Alert unable to delete messages

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joe6966
Posts: 3
Joined: October 27th, 2007, 2:40 pm

Alert unable to delete messages

Post by joe6966 »

I get this message every time that I open Thunderbird. I have abunch of Spam, so I click to call it Spam, and the first one goes to the Spam folder, but the second one displays this message.

Alert
Unable to delete messages in the folder Inbox, because it is being used by another operation. Please wait for that operation to finish and try again.

I then have to wait several minutes to be able to delete the rest of the Spam. The Inbox scrolls to the top each time this happens also.
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Daifne
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Joined: July 31st, 2005, 9:17 pm
Location: Where the Waters Meet, Wisconsin

Post by Daifne »

Moving to Thunderbird Support

How recently have you compacted your folders? Compacting is something that needs to be done regularly in any email program. We recommend weekly, but many of us do it daily. When done often enough, it can be an extremely fast process. Not doing so can lead to problems like those you are experiencing. See this about how to and why it's so important: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders

If you haven't been doing that before, and 'compacting' them now (and leaving a long enough time for the process to complete) doesn't fully resolve the problem then do the following on each account:

Close Thunderbird. Find and delete all of the files with the .msf file extension in your profile folder/Mail http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird including your Local Folders, especially if you are using the global inbox. You must have "View hidden files and folders" on http://spywarewarrior.com/viewtopic.php?t=272 and you need to set "hide extensions for known file types" off (just below View Hidden) if you are using Windows. These are your mail summary files and do not hold any messages themselves. They will be rebuilt the next time you open each folder in Thunderbird. Compact all your folders when you have completed this. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders

To avoid this happening again, see the tips in these articles:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keep_it_worki ... derbird%29
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Performance_%28Thunderbird%29
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