329285 - Certain emails no longer show content or attachment

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Flo Reed]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20060111 Netscape/8.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20060111 Netscape/8.1

Starting on 3/2/06, I was no longer able to view the contents or attachments of emails in my in box that were dated before 3/1/06.  If I click on one of those emails, the window section where the email itself appears continues to show the From, To, Date, Subject and attachment from the previously selected email (one received on 3/1/06 or later), but the contents of that email are gone and the content area is blank.  If I hit Reply, a new email is created with a line that "[the sender of the unopenable email] wrote" but then nothing after that.  The subject line reads "Re: [subject of unopenable email]"  If I hit forward, a totally blank email is created with not subject and no contents.  I did not have these problems with these emails before 3/2/06 and cannot think of anything that I did differently preceding the start of this problem.  I had been travelling through 3/1/06 and ran my laptop battery down on the plane, but can't imagine that would make this happen.  I can't think of anything else I did out of the ordinary, though.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Click on email in my in box dated before 3/1/06
2.
3.

Actual Results:  
Content does not appear and headers / attachments from previous email remain.  If I open it in a new window, the correct subject appears at the top, but there is still no content and no attachment.

Expected Results:  
I expected to see the content of the email I selected.

It should have opened the email that I selected.  I would appreciate any help I can get, to be able to open those emails again as many are important to my work.

Comment 1

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #0)
> I had been travelling through 3/1/06 and ran my laptop battery down on the
> plane, but can't imagine that would make this happen.

Do you this symptom for every folder, or just for the Inbox?  It's possible the Inbox's index file was corrupted; this is easy to fix: exit TB, then find the file called "Inbox.msf".  Delete it.  Restart TB.

Comment 2

[Flo Reed]

Thanks for the feedback.  The problem was only with the inbox and only with emails in it dated before 3/1/06.  As suggested, I deleted the inbox.msf file.  Is there any way to get back those emails that were corrupted in there?

Comment 3

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Thanks for the feedback.  The problem was only with the inbox and only with
> emails in it dated before 3/1/06.  As suggested, I deleted the inbox.msf
> file.  Is there any way to get back those emails that were corrupted in
> there?

I'm not sure what you mean.  Are you seeing the same symptoms as before you deleted the index file, or are those messages now missing entirely?

If they're not listed, then they're not recoverable.
If the messages are still listed but not readable, there may be another 
problem.  If this is the case, try selecting one of the messages and then 
View | Message Source.  Is there anything listed besides message headers?

Comment 4

[Flo Reed]

I am no longer having a problem with any emails in my inbox, but all of the emails that were listed in my inbox before I deleted that file are no longer listed.  I still have the deleted file in my recycle bin and wonder whether there was any way to salvage the messages from it.

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

reporter, flo, is gone.
closing WFM for the main issue per comment 4.