNaaaaaa.User.ID' is confused with an old mail service I used to have with Sympatico.ca.

Background:

I used to have a Bell Sympatico.ca email account that began with the first letter of my first name, and my compete last name (concatenated), so that the email address looked like 'aaaaaaa@sympatico.ca'. Bell Sympatico.ca is accessed using a 'b1anna' account number and password.

When we moved in 2010 I cancelled the Sympatico service and decided to use a web email address with AOL, and continuing to use Thunderbird as my email client. When I created my new email address on AOL, I edited the Thundrbird profile information for the old email address to conform to the new email address name, POP3/SMTP/port settings, etc for AOL. Logged on successfully and pulled down mail from, and sent test messages to the AOL mail server and never gave it another thought. Everything seemed to be working.

Recently though, I have had a number of issues formatting text (size, pitch, - you name it) within the Thunderbird editor and decided that since I could not find a fix, I would migrate the account to a new mail client software.

Since most email client installs automatically configure the mail server settings and test the log-in, this is where I discovered that the Thunderbird profile being Imported was somehow crossed up with Sympatico.ca and their POP3 server.

Everything about the profile screams AOL, but somewhere embedded in the profile is a string of data that suggests that the client wants to log into the Sympatico mail server.

If I go into 'Tools' > 'Account Settings' in Thunderbird and attempt to view the server settings, I receive a message that there is already an account set up 'with that name' and the dialogue ends.

NOTE: I think this may also explain why all attempts at setting fonts, size etc have largely been unsuccessful too.

As an email client Thunderbird is not working well for me right now, particularly when dealing with business clients.

Messages often look like this, even though they look perfectly fine when typed and sent:

"Hi John,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. The results are being examined by staff.

Will get back to you shortly."

Well, you get the picture. Not very professional and for the most part uncontrollable. Even spacing between lines is not predictable.

Right now, I can only see letting the new software create the ID and skip the import, which means I will no longer have the file folders or saved emails I created in Thunderbird.

I'm currently on Thunderbird build 45.2.0

Does anyone have any idea what might be going on, and is there an easy fix to correct the profile and font issues I have?

[DanRaisch]

OK, first, changing to another email provider is more appropriately addressed by adding a new account with the settings for the new servers, incoming and outgoing while initially retaining the old account in Thunderbird. Once the new account is running properly, existing messages can be moved from the old account to the new after which the old account can be removed. Changing the settings of an existing account in Thunderbird to point to entirely different email provider is not a recommended practice. As indicated by the error messages you reported, it can lead to problems.

What version of Thunderbird are you now using?
Do your outgoing messages include an HTML signature or are you using a template when composing messages?
Do you see the same problems if you launch Thunderbird in Mozilla Safe Mode?

[Falcon_Man]

Thanks for the reply.

Your first question is answered in the second last line of my original post - 45.2.0

No - found the signature feature lacking (was much better in Outlook). Never used templates, although I had reverted to using Word.doc to format a message and paste it into the Thunderbird editor as funny as that might sound.

Haven't tried, probably not going to...

Sounds like I was able to do something to the profile that one shouldn't, and am now unable to reverse it because the client software won't allow it.

In the 1970's we would call what initially happened a 'cockpit error'.

"... Changing the settings of an existing account in Thunderbird to point to entirely different email provider is not a recommended practice. As indicated by the error messages you reported, it can lead to problems..."

Not sure I've read that anywhere, but I'll accept that it is probably correct given the editor results, which have slowly degraded over time I might add. Never gave the profile edit changes a second thought once made; - that's how easy it was to do. For the most part the changes were transparent to how Thunderbird behaved. The Editor didn't really start becoming troublesome until about version 17 I think.

If these profile settings were not meant to be changed, they should be protected from access to prevent someone, anyone from doing this again, if it is still possible to do...

[DanRaisch]

If you are still using Word for composing, your font size and formatting error is most likely due to that process. Microsoft's HTML implementation includes non-standard codes that may not be interpreted correctly in Thunderbird, resulting in the problems you are experiencing. It would be better to compose entirely in Thunderbird or to paste text into Thunderbird without formatting and then add any formatting elements within the email client.

[Falcon_Man]

The workaround used was the result of trying to use the Thunderbird Editor compose (TB editor being the root cause of the text format error perhaps), not the other way around. Results using MS Word were predictable and manageable.

Of special note, there is a litany of bug reports in Bugzilla for this format error problem, but it appears that there is no fix, and therein lies the problem.

I posted this problem because I was hoping to find that someone else had the same issue and found a solution for it, not someone who wanted to rack up points just randomly answering.

Think twice before responding.

Anyway, I think I'll bite the bullet and let the new software create a fresh ID and move on.

Thanks.

[DanRaisch]

No, there has been a fix and there has been an extension which helped as a stop-gap for the formatting issue. A bit more searching might have revealed that for you. But best of luck with the "new software," whatever it is.