Address Auto-Insert stopped working

[tanstaafl]

"And, for bonus confusion points, I will also add that I have just noticed that TB is opening oddly, that is, now, when I launch TB, the folder pane populates, but the toolbar icons appear as blank squares, and the pane that would display Inbox contents remains blank. Things stay that way for about 15 seconds, and then the icons appear on the toolbar, and the Inbox pane populates."

That is weird. Try deleting the xulstore.json , session.json and foldertree.json files in the profile. When you restart Thunderbird they will be replaced by files with default values. You will need to customize your toolbar again. See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Toolbar_or_wi ... ot_working

Is that the only time you're getting a long delay? Look at the "GPU Accelerated Windows" line in the graphics section near the bottom of the screen for help -> troubleshooting information. It is set to 0 if hardware acceleration is off. Enabling hardware acceleration can cause performance problems. See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Performance_-_Thunderbird

The compose message window has a optional Contacts Sidebar. You can enable it by either pressing F9 or selecting View -> Contacts Sidebar. The setting is sticky. The Contacts Sidebar lists the names of each contact (in the selected address book). You can select one or more and either press the "Add to To:", "Add to Cc:" or "Add to Bcc:" button, or drag and drop them to the desired header line. You can enter a name in its "Search for" field and it will hide any entries that don't match what you're typing (sort of similar to auto complete). See if it has the same problems that you've been running into with auto-complete. See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Enter_email_addresses

If none of this helps I suggest you create a new address book and copy some of the contacts you normally use to it, install the MoreFunctionsForAddressBooks add-on at https://freeshell.de/~kaosmos/morecols-en.html and select just it as the address book which gets used for auto-complete. See what impact that has.

[ACFairbanks]

Hi Dan,

I have no idea if this is relevant, but I just had a thought, and an additional question:

Does TB use Windows 10 Indexing in the circumstances I have described?

I ask (with regret for not having included this before) because I have been experiencing some anomalous W10 search failures.

Might there be a connection?

Many thanks,

A.C.

[ACFairbanks]

Hi tanstaafl,

Your *.JSON suggestions worked a charm. I deleted the three of 'em, relaunched TB, and it snapped to the screen (without any toolbar customizing needed.)

But then, I experimented with the Contacts Sidebar, and it fails to function in the same way the dropdown of the TO: field fails. That is, when I click on a contact, nothing is added to the field from the dropdown, or from the sidebar.

Very sincere thanks,

A.C.

[DanRaisch]

Thunderbird doesn't use Windows indexing but does allow Windows to access it's files for its own indexing. (See menu path Tools->Options->Advanced->General). In any case, that should not have any bearing on issues relating to address auto-completion.

[ACFairbanks]

Hi again,

Well, I did not expect this...

I just created a new Addressbook, and put in it a grand total of one contact.

Then, using the Contacts Sidebar, I went to that new Addressbook, and Doubleclicked on that lone contact. The cursor moved to the TO: field, but nothing was entered.

Next, I right clicked on the contact and no matter what I choose, Add to Bcc, CC etc. the cursor moves to the TO: field, leaves that unchanged, and enters nothing.

I will also add that as I am typing this post, I am hearing vague Twilight Zone music in my head (with apology for the dated reference.)

Many thanks for any further ideas,

A.C.

[morat]

Is there an error in the error console after clicking an address in the dropdown?

Instructions:

* open error console in developer tools menu in tools menu
* click trash can icon to clear web console output
* open compose window
* test

[ACFairbanks]

Hi Morat,

Two errors are fired:

Security Error: Content at moz-nullprincipal:{aa2d4098-5ace-457c-bb60-d89b2ed57143} may not load or link to mailbox:///F:/Thunderbird/Mail/pop.soleassociates.com/Drafts?number=211&header=filter&emitter=js&part=1.2&filename=Corner.jpg.

DEPRECATION WARNING: The arguments you're passing to viewSource.xul are using an out-of-date API.
You may find more details about this deprecation at: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add ... plications
chrome://global/content/viewSource.js 329 _loadViewSourceDeprecated
chrome://global/content/viewSource.js 309 onXULLoaded
chrome://global/content/viewSource.js 175 handleEvent
Deprecated.jsm:79

Thanks for any further thoughts,

A.C.

[ACFairbanks]

Hello again,

OP here, with a tiny piece of additional information:

As in my original post, if I click on an entry in the dropdown below the TO: field, nothing gets added to the TO: field.

But, I just noticed that if I type characters into the TO: field, and it populates, clicking on the TO: field causes that entry to stay in the TO: field becoming the outgoing address.

I remain eager to get this Auto-Insert issue resolved, and hope that someone out there might have some additional thoughts.

Many thanks,

A.C.

[ACFairbanks]

Hi again,

I was asked for any error messages, posted 'em, but have heard nothing further.

Do these errors tell us anything that might be useful?

Security Error: Content at moz-nullprincipal:{aa2d4098-5ace-457c-bb60-d89b2ed57143} may not load or link to mailbox:///F:/Thunderbird/Mail/pop.soleassociates.com/Drafts?number=211&header=filter&emitter=js&part=1.2&filename=Corner.jpg.

DEPRECATION WARNING: The arguments you're passing to viewSource.xul are using an out-of-date API.
You may find more details about this deprecation at: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add ... plications
chrome://global/content/viewSource.js 329 _loadViewSourceDeprecated
chrome://global/content/viewSource.js 309 onXULLoaded
chrome://global/content/viewSource.js 175 handleEvent
Deprecated.jsm:79

Sincere thanks,

A.C.

[morat]

Do these errors tell us anything that might be useful?

Nope.

Sorry, I don't know a solution.

[ACFairbanks]

Hi tanstaafl,

You wrote, in part,

"

If none of this helps I suggest you create a new address book and copy some of the contacts you normally use to it, install the MoreFunctionsForAddressBooks add-on at https://freeshell.de/~kaosmos/morecols-en.html and select just it as the address book which gets used for auto-complete. See what impact that has.

But I've only now had a chance to give it a try. Unfortunately, the problem remains.

All the best,

A.C.

[morat]

Does the auto complete feature even work with a fresh Thunderbird Portable installation?

Thunderbird Portable
https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/ ... d_portable

You could quickly test the feature by using a fake newsgroup account.

Your Name: John Smith
Email Address: user@example.net
Newsgroup Server: news.example.net
Account Name: news.example.net

[ACFairbanks]

Hi Morat,

Before I give your kind suggestion a try, I do have a question:

What might the experiment tell us? That is, what would we learn if the Portable version of TB worked perfectly, or showed the same problem I now have?

Sincere thanks,

A.C.

[ACFairbanks]

Hello again,

A new difficulty has just revealed itself, and I suspect that it is related to the thread above.

In addition, it seems to be more significant (or, at least, more annoying...)

Here's the situation:

I just sent a message to an address that looked like joe@thejoedomain.com

Moments later, I got a delivery failure bounce message telling me that delivery could not be made to joe@thejoedomain.co (notice the .co rather than .com)

So, I went to my Sent folder expecting that I had neglected to type in that missing "m."

To my surprise, I saw that two addresses appeared in the To: field even though I had typed in only one address. The field entries looked like this:

joe@thejoedomain.com, joe blow <joe@thejoedomain.co>

I'm posting this for two reasons:

First, it might provide some insight into the ongoing address completion problems I've been having.

But, perhaps more importantly, what might I do at this point to prevent the problem that I have just described?

Very sincere thanks,

A.C.

[DanRaisch]

Did you review the address book entry for "Joe Blow" to see how the email address is stored in the field in that database?