Update 68.x to 78.x, then 102.x - lost local folders, creds and recent emails. Related to absolute links?
Categories
(Thunderbird :: General, defect)
Tracking
(Not tracked)
People
(Reporter: typewriter.typogeek, Unassigned)
Details
(Keywords: dataloss)
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:91.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/91.0
Steps to reproduce:
Some time ago, I've tried to migrate from legacy Thunderbird 68.x to a new version 78.x (replacing Enigmail with own GPG/PGP implementation).
Actual results:
Upon restart of migrated/upgraded Thunderbird (68.x to 78.x), most local (encrypted) folders and stored mails were empty, most of the content was lost.
In addition, all passphrases for stored GPG-certs were either lost or rendered unusable.
Re-importing of some of the said keys repeatedly failed, for unknown reasons (some might have been expired, but this lead to even permanently loosing access to affected encrypted TB-internal mail containers). I believe, there was some sort of error like "Could not import key ${error}".
I even installed "Import Export Tools NG", trying to do some preliminary backups. To no avail, I couldn't import/restore said lost local folders after the process with this tool, neither.
Summarized, migration was a total disaster, a vast number of mails and attachments, moved to dedicated local folders before, was lost.
Expected results:
Flawless migration from version 68.x to 78.x.
All local (encrypted) folders and content should have been preserved.
All stored GPG/PGP keys and credentials should have been preserved.
Re-importing of GPG keys, regardless of their state, shouldn't have failed, at least not without any meaning- and helpful error output.
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Comment 1•3 years ago
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The mails should be there. Do you mean you only can't see them (due to issues with decrypting?).
Thunderbird is now at 91. Have you tried that?
Since I cannot go back to the old state, I can't tell what's missing and what's not, nor why.
It's obvious, though, there's a lot of stuff simply missing.
When I migrated from Debian 9 to 11 (TB 78.x to 102.3.x now), where I just copied the old TB profile folder into the new OS' pristine TB profile folder, even more eails got lost, also in the regular mail folders.
Examining the various database and configuration files in the TB profile folder, I noticed that there're absolute links to old user home folders everywhere, which might be a hint to the cause - I've changed the user's account name for the new OS installation and it seems, all late emails from the last user account had been lost. Maybe they're still there, just referenced with bad/dead absolute links. I'll try creating a new 'old' user to check, if any emails re-appear, when copying the TB profile folder into that account.
Why there's absolute user home folder links in the first place, instead of '~/.thunderbird/profile/.../...' beats me.
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Comment 3•3 years ago
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For tracking purposes, it is preferable to keep Version at the earliest known occurrence of the problem.
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Comment 4•3 years ago
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I feel like we've had other reports of problems with absolute links
I did some tests: I added a new account. At the end of the operation, all other accounts are displayed. Eliminated the "service" one everything seemed to work normally. Unfortunately, restarting everything disappears again. I don't known... :(
Description
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