343851 - after system crash: profile lost, but everything looks ok in profiles directory

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Account Manager, defect)

Description

[Peter]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
Build Identifier: 1.5.0.4. (20060516)

When I unplugged my laptop from the powerline I forgot that my battery was empty. The laptop went black immediately. After reconnecting power I started up the laptop and ofcourse my WindowsXP started with a full system check (from 0 to 100%). No problem there. When Windows was ready and I saw my mainscreen again I notice that everything was working except for the following problem with Thunderbird: it started up completeley blank asking for a new account setup. I immediately shut TB down and discoverd that in Profiles everything was still there(in the .slt dir). Also starting up in safemode or in Profile Manager didn't help.

What to do next?

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Ryan Jones-Ward [:sciguyryan]]

I don't think this is a bug. Open profile manager and see if you can switch back to the old profile. Refer to this: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_in_use

Comment 2

[Peter]

No, I am sorry to say that  only see a default profile in profile manager and this does not containe my files...(In reply to comment #1)

Comment 3

[Kirk Wallbillich]

This is true.  I had the exact same thing happen to me today.  The power went out.  I brought Thunderbird back up.  It was like a brand new copy.  It didn't tell me it was locked.  It just wants me to create my profile from scratch.  I checked and the files are in the profile.  I am going to try and create a new profile then migrate my old settings that are still there.  This is not very solid application behavior.

Comment 4

[ragerino]

Same here. Like a new Firefox installation.

Windows-Registry Key points to right profile 
"Disk:\\pathToProfile\someId.default"
prefs.js seems also to be there

i found an article on mozillazine with a workaround. haven't tried it yet since i'm thinking about to move to another mailclient.

here's the article:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recovering_a_profile_that_suddenly_disappeared

Comment 5

[ragerino]

btw: i've allready updated to 1.5.0.5.

maybe profile-manager should have some option like "repair profile" if something is broken. there should also be a direct access from thunderbirt to profile-manager if thunderbird isn't capable of opening any profile.

Comment 6

[DaveLaw]

This is a bug.
THIS IS A SERIOUS BUG!
Its a major design error.
I'm now setting up T'bird for the 4th time this year
with a load of mail accounts.  OK, the mailboxes are still there,
but please stop corrupting the profiles: its a pain in the ass.
It happens when your disk fills up...
...and it happens when windows crashes.
I assume things are being done in the wrong order.
Please rethink this & create a failsafe implementation.

Comment 7

[Przemyslaw Bialik]

Looks like this bug is a duplicate of Bug 205120 (restore prefs.js from the backup or create new one).

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Kirk, what is your OS?

Not finding an older bug to dupe to, which is hard to believe, so confirming.
Dave's problem might be Bug 205120, but not the others.

Comment 10

[Eric Moore]

I reopened 392956 since its a problem that occurs without any type of crash, or any corruption of the profiles contents. A power failure is a type of crash. 

I originally wrote http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recovering_a_profile_that_suddenly_disappeared to deal with the problem reported in 392956 , but recently expanded it to deal with  similar problems caused by prefs.js being corrupted (usually by a crash).

Comment 11

[Kirk Wallbillich]

Wow, it's been a long time since I reported that.  I am running Windows XP and haven't seen this happen again.  I went out and bought a UPS, so I probably haven't had the same situation.  I followed the documented recovery procedures and managed to get everything back up and running.

I'm running 2.0.0.6 now.

Comment 13

[ucukah]

This bug is kind of hard of hard one