Thunderbird 102.3.0

User Help for Mozilla Thunderbird
ncmudbug
Posts: 16
Joined: September 23rd, 2022, 10:34 am

Thunderbird 102.3.0

Post by ncmudbug »

My Thunderbird was updated to 102.3.0 this morning and emails from my roadrunner account that were waiting (I viewed them earlier in their webmail) seem to be lost. They are no longer in the webmail page nor can I find them in Thunderbird. I am also unable to receive emails to my roadrunner account in Thunderbird. I can, however, send emails from my roadrunner account via Thunderbird.

I have checked the server settings for my roadrunner account and I can't find where to check/change some of the settings (e.g. SSL, protocol).

Can someone please help me get back online?

Thanks!
User avatar
tanstaafl
Moderator
Posts: 49647
Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Thunderbird 102.3.0

Post by tanstaafl »

POP or IMAP account?

What happens when you try to check for new mail? Silently fail, you get a error message, it just times out or .....?

What version did you upgrade from? If it was another 102.* version that rules out things like the mail server not supporting TLS 1.2 etc.

You would normally modify your account settings in tools -> account settings -> road runner -> server settings. If you don't have the menu toolbar enabled you can press the ALT key to temporarily display it and then use view -> toolbars -> menubar to permanently enable it.
ncmudbug
Posts: 16
Joined: September 23rd, 2022, 10:34 am

Re: Thunderbird 102.3.0

Post by ncmudbug »

Thanks for the reply, tanstaafl.

There is a noneditable field on the Server Settings page that says, "Server Type: POP Mail Server" so I assume it is a POP account from that. It appears that Spectrum wants me to use IMAP protocol (see Spectrum webpage link below) but I don't see a way to change it and If I should change it, I don't understand why it has worked all these years! When I click on "Get Messages" nothing happens and there are no error messages that I see. I don't know what version I upgraded from. I presume since it was upgraded for me (when I opened my browser, a page came up telling me that Thunderbird had been upgraded (https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thund ... on=91.13.1). Looking at the url, I just pasted, it appears I was upgraded from 91.13.1.

I've been using Thunderbird with my roadrunner account for decades so I presumed I've had the correct server settings but I thought I'd check just to make double dog sure (https://www.spectrum.net/support/intern ... mail-setup). As it turns out, I was using the incorrect port number (why no problem before now??) and when I changed that to what roadrunner (Spectrum, really) wanted, that didn't help. Spectrum said to set SSL to on and set the protocol to IMAP. I don't see where I can set that on the Server Settings page. I did change the "Connection security" to "SSL/TLS" (there was no "SSL" option). I tried then "Normal password" and the "OAuth2" authentication method without success. The Spectrum representative I talked to could provide no guidance on any settings beyond those listed on the aforementioned Spectrum webpage.

I forgot to mention I'm on Windows 10 but I think you figured that out! :-)

I just rediscovered the online/offline icon in the lower left of the window. It says I am online.

Thanks for your help!
ncmudbug
Posts: 16
Joined: September 23rd, 2022, 10:34 am

Re: Thunderbird 102.3.0

Post by ncmudbug »

I thought I'd add that I have correctly set my server names to mail.twc.com as Spectrum specified for my domain.
User avatar
tanstaafl
Moderator
Posts: 49647
Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Thunderbird 102.3.0

Post by tanstaafl »

I suggest you move all of your POP account mail into the "Local Folders" special account. Then empty the trash, compact the folders, and delete the POP account using the Account Actions list box at the bottom of tools -> account settings. Then use the same list box to add a IMAP account for the same email address.

The new account wizard should automatically retrieve the settings for a Spectrum IMAP account if they updated the Mozilla ISP database with the new recommendations. I suspect it will match what is documented at https://www.spectrum.net/support/intern ... mail-setup . Port 993 is for the IMAP account, port 587 for the SMTP server. It looks like they're still using "normal password" and you won't have to deal with OAuth2 issues.

When you're done you can upload your old mail from "Local Folders" to the IMAP account if you want to by just moving it normally. A IMAP account lets you use all of the webmail folders as if they were local folders.

Thunderbird by default makes a local copy of your remote folders which it keeps in synch. That is managed by the account synchronization & storage settings. You don't see the local copy unless you switch to working in offline mode. The local copy is NOT permanent storage like a POP account is. Its a temporary copy. If you delete something in the remote folder when it synchs it permanently deletes the local copy of that message. If you want to guarantee that a message can never be deleted by synching, copy it to "Local Folders".

IMAP accounts work quite differently than POP accounts. If you've never used one it will take a while to adapt, but they're much more useful and have less problems than POP accounts.
ncmudbug
Posts: 16
Joined: September 23rd, 2022, 10:34 am

Re: Thunderbird 102.3.0

Post by ncmudbug »

Thanks, tanstaafl!! I'll try that.

I started creating a new account figuring I could copy my old emails to it but it sounds like I should follow your procedure.

