310453 - All mail in Local Folders/Inbox deleted on boot, other folders unaffected.

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Dataman]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050915 Firefox/1.0.7
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050915 Firefox/1.0.7

When I booted this morning, it was the first and only time I've seen some type
of scrolling repair messages appearing before XP interface appeared.  This went
on for several minutes identifying specific lines of code and reporting %
completed.  It reminded me of scandisk, which I have not used or seen on this PC
or with XP previously.  There was no unusual shutdown of system last night, or
any other tip-offs that something was wrong.  I didn't know what was affected,
if anything.  Then, when checking my mail, clicking on Local Folders/Inbox, I
saw what had happened.  All the mail that had been in there had vanished.  There
were at least several hundred in there, so maybe I maxed out the capacity or
something.  Apparently no other folders were affected.  Other sub-folders under
Local Folders appear to be in tact.  Virus list hasn't been updated in a while
so I guess that's a possibility.

Reproducible: Didn't try

Actual Results:  
I'm kinda scared to shut down and reboot now because who knows what might get
deleted next?  My mail archive is very valuable to me.

Expected Results:  
It's what it should not have done.  It should not have deleted all the mail in
the Local Folders/Inbox folder.  Actually, it shouldn't delete any of it unless
I say to do it, which I did not.  Just clicking on the folder showed it was
empty, so then I knew what the error and repair reporting at bootup was about.

about:buildconfig

Build platform
target
i586-pc-msvc

Build tools
Compiler 	Version 	Compiler flags
$(CYGWIN_WRAPPER) cl 	12.00.8804 	-TC -nologo -W3 -nologo -Gy -Fd$(PDBFILE)
$(CYGWIN_WRAPPER) cl 	12.00.8804 	-TP -nologo -W3 -nologo -Gy -Fd$(PDBFILE)

Configure arguments
--disable-ldap --disable-mailnews
--enable-extensions=cookie,xml-rpc,xmlextras,pref,transformiix,universalchardet,webservices,inspector,gnomevfs,negotiateauth
--enable-crypto --disable-composer --enable-single-profile
--disable-profilesharing --enable-optimize --disable-debug --disable-tests
--enable-static --disable-shared --enable-official-branding

Comment 1

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

(In reply to comment #0)
> When I booted this morning, it was the first and only time I've seen some type
> of scrolling repair messages appearing before XP interface appeared.  [...]
> There was no unusual shutdown of system last night, or any other tip-offs that
> something was wrong.

I've only seen the messages you describe when XP has crashed or otherwise did
not shut down cleanly. And if it did that might cause open files to get lost.

> All the mail that had been in there had vanished.  There were at least several
> hundred in there, so maybe I maxed out the capacity or something.

unlikely. I've had folders with tens of thousands of messages. Was it several
hundred, most with very large attachments? How full is your disk?

I'd recommend running a disk surface scan overnight just to rule out the
possibility that your disk is failing. Right-click on the drive and pick
"Properties", then the tools tab. On the error-checking dialog be sure to check
the box to scan for bad sectors.

> Expected Results:  
> It's what it should not have done.  It should not have deleted all the mail in
> the Local Folders/Inbox folder.  Actually, it shouldn't delete any of it unless
> I say to do it, which I did not.

We agree. Unfortunately we don't at this point know that Thunderbird is what
deleted your mail, and if it did we don't know how or why. Is there anything
else you can tell us about this incident?

Comment 2

[Dataman]

System did not crash or not shut down cleanly prior to the event.  I can
remember nothing about the incident that I haven't already reported.  As stated,
several hundred emails were zapped.  Some attachments but nothing too massive. 
HD is about 75% free space.  I've only had this system for about six months.

As suggested, I ran CHKDSK.  In the file data stage (4 of 5), it reported the
following:  Replaced bad clusters in 72684 of name
\SYSTEM~1\_RESTO~1\RP193\A0025923.dll.  Also in 72685, A0025925.dll; in 72688,
A0025927.dll; in 75932, A0025932.dll.

