117406 - Deleting prefs.js should not make your current Mail accounts/folders hidden from Moz

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Backend, defect)

Description

[Christopher Aillon (sabbatical, not receiving bugmail)]

Currently, if you have to kill your prefs.js, or want to in order to reset prefs
to their original state, you lose all your mail accounts unless you go through
and manually either copy the specific settings out of your old profile, or
create new accounts and then just change the dir name in the prefs.js

There should be no reason that killing prefs.js loses your mail.  The ideal
solution would be to move those prefs elsewhere into maybe a mailprefs.js file,
but if that won't be done, then when there are no accounts set up in the prefs,
Moz should create accounts based on what is in the Mail folder.  Accounts can
always be renamed and settings changed, but this way the actual mail is there. 
At the least, have Mozilla as an option for importing mail.

1. Delete prefs.js while mozilla is not running
2. Start MailNews

Actual: Your Mail folders are "hidden" from Moz even though they still are there.

Expected: Moz should either 
   1) *preferably* not care that I deleted my prefs.js and continue
       normal operation, 
   2) Automatically look to see if I have existing accounts and import them
or 3) Allow me to manually import them.

2 and 3 would just import the folders and let me change my settings manually. 
Editing prefs.js by hand to get them back sucks.

This is probably All/All but I'm currently on Linux 2001122906.

Comment 1

[Håkan Waara]

Uh, you shouldn't delete the prefs.js file (or even edit it by hand), as a user
anyway. The solution to your problem is simply "Don't Do That". :-P

If you edit or mess around with files that are internal to the application, I
think you should take the consequenses too- (Albeit I can understand that a QA
sometimes wants to edit prefs.js by hand, but why trash it altogether?)

Comment 2

[Christopher Aillon (sabbatical, not receiving bugmail)]

Something in my prefs.js was causing me to hang.  I backed up my prefs.js of
course and when I figure out what the problem is, I'll either file a report on
it if I think it is a bug, or I'll just live with it.  I just wanted to use my
profile with Moz, and don't currently have the time to go through pref by pref
to see what is causing me to hang.

I do understand that this is not a concern for many users, but it is a concern
for me. If as a user, my profile gets screwed up royally, and I need a new
profile, I am not going to know how to get my old mail folders back.  Perhaps
the summary is a bit unclear as to the real purpose of the bug, but there needs
to be a way to recover Mail in the event that something in your profile is bad.

Comment 3

[Håkan Waara]

Instead of removing the whole file to rebuild it, a better solution could be to
make a new profile.

Comment 4

[Christopher Aillon (sabbatical, not receiving bugmail)]

Either way, I lose my mail folders.

Comment 5

[Jesse Ruderman]

Fixing this might make it easier for me to transfer my mail to a new computer.
(Btw, how do I do that now?  I'll need to in a couple of weeks.)

Comment 6

[Gabriele Biffi]

I think this is a very good idea. Today, Mozilla (1.2 Windows) nuked my prefs.js
(it's the second time it happens). I've got six email accounts, and now I've to
recreate them all.

Comment 7

[Bruce Wolfe]

I agree.  I leave my machine on all the time and I just came home and found all
my mail accounts gone.  I checked the prefs.js and in fact they are gone but all
the folders they were pointing to are still there.  The current bookmark file is
still there, too.  I agree that a separate mailprefs.js shoud be created to
prevent this.

Ultimately, Mozilla should have an email archiving function like Outlook does. 
Doe one that does keep many emails due to business, it is very difficult to
archive and maintain preferences then to go back and research through the
'archive' as it is.

Comment 9

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

several good comments in bug 487368