Need to Create Thunderbird on Our Second Computer

[kenmorgan]

Computer 1, CentOS 6, bought in 2010
Computer 2, CentOS 6, bought in 2013
Both were together on a LINKSYS Broadband Router

Computer 1 is no longer functioning. That might be another subject. Computer 2 is functioning. However, computer 1 was the computer that ran an email system for many years using Thunderbird; I had not created an email system using Thunderbird in computer 2. Now I need to do that, and there seems to be a Thunderbird in "/home/kmorgan/.thunderbird". But I'm not getting it to run. I used one of the same accounts that I had in computer 1: asaph@redis...com. Here is what happened:

(1) An email did not go through.
(2) The system wanted me to type a password! What password I have no idea!
(3) It also came up with something I never heard of: +OK ...

The Thunderbird did create the "Account Settings." However, I couldn't remember what to put in "Outgoing Server (SMTP)." I also am no longer sure of Server Type: "POP Mail Server." One more thing: the Thunderbird seemed to create itself in "/home/kmorgan" (or was it already there?) in --

/home/kmorgan/.thunderbird

Instead, should I try to create a Thunderbird system like this: "/home/kmorgan/.mozilla/thunderbird" like Mozilla Firefox is currently in "/home/kmorgan/.mozilla/firefox"?

What is going on and what can I do to get an email system?

Thanks so much.

Ken

[tanstaafl]

I'm confused why you don't have a smtp server configured for the account. Its normally automatically created when you add a account. My impression was you installed Thunderbird on the second PC, you started it, it ran the new account wizard and you created the account. Normally you can't create an account without having a password and letting it verify the username/password works. Did you press the manual config button to skip that step?

Are you using a email provider that's not in the Mozilla ISP database? For example a hosting company like Gator, DreamHost etc.

A good place to start is to see if you can log into webmail for the existing email provider, using a browser. If you've forgotten your password you can try calling them if its a ISP or a paid account and ask them to change it for you. If you have more than one email account did you register another email address with webmail to let you use a "I forgot my password" link to send a new password to the other email address?

Verifying your password works in webmail also gives you the chance to get rid of a captcha if it exists (due to suspicious activity). Thunderbird doesn't know about captchas.

One option might be to go to a store like Staples (if you are in the USA) or some sort of local computer store (might be a better choice since you're not using the NTFS file system due to using Linux) and pay them to recover your profile and anything else important on the dead PCs hard disk, and save it to a USB flash drive for you. I'm assuming the odds are your PC didn't die due to the hard disk.

+Ok is a legitimate response by a POP3 server when it receives and processes a POP3 command though I'd normally expect to see that using a terminal/telnet, not a GUI based email client.

I assume you want to keep your existing email address and don't want to just start fresh with a free gmail account etc.

[kenmorgan]

Thanks tanstaafl!

Here is some information.

(1) My VPS is in bluehost.com.
(2) My WHM has 12 Web sites (domain accounts) online.
(3) redis...com is one of my 12 Web sites on WHM.
(4) The contact email is asaph@redis...com.
(5) This contact email has always been our most important and most popular contact email.
(6) In our current trouble, that is why I picked this contact email -- asaph@redis...com.
(7) However, as I mentioned, the "new" Thunderbird in computer 2 did create the "Account Settings" for asaph@redis...com. But I couldn't remember what should be in "Outgoing Server (SMTP)." I also am no longer sure of Server Type: "POP Mail Server."
(8) Then, of course, came all the problems I listed.

But now there is something even worse. After I submitted my first discussion, I switched from

/home/kmorgan/.thunderbird

to

/home/kmorgan/.mozilla/thunderbird

And now there is nothing in Thunderbird!!

So now things are worse for me. Your help would be greatly appreciated! But of course, asaph@redis...com must be kept and used.

Ken

[tanstaafl]

When you switched to /home/kmorgan/.mozilla/thunderbird you changed both what profiles.ini file you are using (its used to specify what profiles exist and where they are) and the default directory for profiles. You can workaround that by locating the old profiles location and then selecting it as the default profile using the about:profiles link in help -> troubleshooting information.

Or you could go back to using the Mozilla generic Linux build of Thunderbird which would use /home/kmorgan/.thunderbird

See https://www.bluehost.com/help/article/e ... hunderbird for some setup information for bluehost . Unless you have a string preference for a POP account I recommend you use a IMAP account. The screen shots in that article are out of date but you shouldn't have a problem dealing with the modifications.

[kenmorgan]

Sorry that so many things (and days) went by! We are in a new house (for us), and things I have to do pop up!

But I did have one short time to get on the computer, and I found something I didn't know anything about:

https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US

I didn't have enough time to investigate this, but it seemed to have a way to set up an email system. Is there anything to discuss in our forum here?

Now back to what we were talking about.

