One Email account is suddenly dormant!

[Slime]

Bit of a strange one, please help.
I have used Mozilla T'bird for years and currently have six different gmail accounts ........................ don't ask!
Everything has been good until today when one of my accounts has suddenly become inaccessible, even though I know I have messages there.
All I get is the following error message;

The current operation on 'inbox' did not
succeed. The mail server for account
***********@gmail.com responded: Unknown
command t26mb176372201eda.

When I click on that account it only shows an inbox when the account 'expands'.
It used to be like the other accounts in that it had many other folders such as junk, spam, sent mail, deleted etc., etc..
Now it just has an inbox.When I click on that it shows up as empty and I get the above error message.
The error message is always the same except the number changes.
Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance,

Slime.

[tanstaafl]

1) Log into gmail webmail using a browser and check that "Settings -> Forwarding and POP/IMAP ->Enable IMAP" is still set. Something might have disabled it.
2) If it is still enabled then see if the folder/label structure is okay in webmail.
3) If that's okay then look at tools -> account settings -> gmail -> server settings -> advanced for the broken account and compare its settings to your other gmail acount settings. They should be identical. I'd normally expect them to all use default values.
4) Right click on the name of the broken gmail account in the folder pane and select "Subscribe" from the context menu. Refresh it and see if you get the expected folders. If so, subscribe them.

[Slime]

1) Log into gmail webmail using a browser and check that "Settings -> Forwarding and POP/IMAP ->Enable IMAP" is still set. Something might have disabled it.
2) If it is still enabled then see if the folder/label structure is okay in webmail.
3) If that's okay then look at tools -> account settings -> gmail -> server settings -> advanced for the broken account and compare its settings to your other gmail acount settings. They should be identical. I'd normally expect them to all use default values.
4) Right click on the name of the broken gmail account in the folder pane and select "Subscribe" from the context menu. Refresh it and see if you get the expected folders. If so, subscribe them.

Thanks for your help.
1) IMAP is already enabled.
2) Not sure how to do this, however, the list of folders on the left hand side is the same as my other accounts. (Is that what you meant?).
3) They are identical.
4) The box is empty and remains empty after a refresh!

Any other thoughts?

Slime.

[tanstaafl]

2) yes.
4) That is a problem as it independently asks for a list of all folders, it doesn't make use of what it already knows. See if unchecking tools -> account settings -> gmail -> server setting -> advanced -> show only subscribed folders has any effect.

I have only found a few similar threads. The ones I found the problem was either somebody disabled IMAP in the POP&IMAP tab in webmail or it was a temporary problem with the server. Since 5 out of 6 Gmail IMAP accounts work, the corresponding webmail is okay, and you appear to have the same Thunderbird settings for all 6 accounts (other than the username) all that I can think of is thats its somehow due to either your google.com settings (two step verification, enable allow less secure apps to use the account etc.) for that email address or your gmail webmail settings for that email address.

Can you send email from that account to another account? The reason I ask is if you can't then your IMAP account problem is probably not a folder related problem.

Is two step verification disabled? i.e. you are using your webmail password, not a app specific password that you had to generate separately.

If you delete the saved password/OAuth2 token for this account, exit and restart (due to the deleted password/token still being in memory) do you get prompted for the password?
If you get prompted do you manage to login (even though it didn't check for new mail etc.)? I'm trying to find out at what stage of the normal sequence of IMAP commands you first run into problems without asking you to enable session logging .

Please copy & paste JUST the mail & news accounts section (the rest is just clutter that will not help) from help -> troubleshooting information, and then indicate which of those accounts is the one with the problem. I know you checked that all accounts were set identically but its worth getting a second set of eyes to look at them.

[Slime]

2) yes.
4) That is a problem as it independently asks for a list of all folders, it doesn't make use of what it already knows. See if unchecking tools -> account settings -> gmail -> server setting -> advanced -> show only subscribed folders has any effect.

I have only found a few similar threads. The ones I found the problem was either somebody disabled IMAP in the POP&IMAP tab in webmail or it was a temporary problem with the server. Since 5 out of 6 Gmail IMAP accounts work, the corresponding webmail is okay, and you appear to have the same Thunderbird settings for all 6 accounts (other than the username) all that I can think of is thats its somehow due to either your google.com settings (two step verification, enable allow less secure apps to use the account etc.) for that email address or your gmail webmail settings for that email address.

Can you send email from that account to another account? The reason I ask is if you can't then your IMAP account problem is probably not a folder related problem.

Is two step verification disabled? i.e. you are using your webmail password, not a app specific password that you had to generate separately.

If you delete the saved password/OAuth2 token for this account, exit and restart (due to the deleted password/token still being in memory) do you get prompted for the password?
If you get prompted do you manage to login (even though it didn't check for new mail etc.)? I'm trying to find out at what stage of the normal sequence of IMAP commands you first run into problems without asking you to enable session logging .