Thanks! I really appreciate your help!
ncmudbug
Posts: 16
Joined: September 23rd, 2022, 10:34 am

Re: Thunderbird 102.3.0

Post by ncmudbug »

Oops! I got a question already!

I have lots of folders under my POP account (the inbox for which is under Local Folders) for emails that I've saved and organized. Is your suggestion to move all the mail from the Inbox to a new folder (e.g. tempInbox)? It sounds like creating another account with the same email address might nuke the emails currently in the inbox, but any emails in folders under "Local Folders" will be untouched?? Then after I've created a new IMAP account, I can create new folders under that account that match the folders currently under my current POP account and transfer those emails to the new folders?? I know I save a lot more email than makes sense but I'd prefer not to loose any of it! :-)

Thanks again!
User avatar
tanstaafl
Moderator
Posts: 49647
Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Thunderbird 102.3.0

Post by tanstaafl »

If you already have messages in "Local Folders" that you want left alone create a new child folder in "Local Folders" and drag and drop folders from the POP account to it. . That way they don't get intermingled with the existing old mail in Local Folders and you don't lose whatever folder structure you might have created to organize them.
ncmudbug
Posts: 16
Joined: September 23rd, 2022, 10:34 am

Re: Thunderbird 102.3.0

Post by ncmudbug »

Thanks for your help, tanstaafl. I'm pretty much back in business but there are some wrinkles I'm not sure how to iron out.

I made a new IMAP account and the emails on the server that were waiting for me were sucked up by Thunderbird. Great!!

I copied all the folders that were under Local Folders into folders under the new account. All of those emails went back on the server (I know a little bit about what's going on now but I didn't expect that!). Because I had emails in my Inbox of my old POP account, I copied them to the Inbox of my new IMAP account.

My old POP account is still in Thunderbird and all my original folders are still under that account.

Question: If I delete the POP account, will all those subfolders go away also? I'm thinking that rather than have sub folders to my IMAP account, I should store those emails in folders under "Local Folders". Is that right?

In the Inbox of my IMAP account, when I try to sort my messages by date (clicking on the "Date" header of the message list), they are not sorted by that date. Did copying my old messages from the old POP account mess up the date that it is using to sort with? Is there a way to fix that?

Some emails, from the email list appear to be related and part of a thread but when I open up the thread, they are not related at all. Could that also be because I copied emails from my old POP Inbox to my new IMAP Inbox?

Thanks again in advance for your help!
User avatar
tanstaafl
Moderator
Posts: 49647
Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Thunderbird 102.3.0

Post by tanstaafl »

If you delete a POP account all of its folders (including subfolders) go away. The easiest way to keep a copy (if you are going to delete the POP account) is to create a new child folder in Local Folders, and then drag the POP accounts folders underneath it. That should create a copy of everything without you having to worry about folder name conflicts.

If you have messages from the same thread in different folders/accounts you're not going to be able to see all of them at the same time. You could workaround that with a saved search folder or a custom view (requires customizing the main toolbar to add the view widget) but that's normally not worth the effort unless you're going to use it frequently. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Saved_Search

The easiest solution is to have everything in your IMAP account that you normally want to use, periodically backup its synchronized local/offline copy of those folders, and archive any older messages you want to keep (but are unlikely to want to use for a long time) to "Local Folders".
ncmudbug
Posts: 16
Joined: September 23rd, 2022, 10:34 am

Re: Thunderbird 102.3.0

Post by ncmudbug »

I hate to keep banging on about this but I am still confused.

Over on the left side of the window in the Folders area, there is an entry called "Local Folders". If I click on that, I get a chance to setup another account for email, calendar, address book, etc... (I wish I could attach a picture but I don't see a way to do that).

A sub folder to "Local Folders" is Inbox which is the inbox for my POP account. Other account related folders like "Drafts", "Sent", "Archives", "Junk", and "Trash" are also sub to "Local Folders". All my other folders I use to save and categorize emails are also sub to Local Folders just as Inbox and the other folders are (they are at the same level of the hierarchy graphically . I am assuming that deleting my POP account will delete all those folders - not just "Inbox", "Drafts", etc... but also all the folders I created that are sub to "Local Folders". Is that correct? If that is correct, How do create folders that are independent of an IMAP email account?

Thanks very much for your patience!
User avatar
tanstaafl
Moderator
Posts: 49647
Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Thunderbird 102.3.0

Post by tanstaafl »

I suspect your "Local Folders" is not the real "Local Folders" special account (which does not support POP or IMAP, so it has no server settings or copies & folders tab, just a junk settings and disk space tab) but a POP account that you renamed to "Local Folders".

The normal "Local Folders" account is created automatically as a side effect of your adding your first account with the new account wizard. Long ago it used to exist before the new account wizard was run but they changed that for some unknown reason.

