Closed Bug 610772 Opened 15 years ago Closed 15 years ago

Mail not being saved in Sent Folder

Categories

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
General
Platform:
x86
Windows 7
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 598104

People

(Reporter: jmpelo, Unassigned)

Details

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; HPDTDF; .NET4.0C; AskTbDIC2V5/5.9.1.14019) Build Identifier: I use TB 3.1.6. Computer is set to save a copy of each e-mail in the Sent Folder. But the text of the message isn't being saved - it only saves the name of recipient, subject and date. It has been working properly until today. Reproducible: Always
I did some checking today while trying to open the Sent file - and got a message that the file was full and nothing more can be saved in it until I delete some of the mail and compact the folder. There are only 2 letters in the file, so there is no way it can be full. How can I delete mail that doesn't show up? I tried to compact the folder, but that didn't solve the problem. I'm at a loss as to what to try next..
Is your sent folder a local folder or an imap folder ? If it's a local folder what's it's size on disk ?
It's a folder that appears along with inbox, drafts, templates, sent, archives, junk, trash, unsent messages. I assume these folders are part of the Thunderbird program. Since my first "bug" message to you, the folder does not open when I click on it. I assume it's not saving any outgoing mail.
Could you install https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/239387/ and copy paste or send me what you get from the add-on please ?
Local folder as the user uses POP accounts.
I'm running out of ideas rsx11m any thing I missed ?
It may be possible that the folder has reached the 4GB limit and has lots of deleted but not compacted messages. I'm not sure if (and if yes, why) in that case compacting would fail, but there is a GS thread http://gsfn.us/t/ouqq mentioning similar issues for the Inbox which should apply for other folders. Either way, I'd check the actual size of the Sent folder in the profile. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird
I empty the "sent" folder every few days, and have compacted the folders frequently. That didn't solve anything. Today it "saved" the subject names of 3 letters I wrote, but didn't save the contents. I just checked and now the folder is empty - it didn't keep the messages for even an hour. I didn't delete them - they disappeared by themselves.
Did you try re-indexing the folder as suggested in the thread? Right-click on the folder and select "Properties", then click on "Repair Folder" which should resynchronize the index with the folder's contents (your messages may show up again in this way, or try compacting after the reindexing).
Tried that several times - nothing changed. I just tried to "repair" the folder and got a message that another operation was using the folder! I have tried to repair and compact the "sent" folder man times, but nothing has changed.
Sorry to say, I've arrived at the same point as Ludo in comment #6... :-( If it's neither a size nor an indexing problem, what else could it be? Another possible procedure is to remove the Sent folder entirely and force Thunderbird to recreate it from scratch - this will delete EVERYTHING in that folder even if it was just lost there and could have been restored! Shut down Thunderbird, go into the profile folder per link in comment #7, then enter the "Mail" folder and then "Local Folders" (assuming that's where your Sent folder is located). Remove both "Sent" and "Sent.msf" files and restart Thunderbird.
Just had a thought: I receive a copy of a small newspaper each week and forward it to several people. I then move the incoming newspaper to a separate folder where I keep copies of it for a while. Usually after forwarding the newspaper I clean out the "sent" folder. But I am not able to do that because it isn't saving anything in it. Could all my "sent" mail be accumulating somewhere without anything appearing in the "sent" folder, making it look like it's empty?
I tried to go to: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird but there's nothing for Windows 7 users. So which one do I use?
