Thunderbird lets me down
While downloading mail, Thunderbird reported that it failed to properly close some file because of a problem with one of the msg filters. Msgs in my inbox now were uniformly blank. TB asked me to delete inbox.msf and start again. I did. Didn’t help.
The msf file apparently is where header info is kept. The msgs themselves are stored in files without extensions that mirror the names of the folders you’re using within TB. And, sure enough, my inbox file showed a happy 7MB, about right considering I’ve only been using TB for a few weeks.
Unfortunately, my inbox file is 7MB of zeroes. So, it looks like I’ve lost all of my email for the past few weeks. Unless someone has a bright idea.
I am a backup fanatic. But I hadn’t gotten around to figuring out which TB files to back up. So, the msgs are just gone gone gone. Well, at least back to Nov. 1 which is when I did my last image of my drive. And that mail file is all of 7K.
I’m sunk. Sigh.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
Same thing (empty emails) happened to me. I found their content in my Temp directory – try looking there.
Unfortunately, no clue as to how to reconnect the contents with the header info….
This might help for the future…
If possible switch from POP3 to IMAP protocols. IMAP accesses your e-mail server for the messages each time you want to read them, but it leaves the message itself on the e-mail server. POP3 downloads them permanently and accesses the messages locally off the hard drive — which can leave you susceptible to the b0rk3d messages mishap. That said, Thunderbird can d/l them for off-line perusal under an IMAP setup as well.
David,
Under the Tools menu, choose Account Settings and look about halfway down the dialog. Is the “Leave Messages on Server box checked? If so, the messages are still on your server. If you had the suboption “at most for X days” it’ll only be for that many days, but still…
IF (and ONLY IF) “Leave messages…” was checked, you can do the following to get them back. DO NOT do this if “Leave messsages..” was unchecked as it will not help.
Before doing anything else, backup the Profiles directory in C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Thunderbird. Just copy and paste it somewhere else… (I’m assuming this is on Windows…)
Now, go to Tools > Account Settings and remove your account. WARNING: You’ll lose your rules. I believe they’re somewhere in the Profile directory, but I don’t know where. I’ll check that out.
Anyway, once you’ve removed your account, readd it. WHen you’re done, tell TB to check your email. It will download all of the messages left on the server.
Hey, I found the rules file if you do the above process. It’s called
msgFilterRules.dat
and is in
C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\default\.slt\Mail\
where all the stuff is > is variable. If you backup the Profiles folder it’ll be in there. You can copy the backed up version of msgFilterRules.dat into your new account folder and you’ll have your rules back. email me if you have questions… rick at rickgregory dot org.
This is great info. Thanks for all the work and ideas. And it will pay off for someone who googles the same problem as I had. But, unfortunately, I’m beyond redemption.
Rick, the first thing I did today when I got back from a little trip was turn OFF the “save on server” setting because if it’s on, when I use my laptop instead of my desktop it downloads not just the new mail but all the old mail as well. So, I flipped it off, and thus don’t have that as a back up.
Jed, I will probably switch to IMAP + download. I need the DL so X1 can index the mail. I’m also beginning regular backups of my profile folder. D’oh.
Anna, I couldn’t find a copy in any TEMP folder. Thanks for the suggestion, though.
Damn.
David – sorry to hear about this. I also use IMAP and x1 and it’s a fine combination. As I’m still using Outlook, I have to occasionally generate a new .pst file and having everything on the IMAP server makes that a whole lot easier to handle.
I don’t like being this dumb in private, much less in public, but I’m getting some imap weirdnesses.
1. Although I’ve told Thunderbird not to check for msgs on startup or at any interval, it seems to check continuously.
2. It won’t let me create new folders for foldering my mail. Well, it let me create a couple, but then it stopped. The “apply” doesn’t take.
3. Just about every time I click on a msg in my inbox to read it, Norton Antivirus tells me I have the netsky virus. Seems unlikely to me.
Help?