Was it just happenstance the Local Folders/Inbox folder was apparently affected
by the bad clusters?  I'm unaware of any other things being affected, but that
doesn't mean I won't discover some later.  I guess there is no telling what
might have been affected until I try to bring it up because I couldn't even tell
my mail was affected until I looked at the folder.  Does this mean my HD is
going bad?  Is there no way to recover all the mail that was lost?  Thank you
for the help. 

Comment 3

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

(In reply to comment #2)
> going bad?  Is there no way to recover all the mail that was lost?  Thank you

Maybe, but not very likely. There is a small chance the file might still be
there. See
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs#Profiles:_File_Locations.2C_Migration.2C_and_Backup.2FRestore

Is there anyone else using your computer? Cause it really sounds like windows
was shut down abruplty/crashed...

Comment 4

[Dataman]

Is there anyone else using your computer? Cause it really sounds like windows
was shut down abruplty/crashed...

Nope.  This machine is in my home.  I live alone and nobody else has ever
touched it.  Normal shutdown for sure so I guess this will remain unexplained. 
Even if I had crashed or quit abruptly (which I'm absolutely certain did not
happen), that would be no reason for bad clusters to appear on the disk or for
T-Bird to lose the entire global inbox (or anything else), right?

Comment 5

[Ray Booysen]

Could you please delete all your .msf files in your thunderbird profile.  This
deletes all folder indexes and will cause them to be rebuilt on startup.  

Please backup your profile before you do this.

Close down thunderbird, delete the files and the restart thunderbird. 

Comment 6

[Dataman]

Before I do this, please tell me the purpose.  Will this recover lost email?  Is
this to prevent reoccurance of the problem?  Have you identified a bug that
might have caused the data loss?  Will I need to manually rebuild the profiles
and folders that I delete?  That would be quite a bit of work.  I can live
without the mail I lost and I don't want to use a sledgehammer on a fly.

Comment 7

[David :Bienvenu]

you might recover lost e-mail. It will be fairly painless. The .msf files will
be regenerated whenever you click on a folder (only the inbox .msf file will get
regenerated on startup). We don't know exactly what might cause the .msf file to
get out of date, though there have been fixes in this area that are part of 1.5.

Comment 8

[warren]

i had a very similar issue.  not sure of the precise moment when it happened.  most odd part is that i use thunderbird to access the same account from both home and work-- the emails are downloaded to both locations.  As near as i can tell, on the same day, thunderbird deleted/lost 90-100% of the emails in my 'inbox' folder (i.e. the ones that hadn't been sorted into a subdirectory).

at work (v.1.0.7), it had deleted everything after i rebooted. i was able to recover most of the files through a office system backup.  when i came home, i realised that the same thing had happened there (potentially after reboot as well)

at home (v.1.0.6), it delted everything that was over 1 week old.  a different problem, but similar enough, and definitely suspicious consider how both events seemed to happen basically simultaneously.

neither time did i noticed any kind of 'scrolling repair message' as this previous user had noticed.  however, i may not have been paying close enough attention.

i believe i have the latest virus checking software at both sites.

Neither computer seemed to crash or otherwise shut down abruptly.

had probably 400 emails in my work inbox, and ~1300 at home.

reproducability is obviously impossible.

rebuilt .msf as suggested below -- no effect.

Comment 9

[David :Bienvenu]

If you have the same virus checker on both systems, and received the same mail on both systems, that would be consistent with the virus checker clearing out your inbox

Comment 10

[warren]

same thing happened at work again today.

in response, i deleted all the emails prior to the original event from my mail server.

returned home to find that no new emails had been downloaded for today.  attempted  to copy emails in my inbox to a backup folder to try to save them, but the program did nothing.  rebooted thunderbird, and found my inbox empty again -- though it did them download my emails from today.

4 items in quarantine in my virus checker - have never authorized it to delete any files, much less my inbox.  that can't be a standard norton response!

