1722877 - some pop3/local folders disappeared

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Description

[Matt]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:90.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/90.0

Steps to reproduce:

nothing

Actual results:

after updating to version 91 beta 4, some folders and subfolders disappeared. I was unable to locate them in the profile,they simply disappeared or been deleted after the update.

Expected results:

no folder should be touched

Comment 1

[WaltS48 [:walts48]]

Multiple accounts, what type POP3 or IMAP?

I haven't lost any from my POP3 or IMAP accounts on Linux or Windows 10.

Comment 2

[Matt]

(In reply to WaltS48 [:walts48] from comment #1)

Multiple accounts, what type POP3 or IMAP?

I haven't lost any from my POP3 or IMAP accounts on Linux or Windows 10.

Hi, I do have multiple accounts but this happened only on one POP3 account. the others are just fine.
I tried all the usual tricks, repairing the folders, recreating it, searching for them in Profiles. Nothing. It happened just after I updated the version.

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

What antivirus SW do you run? And "computer cleanup" tools?

Comment 4

[Matt]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #3)

What antivirus SW do you run? And "computer cleanup" tools?

Standard Windows Defender and no computer cleanup tools. As soon as I noticed the folders disappeared I went straight to the directory to see if they were still there with no luck.

Comment 5

[Dan Pernokis]

I went straight to the directory to see if they were still there with no luck.

Do you mean at the Windows Explorer file manager level?

By "no luck", did you mean the files were missing? Or just empty? (Perhaps they had been re-named?)

And were they top-level folder files? (which might include sub-folders too...)
Or were they all sub-folders? (and sub-subs...) Or a mix of both?

Comment 6

[Matt]

I had the thunderbird mail directory under a different drive, not C. I browsed through the relevant account mail folders and couldn't find the folders which disappeared there. They were All sub-folders.

Comment 7

[Dan Pernokis]

So the files where you were looking are current? For example, the inbox has today's time stamp? Or COMPACT FILES has stamped all of them current? (Just making sure you are looking at the actual live files.)

And on C: drive -- where the files normally would reside -- by chance are the files there (on C:)? (I'm thinking they got moved somehow during the upgrade -- old TB says "they're here on X:" and update says "fine, let's put them where they belong (on C:)", and then new TB can't find them on X: afterward.)

Comment 2:
...This happened only on one POP3 account

Is there anything unusual/special/weird about that account? Special characters in the name? (or subfolder names?) Oldest/newest? Recently created?

Maybe there was a viral attachment that just now got dealt with? Are you absolutely certain the folders were present immediately before the update and could not be found immediately afterward? (Just checking for coincidental disappearance caused by an antivirus scan between the time you last saw the folders and next looked for them...)

Comment 8

[Matt]

yes, current
I checked also the TB folders in C but they weren't there.
Nothing unusual, it's the default of multiple accounts
No attachments: the sub-sub folders contained mail from internet purchases (example: Ebay>Paid>item 1,item 2 (where item is the name of the purchase). All the su folders under Paid disappeared but not those under Received or To be Paid (same logic).
I closed the mail and it re-started with the update while I was doing other jobs on PC, once I checked, they were gone. I started immediately looking for them and also tried to fix the folders but no.

Comment 9

[Anje]

couldn't find the folders which disappeared there. They were All sub-folders.
All the sub folders under Paid disappeared example: Ebay>Paid>

I'm not sure whether you checked the following information, so I've provided some info just in case.

In profile folders, in the mail account, you should see :
'Ebay.sbd' folder which contains subfolders
'Ebay' no extension mbox file
'Ebay.msf' index file

In the 'Ebay.sbd' folder, you should see:
'Paid.sbd' folder which contains subfolders
'Paid' no extension mbox file
'Paid.msf' index file

If the 'Paid.sbd' folder is missing then so are all the subfolders.
If the 'Paid.sbd' folder is visible, BUT the 'Paid' mbox file is missing then Thunderbird will have no knowledge about any subfolders which are in that 'Paid.sbd' folder. This means you need to create an mbox file called 'Paid'

Exit Thunderbird if it is running.
Create a new Text Document and call it 'Paid' - exact same spelling as the 'Paid' shown in 'Paid.sbd'
This creates a 'Paid.txt' file - now rename that file, by removing the .txt extension, it will warn you, but you do want to do it.
This creates an mbox file.

