1394285 - thunderbird might enter a situation where all local folders must be repaired

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: Filters, defect)

Description

[Christopher Richmond]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/60.0.3112.101 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

Sometimes Thunderbird gets into a state where Thunderbird will frequently hang, making usage difficult.  I've searched for methods to correct such a situation, and there are two options that I've found on the internet: 1. rebuild the global database (which involves deleting the file "global-messages-db.sqlite").  2. rebuild the msf files (which involves deletting the msf files).  This method causes the issue of automatic filters no longer working.

There are other situations where this issue occurs; e.g., restoring Thunderbird from MozBackup, or moving Thunderbird files from one computer to another.


Actual results:

email filters no longer work automatically. a popup messages is displayed when new email arrives that would be otherwise processed by an email filter, stating something to the effect that the email message could not be moved to the particular folder, and that the particular folder might need to be repaired.

of course, clicking on the main menu "Tools --> Run Filters On Folder" works.  But the automatic filtering does not.

The only solution is to right click on the folder, click on "Properties", then click the "Repair Folder" button.

The problem is that the mentioned solution must be done to each and every folder.  Some users of Thunderbird, including me, have many email folders and many email filters.


Expected results:

the automatic filtering issue shouldn't have occurred; or, Thunderbird should contain an option to automatically or manually repair all folders.

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

We already have a bug report about repairing all folders - bug 81141 - which we won't be doing, and which is already available via addon.

So as I mentioned in https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1173063 your bug report needs to clearly articulate the steps which cause you to have corrupted index/folder

Comment 2

[Christopher Richmond]

"clearly articulated steps which have caused me to have corrupted index/folder":
0. only step: delete all msf files (which I didn't do this time around)
1. only step: attempt to perform a full backup restore from mozbackup
2. only step: attempt to move a thunderbird installation from one computer to another

item #2 is what I had to deal with recently.

can you please provide a link to the addon that you mentioned that repairs all folders?

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Christopher Richmond from comment #2)
> "clearly articulated steps which have caused me to have corrupted
> index/folder":
> 0. only step: delete all msf files (which I didn't do this time around)
> 1. only step: attempt to perform a full backup restore from mozbackup
> 2. only step: attempt to move a thunderbird installation from one computer
> to another
> 
> item #2 is what I had to deal with recently.
> 
> can you please provide a link to the addon that you mentioned that repairs
> all folders?

I was mistaken, the tool is not mentioned in bug 81141.  It is http://www.parhelia-tools.com/products/thunderfix/thunderfix.aspx and is not an addon. But it doesn't repair, it only removes all msf files. This "might" resolve potential folder problems, but also may introduce other problems, has you have found by deleting all your msf files.


> 1. rebuild the global database (which involves deleting the file "global-messages-db.sqlite").  2. rebuild the msf files (which involves deletting the msf files).  This method causes the issue of automatic filters no longer working.

We need to understand why you are having frequent hangs in the first place.  Please share more information.

Comment 4

[Christopher Richmond]

I was a long-time Outlook user. I have a large amount of local folders, folders of folders, email messages, etc.

I converted to using Thunderbird for email management.

I don't remember what all went in to importing my outlook email files to Thunderbird.

For the most part, I've been happy with Thunderbird.

The past several months, I haven't had any issues with Thunderbird hanging.

If I remember correctly, Thunderbird hung 1. after I imported my email data from Outlook, 2. after I moved Thunderbird from one computer to another (using MozBackup).

After a few days, Thunderbird would regularly hang, sometimes up to 10 minutes, for any action at all.

The solution mentioned previously fixed the hanging issue.

However, that caused the other issue I described.

I'm hoping that information is enough.

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Do you still encounter filter issues?

Comment 6

[Christopher Richmond]

I haven't run into a situation that involves fixing thunderbird from crashing.
therefore, I haven't run into situations where automatic filtering becomes broken.
so the bug might still exist, but isn't easily reproducible (nor would I want to).
originally I clicked on "repair folder" from the "properties" menu of each local folder to fix the issue.
a simpler, less time-consuming method is to navigate through each folder and wait for each folder to load.