Please copy & paste JUST the mail & news accounts section (the rest is just clutter that will not help) from help -> troubleshooting information, and then indicate which of those accounts is the one with the problem. I know you checked that all accounts were set identically but its worth getting a second set of eyes to look at them.

Two step verification is disabled.
I've just changed the password but that's made no difference.
I deleted the saved password and was then asked for it when I tried to access the account.
The account in question still sends and receives mail when using it through google, it just does nothing when I try to access the account through Thunderbird, although the other accounts are all working perfectly.
Hopefully this is what you're after, but I have no idea which is the faulty account, however, in server settings, the local directory address at the bottom end in \imap.gmail-12.com

Mail and News Accounts
ID Incoming server Outgoing servers
Name Connection security Authentication method Name Connection security Authentication method Default?
account1 (imap) imap.gmail.com:993 SSL/TLS OAuth2 smtp.gmail.com:465 SSL/TLS OAuth2 true
account2 (none) Local Folders None Normal password
account3 (imap) imap.gmail.com:993 SSL/TLS OAuth2 smtp.gmail.com:465 SSL/TLS OAuth2 true
account4 (imap) imap.gmail.com:993 SSL/TLS OAuth2 smtp.gmail.com:465 SSL/TLS OAuth2 true
account5 (imap) imap.gmail.com:993 SSL/TLS OAuth2 smtp.gmail.com:465 SSL/TLS OAuth2 true
account6 (imap) imap.gmail.com:993 SSL/TLS OAuth2 smtp.gmail.com:465 SSL/TLS OAuth2 true
account7 (imap) imap.gmail.com:993 SSL/TLS OAuth2 smtp.gmail.com:465 SSL/TLS OAuth2 true
account11 (imap) imap.gmail.com:993 SSL/TLS OAuth2 smtp.gmail.com:465 SSL/TLS OAuth2 true


Thanks again,

Slime.

[tanstaafl]

imap.gmail-12.com seems wrong. Please enter the faulty accounts email address in the search field for the config editor (tools -> options -> advanced -> general). It should be in several settings. Look for one similar to mail.server.serverN.directory where N is some digit(s). What is N set to? The server id is typically the same as the account id.

"The account in question still sends and receives mail when using it through google, it just does nothing when I try to access the account through Thunderbird, although the other accounts are all working perfectly."

You don't even get an error message when trying to send using your the faulty account?

I suggest you enable SMTP logging per http://kb.mozillazine.org/Session_logging_for_mail/news . If both sending and receiving are broken for that account its much easier to log what happens when sending as you don't have to deal with intermingled data from the other accounts making the log file hard to understand. Startup Thunderbird using a batch file that sets the environmental variables, send a message using the broken account, and exit. Then post the log file or a link to it.

If the log file is empty that usually means you didn't make a tcp-ip connection to the smtp server. As a sanity check delete the saved password for that smtp server, exit and try again. if you get prompted for the password then you made a tcp-ip connection (despite the empty log file), so you probably setup the batch file incorrectly.

[Slime]

In the Preference Name column there are the following five entries.
As there are only five I thought I'd copy them all, rather than guess at which ones you actually wanted!

mail.identity.id7.usermail
mail.server.server10.userName
mail.server.server11.name
mail.server.server11.userName
mail.smtpserver.smtp7.username

I thought I'd let you have this whilst I try to carry out your other instructions!
Yours,

Slime.

[Slime]

You don't even get an error message when trying to send using your the faulty account?

I suggest you enable SMTP logging per http://kb.mozillazine.org/Session_logging_for_mail/news . If both sending and receiving are broken for that account its much easier to log what happens when sending as you don't have to deal with intermingled data from the other accounts making the log file hard to understand. Startup Thunderbird using a batch file that sets the environmental variables, send a message using the broken account, and exit. Then post the log file or a link to it.

If the log file is empty that usually means you didn't make a tcp-ip connection to the smtp server. As a sanity check delete the saved password for that smtp server, exit and try again. if you get prompted for the password then you made a tcp-ip connection (despite the empty log file), so you probably setup the batch file incorrectly.

I get no error message when using the faulty account through google's webmail, everything seems fine, but through Thunderbird I receive nothing and, when trying to send anything, I get an Send Error Message as follows;

Sending of the message failed.
The message could not be sent using Outgoing server (SMTP) smtp.gmail.com for an unknown reason.
Please verify that your Outgoing server (SMTP) settings are correct and try again.

As for your suggestion about enabling SMTP Logging and starting Thunderbird using a batch file ..................... well, I haven't a clue what that means or how I'd go about it, sorry .
Grateful as always,

Slime.

