289690 - Attempting to change "Local Directory" under "Server Settings" DESTROYS ALL EMAIL..

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(Thunderbird :: Account Manager, defect)

Description

[Dirk Pellett]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050317 Firefox/1.0.2
Build Identifier: I totally don't understand the description of this field "the version of Mozilla you were using" -- HUH?? sounds to me like saying "the version of Microsoft you were using..."  This is a bug report for THUNDERBIRD, like I said, not the whole organization that produced it, ok? "About Thunderbird" (NOT "About Mozilla") says "1.0.2 (20050317)"  if that helps any.

In searching the bug database, I found several bugs describing problems I saw,
but they left out the critical step which I believe caused my problem and may
have caused theirs as well. I wanted all of my email to be stored on a partition
accessible to another operating system I greatly prefer to Micros**t W*nd*ws,
(omitting OS flames and comments on human stupidity here), so I looked for an
option to change the directory where it stored the files. I found Tools /
Account Settings / Server Settings had a field for "Local Directory" greyed out
but with a "Browse" button.  I used Browse and set it to a directory on the safe
partition, and *apparently* it worked. When I had to repeat that for all four of
my accounts I needed, changing Server Settings / Local Directory for each of
them. When I returned to the main page, it still listed my folders, but numerous
problems occurred: Sending email to someone sent it, but I gave up after five
minutes on the "copying to sent folder" message (see bug 252864) and closed
Thunderbird. Before that, trying to drag an email from Inbox to Saved folder
failed, even using the "Move" button and telling where to put it failed. Trying
to READ an email only showed a blank pane where the email text should have been
(see bug 277218, I think he was saying something like this). Trying to delete
the email that seemed to have been toasted failed, it was impossible by all the
methods I tried (DEL, dragging to trash, etc). When i realized everything was
totally hosed and I exited Thunderbird and restarted it, EVERYTHING WAS GONE
(see bugs 278603 and 286782, which may have been caused by a similar action).
After I finished slamming my coffee table into my computer until there was
nothing left of either one, not really but I felt like it, I booted the decent
usable operating system and located the files on the safe partition, so they ARE
there.  I rebooted and restarted Thunderbird and saw that Tools / Acct Settings
/ Server Settings / Local Directory had been reset to the original values for
all of the accounts, and no longer pointed to the place where the files actually
existed. When I tried to set one of the accounts back to the right place, I got
an error message something like "That directory is already in use by another
server" -- bloody hell, it's in use by THIS server, you *&%^^%!! but it wouldn't
let me set it. It would be nice if it gave a warning and let me set it, just in
case something else screwed up. Even better is to make the change permanent
instead of resetting to the wrong directory.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Send and receive about 100 emails vital to your business.
2. Have Thunderbird wipe them all out.
3. Repeat the process to see whether it will wipe out the next batch of vital
emails?? Oh, sure! Please forgive me, but I only did it once.

Actual Results:  
"What happened after you performed the steps above?" -- The neighbors hammered
on the wall telling me to keep it down, and threatened to call the landlord. If
I'm lucky, I'll be able to extract the information I need by hand from the files
that did get copied to the other partition.

Expected Results:  
Change the directory where the email is stored, put all the files it needs over
there, and keep on working exactly the same as before, even after exiting and
restarting.

If you email me about this bug at the address I gave, it's an account I know
works (unix-based), and all incoming email is destroyed sight-unseen unless it
comes from a recognized sender. I have added "mozilla" to that short list, but
I'll delete it if I get any spam (I don't expect any).

Comment 1

[David :Bienvenu]

changing that setting doesn't touch your existing mail. It just changes where
Mozilla expects to find your existing mail, and puts new mail. It doesn't copy
the old mail to the new location, which is the crux of your gripe. Your old mail
is still there, in the old directory...

Comment 2

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 3

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.