Reading your first paragraph, "about:profiles link in help -> troubleshooting information", when I go there, the entire Firefox crashes. But I think there is another problem anyway: "locating the old profiles location". Unfortunately, /home/kmorgan/.thunderbird became empty when I created /home/kmorgan/.mozilla/thunderbird. But it too was empty, and using /home/kmorgan/.mozilla/firefox as an example, I put a copy of profiles.ini from /home/kmorgan/.mozilla/firefox, making a profiles.ini for /home/kmorgan/.mozilla/thunderbird:

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1

Now in your second paragraph. I no longer have the material in /home/kmorgan/.thunderbird.

On your third paragraph, you mention POP and IMAP. I mentioned Account Setting for "/home/kmorgan/.thunderbird" but now that is gone. I'm not sure how I lost it, but even before that, sending an email to one of my friends never got there.

So......? What would you suggest.

Thanks so much.

Ken

[tanstaafl]

Find your old profile. Look for a directory with both a prefs.js file and a Mail subdirectory. Open prefs.js in a text editor and verify it has some account specific information like a email address or mail server name. Don't edit anything in that file.

Delete the existing profiles.ini (for Thunderbird, not Firefox). Its just going to cause problems and your best bet is to start from scratch.

Run Thunderbird and let it start the new account wizard. Abort it. Go to help -> troubleshooting information . Click on about:profiles. Find your new profile (which has no useful information). Write its location down. Exit. Copy the contents of the old profile over the contents of the new profile. Start Thunderbird.

[kenmorgan]

Okay, tanstaafl, here goes!

I assume "old"profile" refers to a former (but now gone) working Thunderbird in computer 2. As I mentioned, I had not created an email system using Thunderbird in computer 2. But now I need to have one in computer 2 (because computer 1 doesn't work at all!), and I have been trying since before I started "Need to Create Thunderbird on Our Second Computer" here.

You asked me to "look for a directory with a prefs.js file." I found this: /usr/lib/thunderbird/defaults/pref. These two were in "pref":

all-redhat.js
channel-prefs.js

Opening channel-prefs.js contains this:

/* This Source Code Form is subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public
* License, v. 2.0. If a copy of the MPL was not distributed with this
* file, You can obtain one at http://mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/. */

pref("app.update.channel", "release");

I couldn't find "a Mail subdirectory." But there is a directory /usr/lib/thunderbird/defaults/messenger/. It contains "mailViews.dot":

version="8"
logging="no"
name="People I Know"
enabled="yes"
type="1"
condition="AND (from,is in ab,moz-abmdbdirectory://abook.mab)"
name="Recent Mail"
enabled="yes"
type="1"
condition="AND (age in days,is less than,1)"
name="Last 5 Days"
enabled="yes"
type="1"
condition="AND (age in days,is less than,5)"
name="Not Junk"
enabled="yes"
type="1"
condition="AND (junk status,isn't,2)"
name="Has Attachments"
enabled="yes"
type="1"
condition="AND (has attachment status,is,true)"
name="Has Attachments"
enabled="yes"
type="1"

So that is everything that's in "/usr/lib/thunderbird/defaults".

Going back to your first paragraph, what can I put on the editor gedit?

Now going to your second paragraph, I deleted as you said "profiles.ini" in /home/kmorgan/.mozilla/thunderbird. "thunderbird" here is now empty.

I don't know what to do in your third paragraph. You wrote "Run Thunderbird". Maybe you mean I should go back to /use/lib/thunderbird. It has many items in it, but I don't understand them. However, it does have these two items: "thunderbird" and and "thunderbird-bin". When I try to open these, BOTH produce this:

"Could not display "/usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird".
"There is no application installed for shared library files.
Do you want to search for an application to open this file?"

"Could not display "/usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird-bin".
"There is no application installed for shared library files.
Do you want to search for an application to open this file?"

Unfortunately, I'm still very much unable pull things together. I sure hope you continue helping me!

Ken

[tanstaafl]

You could start by looking for abook.sqlite and then verify that directory has both a Mail subdirectory and a prefs.js file. There are other locations than the profile that have prefs related .js files. That's why you have to check for the presence of multiple things.

You should be able to open prefs.js using a menu command from gedit. Just don't expect double clicking on the file in a file manager to open it as .js is probably bound to your systems browser.

"Run Thunderbird" means launch Thunderbird normally via a shortcut or menu item. Don't try to identify what file the executable uses.

[kenmorgan]

Under "Places --> Search of Files", "No files found" came up for "abook.sqlite" in computer 2's "File System".

Maybe I need somehow to start over by creating "Account Settings" and "Server Setting" as I did when I first started to try to run Thunderbird in computer 2. But now I don't remember how I did that!

Can you help with this approach?

Ken

[tanstaafl]

Did you find a abook.mab file? I had assumed you were using version 78 which migrated from using *.mab files to *.sqlite files for the address books.