[tanstaafl]

It sounds like account 11 is the broken one. I suspect account 10 used the same email address but you deleted it and installed it again, creating account 11.

You originally said you have 6 Gmail accounts. However, the Mail and News Accounts information lists 7. What is mail.accountmanager.accounts set to?

Mine is set to account1,account2,account3,account4,account5,account6,account7,account8,account9,account10,account11 which is one more than the 10 accounts listed in help -> troubleshooting information. The last account (account 11 in my case) in mail.accountmanager.accounts is a hidden account used for the smart mailboxes. mail.server.server11.hidden is set true , mail.server.server11.hostname is smart mailboxes , mail.server.server11.name is Unified Folders and its missing most of the fields used in the other accounts (even less than Local Folders)

Sorry to keep asking you for more and more information but if you somehow get two accounts cross-linked very weird problems can occur.

[Slime]

It sounds like account 11 is the broken one. I suspect account 10 used the same email address but you deleted it and installed it again, creating account 11.

You originally said you have 6 Gmail accounts. However, the Mail and News Accounts information lists 7. What is mail.accountmanager.accounts set to?

Mine is set to account1,account2,account3,account4,account5,account6,account7,account8,account9,account10,account11 which is one more than the 10 accounts listed in help -> troubleshooting information. The last account (account 11 in my case) in mail.accountmanager.accounts is a hidden account used for the smart mailboxes. mail.server.server11.hidden is set true , mail.server.server11.hostname is smart mailboxes , mail.server.server11.name is Unified Folders and its missing most of the fields used in the other accounts (even less than Local Folders)

Sorry to keep asking you for more and more information but if you somehow get two accounts cross-linked very weird problems can occur.

I did say six, however, you are cleverer than me and it is in fact seven accounts as I forgot to include my wife's email account!!
And yes, I tried deleting and reinstalling the faulty account.
I got a bit confused about the mail.accountmanager.accounts and smart mailboxes stuff ..................... were you asking for any more information?
I'm sorry if I sound a bit dumb, this is all foreign to me!
Would there be any future in my deleting Thunderbird altogether and then reinstalling it and adding my mail accounts, or would T'bird remember all my settings?
Yours,

Slime.

[Slime]

Hi tanstaafl
There is one thing that I've just noticed, but don't think it's relevant, and that's on the settings page of my faulty account the first line under the 'General' tab is;

Setup progress: 100%
Continue setting up account.

(How can I continue account setup when the progress bar says 100% .................... could this be the problem in that it doesn't know that setup is complete?)
This is followed by language settings.
On the other accounts Setup Progress isn't mentioned ........................ the first category is the language settings.
Probably irrelevant but I thought I'd mention it.
Best,

Slime.

[Slime]

Bump.

[Slime]

Double bump?

[tanstaafl]

"Would there be any future in my deleting Thunderbird altogether and then reinstalling it and adding my mail accounts, or would T'bird remember all my settings?"

Thunderbird stores all of your mail, settings, address books, add-ons, saved passwords etc. in a "profile". If you uninstall and re-install Thunderbird it will reuse the existing profile (unless you check the checkbox to have it delete all of your data when uninstalling). You could create a new profile using the profile manager, add your accounts again from scratch, and then transfer your mail and address books from the old profile to the new profile. That's a good bit of work but would probably solve your problem. See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Importing_folders , http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_addres ... n_profiles and http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager if you want to do that.

If that works then you can use the profile manager to delete the old profile afterwards. It can also be used to select which profile you use by default. That's useful if it takes you a while to migrate your data and want to use the existing profile in the interim.

Another possibility would be to write down the "local directory" setting in server settings for each account, exit Thunderbird, move the prefs.js file somewhere safe outside of the profile and then run Thunderbird again. The new account wizard will automatically run and you could add all of the accounts. Then edit the local directory settings to use the old values, so that it can find and use any old mail folders. That's quicker but not as clean as you're going to have leftover local directories from when you added the accounts, and might have to deal with new mail (that doesn't exist in the old inbox) being downloaded into inbox folders in the wrong local directory. You could temporarily move new mail into the inbox in Local Folders before changing the local directory (as the existing inbox will be hidden once you change the local directory).

I have no idea what causes "Setup progress:100% Continue setting up account". I've never run into that and don't remember anybody else mentioning it. A quick google search didn't find anything. I also looked in https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/ma ... figuration thinking that perhaps that is new wording from using the manual button in the new account wizard (which I didn't expect you to use, but you might have).

[Slime]

Hi
Just to let you know that I went for a fresh install of Thunderbird.
Guess what .......................... it worked!
The dead account is now alive and kicking, but unfortunately my address book is empty.
I guess I should have backed it up beforehand ....................... doh!
Hey, and thanks for you help matey.
All the best,

Slime.