1266896 - Losing all my emails on TB restart (profile import)

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[Tim Freedom]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/45.0
Build ID: 20160407164938

Steps to reproduce:

Using TB-45.0 in windows.  I'm trying to copy over my profile from one laptop to another - I imported the profile without issue and can see all my emails initially.  After a restart everything is gone and TB removes all my mbox files (its backed-up so no harm).  I've gone through this a number of times as detailed below.


Actual results:

I've spent a couple of days on this - I used the profile import tool and created a new profile, pointed to the copied profile directory and started TB.  Everything worked great, can see all my emails and sub-directories without issue (though the 'size on disk' is zero for all folders for some reason - the count on the messages is correct).  I did all of this in offline mode (and I want to keep it that way, I don't have access to the IMAP server any longer -- I have "keep messages on this computer" set in the 'synchronization' menu as well as "folder selected for offline use" in the folder 'synchronization' tabs); 'repair folder' makes all the content vanish btw.  I have all the content locally (as noted, everything was working fine on the first initiation of TB), subsequent starts of TB results in showing a single "Inbox" folder which is completely empty.

I also used the MozBackup (1.5.1 and 1.5.2-beta1) and got the same results as above.  Was able to see the content on the first start of TB, but subsequent starts made all my content vanish (is there something I can do during that first working TB session to make sure it continues to function ?).  Looking further all my mailboxes (mbox) files were gone (deleted) within the profile directory hierarchy, I have no idea why they were removed.  One interesting fact, during that first working session, the size was noted as ZERO on all folders even though I was able to see the content and my mbox files are huge (in total I have 2.5G worth of emails).


Expected results:

I should be able to see all my content on the second+ sessions (as noted I'm working completely in offline mode).  TB should never ever delete (or overwrite) mbox files !!

I saw no errors/warnings, etc which is a scary thought.

Comment 1

[Tim Freedom]

After further investigation and trial-n-error, I'm utterly convinced that there is a serious BUG in how TB handles IMAP accounts.  I am able to import the offline IMAP content to the "local folder" without issue and have the size on my laptop show-up correctly, etc.  When I copy the data back into the IMAP folder/directory, start TB, TB seems to ignore it and instead tries to access the IMAP server, fails and zero's out the mailbox (mbox) files erroneously (keep in mind, that I have revisited the "offline" settings multiple times within my profile and believe I have everything enabled/setup correctly - I've seen lots of people complain about similar mis-functionality on the web).

TB should - try to access the IMAP server, if it fails it should use the local data, at no point should it zero out anything or even create empty shells (if its not able to login to the IMAP server, it shouldn't know the structure and as such should not create or overwrite anything).  This is a serious problem for those that no longer have access to the IMAP server but had previously downloaded everything locally - this bug, for the uninitiated, could delete ALL their data without so much as a warning !

Comment 2

[Tim Freedom]

In hopes of finding a resolution, I posted to MozillaZine's "Thunderbird Support" forums asking for help with the following topic/title "Transfer IMAP profile & lose all your emails...".

  http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=3001937

There might be further details noted there for whomever is/will be looking at this bug report.  This bug is rather simply to replicate - so do please try it yourself to experience the odd behavior firsthand.

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Tim Freedom from comment #2)
> In hopes of finding a resolution, I posted to MozillaZine's "Thunderbird
> Support" forums asking for help with the following topic/title "Transfer
> IMAP profile & lose all your emails...".
> 
>   http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=3001937
> 
> There might be further details noted there for whomever is/will be looking
> at this bug report.  This bug is rather simply to replicate - so do please
> try it yourself to experience the odd behavior firsthand.

there's no satisfactory conclusion there for how _you_ want to do this. But bottom line, you can't expect imap account to behave in a way it wasn't speced for.

You'll need to copy the messages from the folders, or the OS files backing those folders, to Local Folders if you want to continue to access them.