New Thunderbird Won't Access My Profile

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Wiggam72
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Joined: July 30th, 2013, 9:05 am

New Thunderbird Won't Access My Profile

Post by Wiggam72 »

This new Thunderbird is ticking me off!! I just finished transferring my files to my new PC. When I click on the mail icon in Firefox, it accesses my e-mail. I do not want it to do that!!! For years I use POP only to send messages. When I click on the Thunderbird icon on my desktop, it correctly goes to the Profile I transferred.

The Firefox mail icon won't access the Profile on my PC. It appears to go directly into my server. It won't allow me to access my account settings like it does via my desktop icon to make changes.

When I set up the mail icon, I clicked on POP thinking for sure it would work the way it used to. I still haven't deleted the account on the old PC just in case I need something from it that I'm not aware of.
Last edited by Wiggam72 on January 26th, 2020, 9:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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tanstaafl
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Re: New Thunderbird Won't Access My Profile

Post by tanstaafl »

What version (60.9.1 or 68.4.2) of Thunderbird are you having problems with?

When you say mail icon in Firefox do you mean the email link button in the toolbar (equivalent of file -> email link)?

tools -> options -> general -> applications in Firefox has a mailto: entry that specifies what email client or webmail gets called. Is your problem that it used to be set to Thunderbird and now calls yahoo webmail?

The POP protocol is not used to send messages. The SMTP protocol is. I have no idea what you mean by "I clicked on POP thinking for sure it work the way it used to" Please elaborate/provide more detail.
Wiggam72
Posts: 451
Joined: July 30th, 2013, 9:05 am

Re: New Thunderbird Won't Access My Profile

Post by Wiggam72 »

tanstaafl wrote:What version (60.9.1 or 68.4.2) of Thunderbird are you having problems with?
68.4.2
tanstaafl wrote:When you say mail icon in Firefox do you mean the email link button in the toolbar (equivalent of file -> email link)?
Yes. The letter icon that I put there via Customize.
tanstaafl wrote:tools -> options -> general -> applications in Firefox has a mailto: entry that specifies what email client or webmail gets called. Is your problem that it used to be set to Thunderbird and now calls yahoo webmail?
Yes.
tanstaafl wrote:The POP protocol is not used to send messages. The SMTP protocol is. I have no idea what you mean by "I clicked on POP thinking for sure it work the way it used to" Please elaborate/provide more detail.
When I clicked on the mailto entry (the letter icon) on the Firefox toolbar it opens and only gave me a cancel option which then has an option to use Yahoo etc. (my e-mail is Yahoo) or POP. I used POP. As I said earlier, there is no way to access the account settings like it does when I open Thunderbird from the desktop icon.

I have to use POP and not IMAP to prevent Thunderbird from DL my e-mail. It appears that it might be using IMAP (since it's DL my e-mail and I don't want it to do that) even though I clicked POP.
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tanstaafl
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Re: New Thunderbird Won't Access My Profile

Post by tanstaafl »

POP accounts download new mail from the inbox to your local disk when they check for new mail. That's the only remote folder they know about. If you check "leave messages on server" it keeps a copy on the server. Otherwise there is no trace of a message left for webmail or another email client to find.

IMAP accounts use remote folders to store messages on the mail server. Whenever you open a message it fetches it again from the remote folder into memory no matter how many times you have read it. Its designed to let multiple email clients share the same mailbox.

Thunderbird has a optional feature (enabled by default) where it creates a mirror copy of ALL of your remote folders in your profile. That doesn't delete the original messages in the remote folders, its just fetching copies of messages and storing them locally. Don't confuse it with a POP account downloading a new message from the inbox. The mirror copies made by a IMAP account can't even be used unless you switch to working in offline mode.

What does POP in the Firefox application setting map to (according to application details)? On my system Yahoo webmail is mapped to https://compose.mail.yahoo.com/?To=%s while Thunderbrid is mapped to C:\Program Files\Thunderbird 60\thunderbird.exe

If you select Thunderbrid in that setting it should use the default account. If you really want a POP account and its using a IMAP account just select a different account in tools -> account settings in Thunderbird, select the account actions list box at the bottom, and then select "set default account".
Wiggam72
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Joined: July 30th, 2013, 9:05 am

Re: New Thunderbird Won't Access My Profile

Post by Wiggam72 »

tanstaafl wrote:tools -> options -> general -> applications in Firefox has a mailto: entry that specifies what email client or webmail gets called. Is your problem that it used to be set to Thunderbird and now calls yahoo webmail?
Thanks tanstaafl!! =D> That was the problem. I went there and changed it via pulldown arrow > Use other > Browse to C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe

Question. What about the emails it downloaded? Of course changing made it so I can no longer see the UI that was there previously. Are they on my PC, and if so, how do I delete them?

I was thinking I could go back to the previous location, delete the account, and then change it to the current location. Would it still DL my e-mails but I wouldn't be able to see them? Oh BTW, I've always had my Thunderbird server settings to not DL, and leave copies on the server.
Wiggam72
Posts: 451
Joined: July 30th, 2013, 9:05 am

Re: New Thunderbird Won't Access My Profile

Post by Wiggam72 »

I haven't deleted the account because I was waiting for a reply.