Oops, yes - that article needs to be updated. The path is the same for Vista and Windows 7, C:\Users\<Windows user name>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\ Profiles\<Profile name>\ then go into the Mail folder. The profile name is preceded by 8 random characters, thus "abcd1234.default" or similar. > (comment #12) Could all my "sent" mail be accumulating somewhere without > anything appearing in the "sent" folder, making it look like it's empty? Yes, that was the reason for suggesting to reindex the folder. If the size of the "Sent" file is larger than zero (the "Sent.msf" will always have more), then it contains visible messages or those which have been marked as deleted. You can right-click on the file and select Open With > Wordpad to have a look at its content. Maybe this would give us some clue. Also, if you don't want to delete "Sent" and "Sent.msf" per procedure mentioned in comment #11, you can just move them into some other non-Thunderbird folder to retain them as backup, in case you suspect some messages in there you would want to keep.
I finally found the profile folder (You're talking to an 88-year-old who knows nothing about what she's doing). There is no "sent" folder in the Mail folder. This is what's in the Mail folder: msgfilterrules.dat; trash; trash.msf; unsent messages; unsent messages.msf. The unsent message folder has 5,822 kb. The others have almost nothing. So where is the "sent" folder?
Interesting, as a minimum you should have "Inbox" and "Inbox.msf" in there... Are there other folders in "Mail" in addition to "Local Folders"? The "Sent" may be hiding in an account-specific folder (i.e., those folders should have names similar to the account name).
No, there's nothing else in "Mail" except those I listed previously. I looked at everything in profiles and there is nothing labeled mail. I opened that Unsent message folder with 5,822 kb and it has old mail dating back to May 24. I know that mail was sent out months ago, but why is some of it being kept in an unsent mail folder? I don't understand any of this. I'm going to try to delete those unsent messages.
> (In reply to comment #5) Local folder as the user uses POP accounts. If it's an IMAP account after all, you wouldn't have those folders in "Mail" but in "ImapMail" instead, this would be my last guess to explain what you see. If you have "Inbox.msf" and "Sent.msf" there in a folder matching your account, maybe the offline store got corrupted. Can you check if you have those?
No, I don't see anything labeled ImapMail. One thing I do know is that a lot of people are cursing Windows 7 - they hate the way it stores files.
Ok, so it's indeed POP3, thanks for verifying. Unfortunately I'm out of ideas (short of creating a new profile), thus hopefully someone else will take over.
Just to add the final touch: I sent out a Thanksgiving greeting to friends and then checked the "Sent" folder to see if it saved it. It saved the subject title, but what it saved was a picture of dinasaurs! This whole thing is crazy!
Are you running any kind of anti-virus/spam program ?
Yes, I have a new computer with Windows 7 and it has an anti-virus program. I began to have problems with TB when I installed the last update - don't know if that means anything.. I appreciate all the work your staff has done on this today..
Just checked the Sent folder and it has kept copies of mail according to subject, recipient and date - but the contents of the mail has nothing to do with the subject. Some of it looks like very old mail that was sent months ago - with lots of senseless numbers at the end. And it doesn't copy the pictures that were sent - they are just rows of numbers. But if I check the Sent file later, I wouldn't be surprised if it's empty. It doesn't keept anything in it very long. And the subject doesn't match the body of the message.
That really sounds like you fot a corrupt msf file. Can you right click on the sent folder choose property and rebuild the index ?
When I do that I get a message that the folder is being used for another operation. I got the same message yesterday.
In the profile you should have a folder named Mail - in that folder what do you have ?
Ludo, please read from comment #14 - the folder is there, but *no* Sent files could be found in the profile folder, which is part of that mystery...
Last night I wrote several letters and I saw them in the Sent folder listing the subject, recipient and date - but the contents of the letters was not what I had written. When I checked the folder 30 minutes later, it was empty. It had evidently deleted the mail. Today the folder is empty. When I clicked on it a few minutes ago to repair it, I still get the message that the folder is being used by another operation.
David how is such a situation possible . For the record the about:support seem to show two account a deleted/cont complete one and a "in use" one.
(In reply to comment #30) > David how is such a situation possible . It's not - there's a sent folder somewhere. What do the fcc prefs say, as to what it's called? Does about:support give us that info? Bear in mind that the profile dir is hidden by default in Windows 7, so you have to show hidden files, though the report does seem to have found the Unsent Messages.