Start Thunderbird.

Please report back on whether info helped.

Comment 10

[Matt]

(In reply to Anje from comment #9)

couldn't find the folders which disappeared there. They were All sub-folders.
All the sub folders under Paid disappeared example: Ebay>Paid>

I'm not sure whether you checked the following information, so I've provided some info just in case.

In profile folders, in the mail account, you should see :
'Ebay.sbd' folder which contains subfolders
'Ebay' no extension mbox file
'Ebay.msf' index file

In the 'Ebay.sbd' folder, you should see:
'Paid.sbd' folder which contains subfolders
'Paid' no extension mbox file
'Paid.msf' index file

If the 'Paid.sbd' folder is missing then so are all the subfolders.
If the 'Paid.sbd' folder is visible, BUT the 'Paid' mbox file is missing then Thunderbird will have no knowledge about any subfolders which are in that 'Paid.sbd' folder. This means you need to create an mbox file called 'Paid'

Exit Thunderbird if it is running.
Create a new Text Document and call it 'Paid' - exact same spelling as the 'Paid' shown in 'Paid.sbd'
This creates a 'Paid.txt' file - now rename that file, by removing the .txt extension, it will warn you, but you do want to do it.
This creates an mbox file.

Start Thunderbird.

Please report back on whether info helped.

Hi, the trick would be good but I tried that with no luck. Both the main folders and the subfolders were gone and when I tried to recreate the mbox file, it was empty. Still a mistery. thanks for the suggestion though

Comment 11

[Andrew Pettey]

I have been following this thread as the same happened to me a couple of weeks ago running the latest version of TB, I switched the PC on loaded Thunderbird and all of my Local folders were missing. These contained copies of important emails going back ten years which no longer exist anywhere through having changed email addresses etc over the period.

I followed your comments above and nothing is showing in the profile location for the 30 or so missing folders.

Next I searched online and eventually came across a tool called Thunderbird recovery so I downloaded the trial and it found all the missing local folders on my PC. However as it was a trial I could not restore them, to buy the recovery software was a considerable amount of money which as yet I have not paid. I emailed their support with a query and they have not bothered to reply, this being another reason for reluctance to hand over money to them.

So would prefer some more guidance if possible.

Comment 12

[Anje]

(In reply to Andrew Pettey from comment #11)

I have been following this thread as the same happened to me a couple of weeks ago running the latest version of TB, I switched the PC on loaded Thunderbird and all of my Local folders were missing. These contained copies of important emails going back ten years which no longer exist anywhere through having changed email addresses etc over the period.

I followed your comments above and nothing is showing in the profile location for the 30 or so missing folders.

Next I searched online and eventually came across a tool called Thunderbird recovery so I downloaded the trial and it found all the missing local folders on my PC. However as it was a trial I could not restore them, to buy the recovery software was a considerable amount of money which as yet I have not paid. I emailed their support with a query and they have not bothered to reply, this being another reason for reluctance to hand over money to them.

So would prefer some more guidance if possible.

This is not a Support Forum. It is a forum where bugs are reported, but not all reported bugs are really bugs.
Bugs need to be reproduced in order to understand where a problem may be in the code.

Have you created a question in the Thunderbird Support Forum requesting assistance ?
If no then please create the question and post a link so this conversation can be continued in the correct forum.
You will be asked to post information regarding the contents of your profile.

Comment 13

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Reporter, do you still see this issue when using version 102?

Comment 14

[Phoenix]

Resolved per whiteboard