I just tried to send en email via the toolbar link/mailto and I get an error message that says:

Outgoing server (SMTP) Password Required

Enter your password for "my e-mail address" on smtp.mail "my e-mail address"

I entered my password but it doesn't work. I looked, but I can't find anywhere to enter my password other than in the error box. I figured if I could access the password in the server settings launched from the desktop icon
and reenter it, it would work.
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tanstaafl
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Re: New Thunderbird Won't Access My Profile

Post by tanstaafl »

Did you check the smtp server entry for that account is correct?

It sort of sounds like you're using a mis-configured smtp entry that had never been used before. One way of figuring out whats wrong would be to send a message from the same account from Thunderbird (without involving mailto:), and then iterate through all of the smtp server entries (using the same account), doing the same for each of them.

Normally you can't enter a password ahead of time. When its needed you get prompted for it and have the opportunity to check a checkbox to save the password.
Wiggam72
Posts: 451
Joined: July 30th, 2013, 9:05 am

Re: New Thunderbird Won't Access My Profile

Post by Wiggam72 »

Sorry I took so long. I had to leave for several hours after I posted and when I eventually got back, I was trying to fix it for hours with no luck and went to sleep. Fortunately, I left Thunderbird intact on the other PC I sold to a friend. So a little while ago I went to my friend's house and took pics of all the settings and came back home and changed them to the same as the other one, then again make another profile, then copy and paste the Profile info from the other one.

It worked!! One of the port numbers was different along with a couple of minor things.
Wiggam72
Posts: 451
Joined: July 30th, 2013, 9:05 am

Re: New Thunderbird Won't Access My Profile

Post by Wiggam72 »

For some reason the following settings that worked would not default, and I couldn't find them anywhere on the net. The incoming server port number shown all over the net (and defaulted) to use is 995, and the outgoing port numbers 465 or 587. Of course, I tried both with no luck since the incoming port number was incorrect. I'm wondering how I got the correct settings to begin with. I've used the following settings since the beginning of time! :lol:

The server settings used to make it work is:

INCOMING
Server Type: News Server (NNTP)

Server Name: pop.mail.yahoo.com

Port 119

OUTGOING
Outgoing Server: smtp.mail.yahoo.com

Port 465

Authentication method: Normal password

Connection Security: SSL/TLS
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tanstaafl
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Re: New Thunderbird Won't Access My Profile

Post by tanstaafl »

You're using a NNTP server at pop.mail.yahoo.com on port 119. Is that supposed to be a news or a email account? I know over a decade ago that was the right configuration for a news account but you originally were talking about a POP account.
Wiggam72
Posts: 451
Joined: July 30th, 2013, 9:05 am

Re: New Thunderbird Won't Access My Profile

Post by Wiggam72 »

I don't know what the heck is going on. All of a sudden, it stopped working again. It went back to that nonsense asking for a password. Could using a VPN be the cause? I don't know why it shows a Newsgroup. It doesn't show that on the other PC. I can't figure out how to get rid of it. How do I remove the Newsgroup?

I had to do a System Restore to get it to open Thunderbird because I deleted the Profile and then reinstalled it hoping that it would start fresh. Instead, an error message popped up saying the Profile is missing etc, and even after i put it back, it still wouldn't work.

Why does it need a Profile? Shouldn't it just install a new one if it doesn't detect one? Instead of copying and pasting everything, I copied and pasted just the abook.mab file. I forgot which file to copy and paste for my sent messages.
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tanstaafl
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Re: New Thunderbird Won't Access My Profile

Post by tanstaafl »

About a year ago for a couple of months I used a vpn with a profile that included a Yahoo IMAP account. It didn't cause it any problems. I did have problems with outlook.com and gmail due to them detecting I was using a vpn.

The profiles.ini file is used by Thunderbird to detect where your profiles are. It will not tolerate any errors (such as links to non-existent profiles) even for a profile you are not using. If it doesn't detect a profile Thunderbird runs the new account wizard. Your best bet might be to delete the profiles.ini file, run Thunderbird, abort the new account wizard, use help -> troubleshooting information -> open folder to open windows explorer at the current profile (which is incomplete but valid), and then copy & paste the contents of your old profile into that directory. If you created a child directory there with the old profiles directory name you did it wrong - you want to copy just the contents of the old profile, not the contents and the directory its in.
Wiggam72
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Joined: July 30th, 2013, 9:05 am

Re: New Thunderbird Won't Access My Profile

Post by Wiggam72 »

I did what you instructed and it's working again. However, the Newsgroup is showing again. Going to sleep now, but tomorrow I'll enable the VPN again and see what happens.
Wiggam72
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Joined: July 30th, 2013, 9:05 am

Re: New Thunderbird Won't Access My Profile

Post by Wiggam72 »

Well, it stopped working again. It's giving me the password error again. It's possible that using a VPN is the problem.

BTW, is there an export/import feature for Thunderbird like there is for bookmarks? I'm wondering if something is being corrupted when I transfer the files. The only thing I can guess about the Newsgroup thing could be because I set it up while trying to get it to work right before my original post.
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tanstaafl
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Re: New Thunderbird Won't Access My Profile

Post by tanstaafl »

The ImportExportTools NG add-on can be used to export/import mail folders
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