(In reply to comment #31) > (In reply to comment #30) > > David how is such a situation possible . > > It's not - there's a sent folder somewhere. What do the fcc prefs say, as to > what it's called? Does about:support give us that info? Bear in mind that the No it's not into it the about support gives us plenty of printer related ones, but not much. There's a button to open the profile thought. > profile dir is hidden by default in Windows 7, so you have to show hidden > files, though the report does seem to have found the Unsent Messages. When you go to Help -> Troubleshooting and press Open containing folder, do you get to the same place as where your profile is ?
When I click on troubleshooting there's nothing to Open - it opens to a full page with headings of Application Basics; Mail and News Accounts; Extionsions and Modified Preferences. It does not open to the profile file.
jmpelo@nut-n-but.net(bug opener): You are seeing both bug 598104 and bug 608449, aren't you? Once file size(not mail folder size) of a file used for a mail folder exceeded size limit of Tb(4GB) due to a bug, both rebuild-index(repair folder) and compact can not be executed normally due to the size limitation and another bug. And, Tb 3.1 really has problem of bug 598104 and bug 608449. Why still no answer about file size of "Sent" from you? (In reply to comment #15) > So where is the "sent" folder? You still can't reach file for Sent folder? Or there really is no file named Sent or Sent.msf in any directoies and subdirectries under ...\Mail? Try, CD "C:\...\Mail", DIR sent*.* /S, at Command Prompt(may be called Command). Please note that default files for sent mail folder is ...\Mail\<servername>\Sent & \Sent.msf and is shown as "Sent" at folder pane. It's not ...\Mail\Local Folders\Unsent Messages & Unsent Messages.msf which are for "Outbox" of ""Local Folders". <servername> part depends on your Copies&Folders settings. Name of "Sent" and "Sent.msf" also depends on your Copies&Folders settings. Even "...\Mail" part, it depends on your settings such as "Local Directory:" of Server Settings. They can be seen via Folder Properties/General/Location: of problematic mail folder at folder view of "All Folders". (In reply to comment #28) > the folder is there, but *no* Sent files could be found in the profile folder, > which is part of that mystery... "*no* XXX could be found" is not always "XXX doesn't really exist". - I asked about a string XXX in a log file, and reporter said "not exists", so I asked about many other phenomena/problems/causes. - After that, I couldn't imagine problem with string XXX in a log, then I asked bug opener to attach log file. - String XXX existed in the log file! - His answer was "but when I commented, XXX was not found...". Sigh...
(In reply to comment #34) > "*no* XXX could be found" is not always "XXX doesn't really exist". I'm fully aware of that, thus no need for ridiculing comments, please. As you can see from the prior discussion (comment #16), I've advised the reporter to search for the folders in both Local Folders and any server-specific folders in Mail. She is apparently not using IMAP due to the lack of ImapMail in the profile.
(In reply to comment #34) > They can be seen via Folder Properties/General/Location: of problematic mail > folder at folder view of "All Folders". This sounds like a good starting point, thanks. @jmpelo, can you right-click on your problematic "Sent" folder in Thunderbird and select "Properties" again from the context menu. There is a line with the folder name (in the General Information tab), and directly underneath is a line with the "Location", which should be of the format "mailbox://C:/..." (you can click into that box and use the cursor keys to scroll to the right to see the full path). This should be the path where you can find the actual folder file. Do you find it in this way?
Following your instructions, this is the line: mailbox:///C:/Users/JUNE/AppData/Roaming/Thunderbird/Profiles/uwncrbot.default/Mail/nut-n-but.net/Sent When I clicked on it, it brought up a blank letter form address to mailbox...., but no file opened.
Ok, so we finally found that folder, great! If you right-click on that "Sent" file (not the Sent.msf one) and click Properties, which size does it indicate? If it's a really big number (4GB), the bugs WADA looked up would apply.
I don't know what "sent" file you mean. The only one I have is the one that is supposed to hold outgoing mail. When I click on properties it has nothing to indicate size - just a box labeled General Information and another one labeled Retention policy. There's nothing to indicate size.
