Search only finds messages sent by me

[dahndahn]

Greetings,

I've been using Thurnderbird for five+ years and just started having an issue with global search: I type a search term into the Search box (Ctrl + K) and the results shown are only those messages sent by me. I can manually find other messages that contain the search term, but they don't show up in the search results. When I right-click on a resulting message and choose "Show in Conversation," the resulting screen still only lists those messages sent by me. Other factors:

-The "from me" checkbox is NOT checked.

-If there is a message in the Inbox sent by someone other than me, that message DOES show up in the search results. As soon as it is moved to the trash, it no longer appears in the results.

-I have deleted the global-messages-db.sqlite twice and allowed it to rebuild. The files is about 1.4 GB and rebuilds to the same size. Same results.

-I have restarted in safe mode, with all add-ons and extensions disabled. Same results.

Any ideas?

Thank you in advance for your time and expertise!
Dahn

[DanRaisch]

How is the account set up in Thunderbird, as POP or IMAP? Find out using menu path Tools->Account Settings->Server Settings->Server Type at the top right of the dialogue.

[dahndahn]

Thanks, Dan. There are several accounts set up, all using POP. So, all messages are stored locally. Think that is a factor?

[DanRaisch]

It shouldn't be a factor but just the same...

Try compacting all folders, then closing Thunderbird. Delete that global-messages-db.sqlite file again. Start Thunderbird and allow time for the rebuild of the index.

[dahndahn]

Thanks, I tried that again, but it's still not showing all messages either in the search results window or in "show conversation." Think reinstalling the application would do anything? Or, create a new profile? Not eager to redo all that setup, but really need to be able to search.

[DanRaisch]

I doubt that reinstalling will help but it's easy enough to try--
Clear the browser cache and the Windows Temp directory.
Shutdown any anti-virus software you are running.
Download a new copy of the full installer from http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/
Delete the directory C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird
Run the installer.
Restart the anti-virus program.

Note that your saved messages, address books, settings, passwords, etc (if any) are stored in a different directory from the program files and will not be removed by deleting the directory identified above.

This thread http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 5#p5239885 has a more detailed version of the above instructions if needed.

[dahndahn]

Unfortunately, reinstalling did not fix this. Are there other options? Would starting with a new profile and then importing the messages work? Thank you.

[DanRaisch]

Before trying a new profile, please try this procedure:

First, backup your Profile ( http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup )

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

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 Inbox. Compact the Inbox after those messages are copied in.

Close Thunderbird, delete the global-messages-db.sqlite (again) and allow time for the index to be rebuilt.

[dahndahn]

I will try this, Dan. My Inbox only has about 50 messages in it. Think this is worth a shot despite that small size?

Also, I discovered that, if instead of doing a global search, I right click on a particular folder, like Trash, and "Search Messages...," all appropriate messages are found; the symptom of showing only messages from me is not present. As a reminder, when global search fails to show all messages, nothing (like "from me") is checked.

Thanks again for the ideas!
D

[DanRaisch]

Think this is worth a shot despite that small size?

Yes. It's not always about the number of messages currently in the folder but the number that have been there and then moved to another folder or deleted from the Inbox. While regular compacting can mitigate problems there can be problems over time if the volumes of mail is high.

[dahndahn]

Thanks again for your ideas, Dan. I deleted the inbox files as instructed and allowed them to recreate. I then deleted the global-messages-db.sqlite and let it rebuild. Unfortunately, the same symptom persists: When I use global search, the results show ONLY messages sent by me. Using the same search term by right-clicking on a folder to search messages finds all the appropriate messages.

I am really crippled by this issue. I am considering the horror of switching to Outlook or something else, since my whole work life is contained in those messages.

Hoping for additional things to try...

Thanks,
D

[DanRaisch]

Another thing to check out, if you use the Quick Filter bar and search for the same term in a folder where you know the term should appear, do you get valid results listing messages that were not sent by you?

