T-Bird malfunctioning

User Help for Mozilla Thunderbird
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DWFII
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Joined: December 31st, 2007, 3:41 pm

T-Bird malfunctioning

Post by DWFII »

Help!! Please.

I have the 32 bit version of Thunderbird running on a Windows 7x64 platform. It has been installed and running fine for several years.

After the latest update (to 60.4.0) I started noticing problems. Or a problem. Although I am not certain there is a correlation to the update.

When I try to download mail, TBird will not fetch new mail. It reports that it is fetching anywhere from 4 to 22 new mails (the number keeps increasing) but only one or two of those actually show up--in Trash. And it is the same email every time, from an address that I have filtered both locally and on my server.

Those emails do not appear in my server email interface, either because of the server side filter or because the T-Bird filter deletes the message from the server.

The valid emails that I do get appear on the server and even in a GMail account that I keep with is receiving feed from my primary email account. The bogus ones do not. But Thunderbird is not fetching the valid messages.

I don't know how to fix this, short of switching to another email program I am not a 'power user'. That said, I like TB and don't want to abandon it.

I would be grateful for any help, advice or insights....
DWFII
In the High Desert of Central Oregon
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DanRaisch
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Re: T-Bird malfunctioning

Post by 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.
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DWFII
Posts: 133
Joined: December 31st, 2007, 3:41 pm

Re: T-Bird malfunctioning

Post by DWFII »

DanRaisch wrote: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.
Thank you for your time and help...

As a POP mail server...and as it has been for years.
DWFII
In the High Desert of Central Oregon
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DanRaisch
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Re: T-Bird malfunctioning

Post by DanRaisch »

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.

The "Real Fix" entry in this article -- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders#Real_fix also describes this process.
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DWFII
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Joined: December 31st, 2007, 3:41 pm

Re: T-Bird malfunctioning

Post by DWFII »

I might mention that i just now tried to DL my mail. Again TB said it was fetching 24 emails. Of those one showed up in the Trash. Same one as describe in my initial post. Then I hit "Get Messages" again. Same message from TB but this time it was downloading 25. And then another iteration of the same email appeared in Trash.

And repeated attempts to "Get Messages" results in the same thing--a message from TB saying it is downloading so many messages...always incremented by one...and another bogus email in Trash.
DWFII
In the High Desert of Central Oregon
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DanRaisch
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Re: T-Bird malfunctioning

Post by DanRaisch »

A POP account won't (actually can't) access any server folder other than the inbox so something on the Thunderbird side is moving that message (or messages) to the Trash folder. Use the procedure I posted above to clean up the Thunderbird Inbox folder and then disable any filters you have for that account and see what happens with the next download.
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DWFII
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Re: T-Bird malfunctioning

Post by DWFII »

@DanRaisch

Thanks! Your remedy worked like a charm. I have it printed out for the next time.
DWFII
In the High Desert of Central Oregon
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DanRaisch
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Re: T-Bird malfunctioning

Post by DanRaisch »

You're welcome.
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