Look in the mail and news table of help -> troubleshooting information. Local Folders should be listed there as an account that has no connection security and nothing for outgoing server. Its frequently has a account id of 2.
ncmudbug
Posts: 16
Joined: September 23rd, 2022, 10:34 am

Re: Thunderbird 102.3.0

Post by ncmudbug »

I have 5 entries in "Mail and News Accounts".

"account1" "Local Folders". It does not have anything in the "Outgoing Servers" section".
"account2" seems to be referring to my original mail account since its name is "(pop3) mail.twc.com993"
"account3" is the news server. Its name is "(nntp) news-server.nc.rr.com119"
"account4" is my gmail account. It's name is "(imap) imap.googlemail.com993
"account5" iseems to be my new IMAP account. Its name is "(imap) mail.twc.com993".


If I right-click on an email account (my gmail, "Local Folders", or the new IMAP account I recently created) and click on "Settings", it displays what looks like all the defined accounts:

1. At the top is "Mail". It has "Server Settings", "Copies & Folders", etc.
2. My gmail account which also has "Server Settings", "Copies & Folders", etc.
3. "Local Folders" which only has "Junk Settings" and "Disk Space".
4. "News Groups" which has a similar but shorter list of sections.
5. My new IMAP account with the same list of sections as my gmail account and the "Mail" account.
6. "Outgoing Server (SMTP) account with no sections listed.

Looking at the left hand of the main TB screen there is no listing for "Mail". I'm confused now. From the "Settings" screen, it seems I should delete the account named "Mail" but from the main TB screen, "Local Folders" seems to be the same thing since there is no account named "Mail" on the main TB screen. The way I understand things, I would feel a lot better if there was a one-to-one mapping between the main TB screen list of accounts, the accounts listed in the "Settings" screen, and the accounts listed in "Mail and News Accounts".

Should I do to create a new "Local Folders" entry that is not associated with an email account. If I right click in a blank space in the left hand panel of the main TB screen, I can create a new folder but it goes to whatever account is highlighted.
User avatar
tanstaafl
Moderator
Posts: 49647
Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Thunderbird 102.3.0

Post by tanstaafl »

If you select view -> layout -> classic view , view -> layout -> folder pane and view -> folders -> all you should see the most common layout. There will be a vertical pane on the left side of the main screen with a listing of the accounts and all of their folders. On the right side will be a folder listing for the currently selected folder. If you select an account name instead of a folder you will get a pane sometimes called account central.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/co ... s-accounts
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/ge ... ain-window

"If I right-click on an email account (my gmail, "Local Folders", or the new IMAP account I recently created) and click on "Settings", it displays what looks like all the defined accounts:"

That is equivalent to tools -> account settings if the menu toolbar is enabled. The menu and mail toolbars can be temporarily enabled by pressing the ALT key. You can then permanently enable them using view -> toolbars.

"Should I do to create a new "Local Folders" entry that is not associated with an email account. "

I'm confused. Local Folders is a special, deliberately crippled, account used to provide storage for mail folders outside of a POP or IMAP account. It doesn't know how to fetch or send email unless you use it with one or more POP accounts configured to use a global inbox.
ncmudbug
Posts: 16
Joined: September 23rd, 2022, 10:34 am

Re: Thunderbird 102.3.0

Post by ncmudbug »

That is pretty much the way my screen is set up but the wording is a little different on mine. If I select View->Layout, I have Classic View, Folder Pane, Message Pane checked. I think we're on the same page. My description may have been less than helpful.

One confusion I have is that I have a "Local Folders" entry in the Folders Pane and it has an Inbox folder which is where I viewed my email when it was configured for POP. The subfolders for "Local Folders" are Inbox, Drafts, Sent, Archives, Junk, Trash, etc. Those folders are also under gmail account and my new IMAP account so that makes me think that somehow "Local Folders" is actually associated with an email account. I did not create those subfolders. Am I misinterpreting the situation?

The second confusion I have is that when I look at the Account Settings screen, there is an account named "Mail" which is my old POP mail account, but "Mail" does not appear in the Folders Pane. My concern is that the account "Mail" on the Account Settings screen is actually associated with the "Local Folders" on the Folders Pane and if I delete that account, all my subfolders to "Local Folders" will go with it. Does make sense?

I just did something that might answer my question. I would appreciate it if you would check me on this. To be safe, I copied all the subfolders I had created into a new big folder called "Saved for Migration". That folder, quite naturally, appears as a subfolder to "Local Folders". In the Account Settings screen with "Local Folders" highlighted, it tells me what the local directory is and I clicked on the Browse button. The directory appears in a File Explorer window which displays a directory called "Saved for Migration.sdb" (there is also a directory in the File Explorer window which does not appear in the Folder Pane. Hmmm...). This leads me to believe that "Local Folders" is a local directory tree and I presume it will stay there regardless what I do to TB. I still don't understand why "Mail" doesn't show up in my Folders Pane though.

Any clarification would be greatly appreciated!

Again, I really do appreciate your patience!
Post Reply