1852528 - Update 115.2.0 deletes 48 of my local folders - those that were under the local inbox (under Local Folders\Inbox.sbd)

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Description

[smoothpp]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/116.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 Edg/116.0.1938.54

Steps to reproduce:

Updated from 102.15.0 to 115.2.0.
Rolled back and repeated to reliably replicate the bug

Actual results:

I have a folder in my local folders named "Purchases" I also have a "Purchases" folder in my online account. When I update from 102.15.0 to 115.2.0, my local "Purchases" folder disappears. 

I have tried compacting and repairing the folder before updating, but the update still deletes my local Purchases folder. 
I have also tried altering the "View" folders setting with no luck.

I have confirmed this by restoring an older backup of Thunderbird and the folder goes missing every time I update it to 115.2.0.

Expected results:

The local folder should not disappear. A workaround is to copy the missing folder from the online account, into the local folders, but this obscures the problem which may be affecting other folders that I haven't yet discovered.

Comment 1

[smoothpp]

I am not going to apply an update until this issue is resolved.

Comment 2

[smoothpp]

On further testing I have found that 48 folders within local folders are removed after the update.

Comment 3

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Which folder view are you using? For testing, use "All folders" first to rule out issues with unified folders view etc.

Are the folders still there in the file system? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data

Anything special with the folder names, folder sizes etc.? Is anything symlinked?

Comment 4

[smoothpp]

I tried all the different views including turning unified folders on and off etc.
BTW, I noticed that of my 4 accounts, only 2 Junk folders appear when Unified is enabled.

The only odd thing about my installation is that it is portable which I first installed back in 2016.

I found a workaround, if I create a new subfolder under localfolders, and move all the other sub folders to the new folder, when I do the update, the folders are still there. I then have to move them back to the localfolder root one at a time because the new UI doesn't seem to support selecting multiple folders.

To answer your question "are the folders still there", looking in "ThunderbirdPortable\Data\profile\Mail\Local Folders" the missing folders are gone/deleted. There was nothing special about them . No symlinks etc.

I have restored to 102.14.0 and have all my folders back, and my 4 junk folders are also returned.

Happy to continue nutting this out as I'm keen to update without these issues.

Cheers

Comment 5

[smoothpp]

(In reply to smoothpp from comment #4)

I tried all the different views including turning unified folders on and off etc.
BTW, I noticed that of my 4 accounts, only 2 Junk folders appear when Unified is enabled.

The only odd thing about my installation is that it is portable which I first installed back in 2016.

I found a workaround, if I create a new subfolder under localfolders, and move all the other sub folders to the new folder, when I do the update, the folders are still there. I then have to move them back to the localfolder root one at a time because the new UI doesn't seem to support selecting multiple folders.

To answer your question "are the folders still there", looking in "ThunderbirdPortable\Data\profile\Mail\Local Folders" the missing folders are gone/deleted. There was nothing special about them . No symlinks etc.

I have restored to 102.14.0 and have all my folders back, and my 4 junk folders are also returned.

Happy to continue nutting this out as I'm keen to update without these issues.

Cheers

Edit: I should say that 48 of my *.sbd files are gone after the update

Comment 6

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

So the *.sbd files are gone, but not the actual mail folders (the files with no extension, would be named exactly like "Purchases")?

Are you running the portable version now (which is not official)? If so, try the official binary from thunderbird.net

Comment 7

[smoothpp]

The mail files (with no extension) have also gone.

Yes I have been running the portable version and regularly updating for > 6 years. I'm not sure how I can install the official version over the top of my portable version and keep all my existing.

Comment 8

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

You can install the normal version. Then start with 'thunderbird.exe -p" to select the profile you want

Comment 9

[smoothpp]

Hold on.....

Is there another location where some files *sdb's might be stored. On further investigation of my current version, it looks like the folders that go missing are in my inbox.sbd folder (ThunderbirdPortable\Data\profile\Mail\Local Folders\Inbox.sbd)

Does that reveal anything?

They are *.msf files not *.sbd

Comment 10

[smoothpp]

Is the 115 update not (In reply to smoothpp from comment #9)

Hold on.....

On further investigation of my current version, it looks like the folders that go missing are in my inbox.sbd folder (ThunderbirdPortable\Data\profile\Mail\Local Folders\Inbox.sbd)

Does that reveal anything?

They are *.msf files not *.sbd

Comment 11

[smoothpp]

Lets start again.

It appears that the subfolders that go missing after the 115 update, are those subfolders referred to by the files within the ThunderbirdPortable\Data\profile\Mail\Local Folders\Inbox.sbd directory. Its as tho 115 doesn't pick those files up and add them to the tree on the left of the UI.

Does that help at all?

Comment 12

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

(.msf files are just index files)

Comment 13

[smoothpp]

Well those index files, and files without extensions are all located in the ThunderbirdPortable\Data\profile\Mail\Local Folders\Inbox.sbd directory, and they don't appear in the list after an update.

The peculiar thing about those files is that they are in the localfolders/Inbox.sbd folder and not in the root of localfolders.

Comment 14

[smoothpp]

By doing my workaround (moving them all to a subfolder before update), update, then move back, they end up in the root of localfolders. So it looks like 115 is not picking up the indexes within the Inbox.sbd folder.

Comment 15

[smoothpp]

That just leaves the Junk folder issue for me to resolve.

Comment 16

[smoothpp]

(In reply to smoothpp from comment #15)

That just leaves the Junk folder issue for me to resolve.

With Unified Folders enabled, not all my account Junk folders appear in the list.

Comment 17

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to smoothpp from comment #16)

With Unified Folders enabled, not all my account Junk folders appear in the list.

smoothpp...

Please

• Install https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/unified-folders-debugging/
• '''If you do not see the "Unified Folders" heading in the folder pane, then click on "..." next to "New messages", click "Folder Modes", enable an additional folder mode to force the "Unified Folders" heading to appear '''
• in the folder pane, next to the "Unified Folders" heading, click on ⋮ three vertical dots, do not do "Reset Unified Folders"
• click Debugging Info > click Copy to Clipboard and save the clipboard somewhere
• click Close.
• in the Unified Folders heading click on ⋮ three vertical dots, and do "Reset Unified Folders". (DO THIS LAST)

Does that help?

Comment 18

[Phoenix]

Resolved per whiteboard

Comment 19

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

This might be a duplicate, but we'd first need to know if it still exists.

Comment 20

[smoothpp]

Thanks Wayne. The latest version picked up all the mail folders when I updated. So this bug can be closed. Cheers.