Folder repair

[SSfromIC]

My Thunderbird Inbox got screwed up after I did a 'Compact Folders'. I ran 'Repair Folder', and the result was that the messages now displayed are correct, but all messages dated 6/15 and 6/16 are now missing. How can I reload them ?

[DanRaisch]

How is the account set up, as POP or IMAP?
In Thunderbird the menu path is Tools->Account Settings->Server Settings->Server Type at the top right of the dialogue.

[SSfromIC]

POP

[makaiguy]

All messages in any given TBird POP "folder" are stored sequentially in one long single file. If your antivirus program found a virus in any message in the file, it may have quarantined the file. Or if the a-v is set to just delete problem files instead of quarantining them, it may have deleted the file. In either case, the messages would be removed from the message file but would still be listed In the index (.msf) file which is used to display the message list so they would apprear still to be there. When you repair the folder the message list is updated to show only the messages that are actually in the file, which would only be those that came in after the message file was deleted/quarantined by the antivirus program.

If you received such a tainted message, than forwarded it or replied to it, the virus could then have been in both the inbox and sent files, and thus both removed by the antivirus. So it looks like the repair removed the older messages, but in reality they had been removed atvan earliervdate by the antivirus program.

Check the quarantine area for your anitivirus - you may be able to recover the missing messages from there.

[DanRaisch]

While Doug's suggestion is definitely one source of the type of problems you experienced, data loss like that can also be caused by other factors. It can happen if the message files become corrupted over time due to infrequent compacting, very large numbers of messages in a folder, or even due to hard drive problems.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_: ... ng_Folders

Have you access the email account's web page to see if any of the lost messages are still present on the server?