David: A couple of suggestions. First, try accessing your IMAP server with another client like Outlook or Outlook Express that supports IMAP. PocoMail or Barca (both from Poco Systems) are other choices. See if your folder weirdness and false positives on Netsky reproduce. That will isolate Thunderbird as the culprit (or not).
Seoond – seriously consider dumping Norton. I’ve been recommending AVG Antivirus for some time and have had zero issues with the systems I’ve put it on (no false positives and no incompatibilities). There are free and commercial versions of their new 7.0 release. In my experience, Norton dumps so much stuff on your system and consumes so many resources that it’s bound to be a problem for a lot of users.
In the 3-1/2 years I’ve been doing a weekly radio call-in show, there has not been a week where Norton Antivirus or worse, their Internet Security suite, hasn’t been the subject of at least one call.
Marc,
TB shows me 2 classes of folders in my imap inbox: Ones I created using the TB client, and then a list of them under an italicized folder called “mail.” The second class are ones that I know are actually on my server. OL shows me the second class but not the first, and I can add to those. So I’m a tiny bit confused about the status of the first class.
As for AVG, I am giving it a try. NAV has done a good job protecting my computer over the years, although I certainly agree with your assessment that it is so pervasive on my system that it causes problems where it shouldn’t. So, I’m about to extirpate NAV and try the free version of AVG for a bit. Thanks for the suggestions and the help.
David: This duality sounds like a synchronization issue. The non-italicized folders in TB are local folders with no corollary on your IMAP server. Outlook sets the synchronization on new local folders automatically. There may be a preference in TB to do the same.
I tend to turn synchronization off because my IMAP store is just huge and Outlook tends to go brain-dead on me trying to sync everything up. As most of the folders in my store are archival, there’s little point in Outlook constantly scanning them. The only folders I have set to be synchronized are my Inboxes for the three IMAP accounts I have in Outlook (I also have a POP3 account but sync doesn’t apply).
So what happens, in Outlook, is that when I click on a folder, it pulls the contents down locally (you can set whether it downloads the entire message, just the header, or a set K-byte amount of each message). Once this has been done, x1 is able to index the contents of that folder.
Here’s a thread on the Thunderbird Forums that sheds at least a little light on this issue. It appears you may need to make sure that your client and the server you’re using have their thread count settings set to use the same number of issues crop up.
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=161752&highlight=imap
IMAP is a funky beast and many developers I have worked with in testing and reviewing have complained about the difficulties in working with it (including the team at x1). You may want to do a search on the TB Forum for IMAP. I saw at least two dozen threads discussing the protocol for that mail app.
Hope this helps…
Marc, you’ve been really generous and helpful. Thank you.
For moment I’m switching back to pop3 since I’m all set up for it. I’m also backing up the mail file every day to a couple of different spots, as I had been doing with Outlook. Sigh.
Thanks again.
Hang in there David. These are the joys of technology, right? ;^)
I quit being dumb in public, myself. Now, I just stay home when I think, and dumb around the house by myself. I’ve only got arrested once so far this way–an improvement by order of magnitude–and this for playing Hendrix too loud. If I just stuff everything into my own head, in my own home, and close the hatch, I just may stay free afterall!
PS: don’t wary–no emails from me were in there.
I noticed that although I checked the box to leave messages on the server, I am finding that Thunderbird is leaving some but deleting most anyway after downloading.
Jon Cverna wrote:
“I noticed that although I checked the box to leave messages on the server, I am finding that Thunderbird is leaving some but deleting most anyway after downloading.”
I discovered today that Thunderbird apparently is not deleting from the server any messages I automatically move from the inbox via filters. It seems only to delete the ones I manually move or delete. I had to go to Yahoo! Web-based mail to delete about 200 messages that Thunderbird had failed to delete. Not too happy with that!
David,
The same thing happen to me as well.
Well, I think we should never be caught without proper backups, I know this isn’t the fix for the problem, but at least we don’t get badly scrwed…
When I used Outlook Exprees I used to do it manually by saving the .dbx files, until I found Outlook Express Backup Genie that does it automatically at regular times.
I choused it over other because it can work with both MS Outlook and Outlook Express, and many other email clients as well.
Alicia