Comment 11

[warren]

the culprit does seem to be my virus checker (norton). when i set the thunderbird folder to be excluded from scan (at work), the problem ceased (the problem continued at home, where i did not do the same thing).

Comment 12

[Dataman]

Just a note to make clear that warren's issue is not related to the bug I reported initially.  Actually, I haven't seen the relationship since he began commenting here.  Further, I was not and am not running Norton.

Also, when I deleted the msf files, there was no noticeable effect.

Comment 13

[Kit Richards]

This morning when I logged in to XP, my entire Inbox was empty, about 350 emails.  There were no subjects or sender info.  The emails were not in my Trash.  This is a laptop and I normally just close the cover instead of shutting down for a few days.  Last night it didn't want to go to sleep mode so I did a normal shutdown.  All other folders a fine.  Symantec firewall and virus checker found nothing.  Spybot found the usual suspects.  
This is with Firefox Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.7) Gecko/20060909 Firefox/1.5.0.7 and Thunderbird version 1.0.7 (20050923).  XP version 2002, SP2, all current updates.

Comment 14

[Kit Richards]

Without rebooting, the inbox was again made empty (I had left one email in Inbox), perhaps related to doing a control A in the junk folder and deleting to empty the junk folder.  I exited Thunderbird and went to the Mail directory and discovered that the Inbox file was 220Mbytes.  I deleted Inbox.msf and ran Thunderbird.  All the original Inbox emails were recovered including the one that went missing the second incident.  If it happens again, I will change the names of the Inbox files in case Mozilla would like them.  I will also attempt to remember and document the steps that resulted in Inbox emails "vanishing".
(In reply to comment #13)
> This morning when I logged in to XP, my entire Inbox was empty, about 350
> emails.  There were no subjects or sender info.  The emails were not in my
> Trash.  This is a laptop and I normally just close the cover instead of
> shutting down for a few days.  Last night it didn't want to go to sleep mode so
> I did a normal shutdown.  All other folders a fine.  Symantec firewall and
> virus checker found nothing.  Spybot found the usual suspects.  
> This is with Firefox Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US;
> rv:1.8.0.7) Gecko/20060909 Firefox/1.5.0.7 and Thunderbird version 1.0.7
> (20050923).  XP version 2002, SP2, all current updates.
> 

Comment 15

[Kit Richards]

Attachment: Inbox.msf when there were many emails in Inbox. but none showing in GUI

this is perhaps a corrupted .msf file. There were many emails in the Inbox file but only one file showed in the GUI, then the emails in Junk were deleted, then no files appear in the Inbox GUI. At this point the Inbox.msf was saved. When the new Inbox.msf file was generated, all the missing emails in file Inbox appeared in the GUI including the one that vanished in the second incident.

Comment 16

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

anyone still see this problem?

Comment 17

[Dataman]

I haven't seen it again.  I've been scared to open the attachment provided by Kit on the theory that it ain't really broke so I won't fix it.  I guess I'm classifying this under "one of those things."  Thanks for the help.

I do have an unrelated issue that I'm not sure how best to describe.  Maybe you are involved in Firefox & T-bird development enough to recognize where I might find an answer or link me to a thread about it.

In short, if I leave the PC on for a couple hours with FF and/or T-bird open, when I come back and wake it from sleep mode, I get FF and/or T-bird not responding.  What's really aggravating is that they won't close.  They just linger for five minutes or more after I try to close any open windows with FF and/or T-bird running (not responding).  The whole system just hangs and FF is worse than T-bird in terms of the time it takes to close.  This has been going on for several months now, but I haven't had time to try to figure it out.

Comment 18

[Gary Kwong [:gkw] [:nth10sd] (NOT official MoCo now)]

Resolving incomplete due to no additional useful information on the symptoms of the bug in comment #0 and CLOSEME deadline reached.

Please comment if the original issue still occurs in the latest 2.0.0.x or trunk nightlies.