[tanstaafl]

If I do a global search, click on "open email as list", select a thread, and right click on it I see "open message in conversation". I assume that is what you meant by "Show in Conversation". I see messages sent to and received by me in that conversation. Have you tweaked any of your conversation settings per http://kb.mozillazine.org/Stop_threading_by_subject ? I'm wondering if that option uses a different definition of a thread (conversation) for some unknown reason, on your PC.

I suggest you search for something using the quick filter bar that will return the same conversation. Use view -> message source or control->U to view the raw message source and look at one of the messages that global search omits. Check that it has a References or In-Reply-To header that references that conversation.

"If there is a message in the Inbox sent by someone other than me, that message DOES show up in the search results. As soon as it is moved to the trash, it no longer appears in the results"

I have a IMAP account configured to use "just mark it as deleted" rather than "move it to trash" when deleting a message. I can see deleted messages, they just have a line drawn through them in the folder listing. Global search has no problem finding them. However, if I reconfigure it for "when I delete a message" to "just move it to trash", undelete that message, delete it again, and globally search for it, it can't find the deleted message. I'd assume this is a quirk of how global search is designed.

Global search frequently doesn't find messages that the quick filter bar does. For example, searching for 360 finds 16 messages using global search and 38 using the quick filter bar. Searching for 45 global search found nothing but the quick filter bar found 222 messages. I've checked that the activity manager claims that the account is up to date and its finished downloading messages. I've repeated the same tests with both a earlybird and a daily build.

One of the ways to workaround this is to create a virtual folder using saved search, that contains all folders in all accounts. If you use IMAP accounts this is much faster than you would expect because Thunderbird offloads searching the remote folders to the IMAP server, rather than fetching and searching the messages itself. If you use POP accounts how usable it is depends upon how many messages you have. See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Saved_Search

You might want to go back to an earlier build for a while such as 45.8.0, the last patch to the prior major update. See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Go_back_to_an ... hunderbird for how to do that. "Whatever version of Thunderbird you re-install, it will automatically find and reuse your profile (it contains your mail, address books, settings, saved passwords, add-ons etc.), which is not deleted when you uninstall or reinstall Thunderbird. Its also possible to keep the current version, and do a custom installation of a older version in a different directory to see if your problem is due to the latest version of Thunderbird or not. "

[dahndahn]

Thanks again for the ideas. Unfortunately, the symptom persists and I now have a new problem: Junking of email is not working properly:

Dan, thanks for the feedback. Yes, if I use Quick filter and search in a particular folder, the messages not found in Global Search are found.

Tanstaafl, thanks also for your ideas. I did view the source for one of the messages not found by Global Search, but found in Quick Filter -- yes, it includes both the References and the In-Reply-To fields. Each field contains a coded type of email address, not a valid email address.

I am using POP3.

The new issue with junk mail is confusing. It has worked great for years, but now, junk messages are flagged as junk in my Inbox, but they are never moved to the Junk folder -- they remain in the inbox, and are not deleted from the server. When I manually Ctrl+ J to junk a message, the system tells me there is no room on disk for this, to empty the trash, compact and try again. I am used to this error when trying to delete a message, and every few months I manually move messages out of the Trash to make room. This time, I did the same thing, making room in both Junk and Trash, but still get the same error, and still the Junkmail feature does not move messages to Junk.

I also tried deleting junk.msf to see if it would recreate and solve the problem. When I restarted, the Junk mail was empty, BUT, in the menu, it still shows (1871) as if there are 1871 unread messages in there -- but the folder is empty. And the Junkmail feature continued to not function properly.

I have compacted and restarted several times.

So, I now have two issues that are making it difficult to continue using this software. I will try downgrading to the version suggested by Tanstaaafl and see what happens.

Thanks,
D

[dahndahn]

Looks like the Junkmail problem has been fixed by updating to the latest version of Thunderbird. Unfortunately, the Global Search function still finds only messages sent by me, unless the message is in Inbox.

Open to any and all ideas!

Thanks!