351416 - Recent mail missing in Inbox after crash, also Get Mail button not working

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Baza]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
Build Identifier: version 1.0 (20041206)

First I would like to say that after searching for previous bug reports I have found a few similar (IDs 337930 and 336550), but all one by one, while my problems seem connected with eachother and were caused in a different way so I decided to file a new bug report.

When I was trying to open an attached jpg picture in one of my older mails, Thunderbird froze and stopped responding. At that time there was several other programs running in the background so maybe the processor got preoccupied (because i have these programs running almost constantly and previously there have been no problems while opening any attachments and not even this one), so I opened the Task Manager, highlighted Thunderbird which was Not Responding, and clicked End Task, which effectively shut down Thunderbird and the computer resumed functioning.
This seem so be the cause of the other problems.
After a few minutes I restarted Thuderbird, and when I tried to click on Inbox, it said in the lower left area "Buildnig summary file for Inbox" for about 15 seconds and then switched to Inbox (which has never happened before, I was always able to wiev my Inbox the second Thunderbird started). But in my Inbox, there was a lot of mails missing, in fact, every mail I received from 1.11.2005 on was missing. I do not know why this date, but I remember this was the day that I received more than 150 mails from a single sender (and it was not spam), so it may be relevant somehow.
Also when I clicked the Get Mail button, nothing happened, when it should connect to the mail server and check for mail. However, clicking on the little arrow next to the Get Mail button and then clicking Get All New Messages (or choosing a single server to check), still works fine. Thunderbird then checked for mail and downloaded 2 new mails, and all of the sudden, every one of my missing mails returned to its rightful place in the Inbox.
I thought my problem was solved but I was wrong, because after exiting Thunderbird and restarting it, the same thing happens. It says "Buildnig summary file for Inbox" and I have to wait 15 seconds, and my mails are missing again, but when I receive new mails, the missing ones come back.
There are still some unexplained variations. One time only mails received before the date 29.10.2005 were shown. After reading the bug report ID 337930 I tried clicking on Junk and then back on Inbox, and it worked, all my mails reappeared, but only that one time. Next time that I restarted Thunderbird, clicking on Junk and back on Inbox would only show mails received before the date 6.12.2005, so I tried clicking on other folders and then back to Inbox. With every folder I clicked another few missing mails came back, but never more than a month's worth, until all of them reappeared. 
Also the correct number of mails would be 1108 with 65 unread, yet this kept changing with every folder I clicked, from 605 with 63 unread, to 1625 with 114 unread.

I'm not even sure this is a bug, i would just like this not to happen because all that clicking to get the missing mails back, and even the Get Mail button not functioning properly, can be very time-consuming.

I'm sorry if I was too long, I just wanted to be as detailed as possible.
Also I never had to update Thunderbird as it has never before caused any trouble, I'm quite sure this has nothing to with it beeing too old, because up until the crash, all the mails were there and everything was ok. 

Thanks for any help.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. I just start Thunderbird and have to wait and the mails aren't there.
2.
3.

Actual Results:  
I have already described it under Details

Expected Results:  
After clicking Get Mail, Thunderbird should check for mail and retrieve it.
All received mails should be in the Inbox folder.
Mail count should not change randomly.

I am using the default theme.
Basically all of my settings are default as I never had the need to change any of them (except mark some mails as Junk, but there are no problems with any other folders except Inbox)

Comment 1

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Please update to the newest version, 1.0 is very old. Every new release gets more stable and better at handling odd problem situations, like the one you experienced.

As for solving the problem, compact the inbox (right-click), if that does not help, delete Inbox.msf from your profile folder - it will get regenerated when thunderbird starts. Does that help?

Comment 2

[Baza]

Compacting the Inbox does not help, it produces the same results as clicking on other folders and then back on Inbox (a few mails show up, but getting them all back still requires compacting it about 20 and more times).
As for deleting Inbox.msf, I found 4 of them. Two of them are probably there because I have two mail accounts (each 2KB), one is from my old imported mail (75KB), and one that should be the current main one (308KB). I deleted this one, but the problems remain. Should I delete the others as well?
Also I am not very fond to updating as I had bad experiences (whole computer crashing after updating one or another thing), that's why I tend to keep anything that works fine for as long as possible (I have been using Thunderbird and Firefox without problems for 2 years now). Is there something else I could do (Get Mail button is still not working), or should I just update and see what happens?

Thanks

Comment 3

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Yes, yes. 

By not upgrading browser and email for 2 years you are basically inviting all sorts of viruses and malware into your computer.

Delete all the Inbox.msf files, of course you can also move them somewhere else temporarily until you get it working.

Comment 4

[Baza]

At first when I only deleted the one Inbox.msf, nothing changed. But when I tried it again the next day, everything worked just fine. Even wiht all the problems fixed I also tried deleting all of the Inbox.msf files, and again it didn't immediately start working, it took a few restarts and about 5 minutes of time (to regenerate Inbox.msf, I guess), but now everything seems to be working perfectly again. Thank you for your help.
As for upgrading, I know that not doing it is not a good idea, but after my experiences I keep thinking "what if it crashes again", and it just seems too much unneccessary work if it does, so I don't do it untill I have no choices left. Althoug I might upgrade Thunderbird now. I also use a firewall, antivirus, antispyware, antispam and other software, so I had very little problems with things like that, at least untill now.

Thanks again.

Comment 5

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

-> WFM (since deleting Inbox.msf fixed it, no way we will find out why the file got corrupted)