I can help you create a new profile from scratch if that's what you want but looking at your prior posts (http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... #p14900272) it seemed you had created a working profile on the second computer using the new account wizard, the main problem was you didn't configure accounts for smtp servers. My impression was that you lost that profile by switching from a distro based installation to a Linux Mozilla installation. That changed which profiles.ini file was used, which meant the previous profile was ignored because it was in a different directory tree. i.e. look in /home/kmorgan/.thunderbird

[kenmorgan]

Thanks so much for offering to help me create a new profile from scratch. That new profile would be like the one I put together on computer 2: /home/kmorgan/.thunderbird. It is now empty. See:

Posted August 7th, 2021, 3:04 pm
Posted August 7th, 2021, 8:41 pm

You mentioned "version 78." I'm not sure what this is. Just in case, maybe I should mention what the second computer states: "Help --> About Firefox --> Firefox ESR --> 52.8.0 (32-bit)". Would this also be 52.8.0 (32-bit) for Thunderbird?

The two posts, August 7th, 2021, 3:04 pm, and August 7th, 2021, 8:41 pm, has some important things to restate. The "Account Settings" must have the same account that I had in computer 1: asaph@redis...com. This Account Setting will then be the same that I tried to put in computer 2:

asaph@redis...com
Account Settings
Server Settings
Copies & Folders
Composition @ Addressing
Junk Settings
Disk Space
Return Receipts
Security

If I remember, I only put in the needed information in Account Settings and Server Settings. But as I mentioned, all of this is gone, and /home/kmorgan/.thunderbird is empty.

I am so thankful that you have offered to help me build this back up again-- and make it WORK!

Ken

[tanstaafl]

Version 78.13.0 is the latest currently available version of a Thunderbird build from Mozilla if you have auto-updated enabled. It sounds like you are using a Linux distro specific build of Thunderbird for version 52.8.0, which probably disables auto-update.

If you don't have a working profile on the second computer and want to create a new one:

1. Delete the profiles.ini file for Thunderbird. It sounds like it might be in the /home/kmorgan/.thunderbird tree.

2. Start Thunderbird. It should automatically run the new account wizard. This will create a profiles.ini file that points to a new profile, and creates a prefs.js file in that profile with the account information you provide. If its a lot of work to enter the account information you could try a shortcut

a) abort the new account wizard
b) use help -> troubleshooting information -> open folder (for profile, not updates) to open a file explorer at your current profile
c) exit Thunderbird
d) copy the prefs.js file from computer 1 over the existing prefs.js file
e) start Thunderbird.
f) if it has the right accounts you are all done. You don't have your old saved passwords, contacts etc. but you have duplicated the old accounts.

If that doesn't work I suggest you start over with step 1 and don't try any shortcuts.

3. Create accounts using the same information as your first computer.

4. Exit and restart (mainly to verify everything is okay)

You can also create a new profile using the profile manager. That uses a -P command line argument. However, that only works if profiles.ini has no errors. That's why I suggest you delete profiles.ini instead, and rely upon the new account wizard being automatically run. See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager

[tanstaafl]

Did it work?

[kenmorgan]

I'm really sorry that it took so long to respond. Unfortunately, many things have been taking up my time and my wife's time. I'm now hoping to get back to your helping me.

Yes, I no longer have a profile on the second computer, and I do want to create a new one. Here are your comments.

"1. Delete the profiles.ini file for Thunderbird. It sounds like it might be in the /home/kmorgan/.thunderbird tree."

/home/kmorgan/.thunderbird no longer has anything in it. See "Posted August 31st, 2021, 11:58 am." But /home/kmorgan/.thunderbird is where the original attempt took place:

Posted August 7th, 2021, 3:04 pm
Posted August 7th, 2021, 8:41 pm

/home/kmorgan/.thunderbird is now empty, but it is where I thought would be the best place to try again.

"2. Start Thunderbird. It should automatically run the new account wizard. This will create a profiles.ini file that points to a new profile, and creates a prefs.js file in that profile with the account information you provide. If its a lot of work to enter the account information you could try a shortcut"

I'm always a little confused. Does "start Thunderbird" mean creating something in /home/kmorgan/.thunderbird ?

Also, I don't quite understand an "account wizard." Will it work in a computer that runs CentOS 6? CentOS 6 is run in virtually no computer now days (except me!). CentOS is already running CentOS 8!

I think that the remainder of the "2." paragraph is expanded in the "a)" to "f)" list. So maybe I should stop at the point. Hopefully, you could get me ready to study "a)" to "f)" and to see if I can get anything going. Thanks again for all you're doing to get an email system started!

Ken

[kenmorgan]

Once again, I've had quite a long time to comment!

tanstaafl, I hope you can comment on my previous post ("Posted September 14th, 2021, 3:02 pm").

By the way, did you notice my new post on Firefox? It's related to this.

Thanks again.

Ken