Sorry, I wasn't talking about the Thunderbird Folder Properties dialog, but rather locate that file using *Windows* Explorer based on the path information you've listed in comment #37. I was asking about the size of the actual file. If you still have the about:support extension installed, it should provide a button "Open containing folder" next to Profile Directory. If you click on that button, it will open the profile in Windows. You'd have to go into the "Mail" then "nut-b-but.net" folder, there you should find the "Sent" file containing what's left of your sent messages. Proceed as mentioned in comment #38.
I'm not sure what this means: I clicked on this to open it: C:\Users\JUNE\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\uwncrbot.default\Mail\nut-n-but.net\Sent and a blank screen came up with a message appearing at the bottom, saying: downloading from site(that file) and then it pauses and says: waiting for that file; then it switches back to downloading, and then back to waiting. This has been going on for about 7 minutes. So far nothing has opened. Does this mean it has found that Sent file and is downloading, waiting in between downloads?
I don't know what the "about:support extension installed" means (comment 40). Where do I find it? The action I reported in Comment 41 is still going on - just switching back and forth from downloading to waiting..
Ok, so you can probably stop that action and try to locate the folder manually. Double-click on the Computer icon of your Windows desktop (which may be hiding in the "Start" menu on Windows 7, thus you may have to click on the Windows icon in the lower-left corner to open that menu, double-click Computer there). Windows Explorer opens and shows you the disks and some other devices. You may be able to directly copy-paste the path into the location bar of that window, C:\Users\JUNE\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\uwncrbot.default\Mail\nut-n-but.net (without the "Sent" component at the end) and hit the Enter key to get there. If this doesn't work, navigate manually by double-clicking on the "C:" disk to open it, then "Users", then "JUNE", etc. On the final level of this path you should end up int the "Mail" folder containing the "Sent" and "Sent.msf" files. I hope this helps, I'm not too familiar with Windows 7 myself yet...
> "Mail" folder containing the "Sent" and "Sent.msf" files. ...well, "Mail" should contain the "nut-n-but.net" folder for you account, and *that* one contains the Sent files.
OK, I got into it and found a sent file dated 11/20 containing 4,268,424 kb and a send.msf file with 3 kb. You're talking to someone who has never opened anything on a computer except to read and send e-mail, so all of this is greek to me.
I opened the "sent" file and clicked on properties: size 4.07 GB size on disk 4.07 GB
Apologies for any geeky language, sometimes things that are obvious to oneself are difficult to discover for others. As it appears, indeed you were running into bug 598104 with the Sent folder growing to the point where compacting is no longer possible. WADA has posted a somewhat complex procedure in bug 598104 comment #18 to save the messages in the Sent folder and make it work again. The easier option would be to simply "reset" the Sent folder to set it up from scratch, just retaining the corrupted Sent file as backup for the time being: 1. Make sure that Thunderbird is not running; 2. take the Sent and Sent.msf files from the folder you found in comment #45 and move them elsewhere (drag-and-drop, e.g., on the Desktop should do); 3. restart Thunderbird and sent a test message; 4. a new set of Sent and Sent.msf files should show up in that folder. Does this work? As said, the moved old "Sent" file should still contain your old messages that might be retrieved if you need to restore them.
Sorry to take so long - had unexpected company and they just left. I followed your instructions and it seems to have worked. I sent a test message and it appears in the "sent" folder. What do I do with the old files that I moved to the desk top? I don't think there's anything I want to save - I usually empty my Sent file every few days. I don't understand what happened to the old sent folder - did it have too many old messages and if so, how could they be there when I clean out the file every few days?
All right, good to hear that this solved the problem! What happens each time that a message is deleted or moved into another folder is that it is just marked as deleted but not physically removed. This has to be accomplished by occasional *compacting* of the folders, either manually or by an automatic setting in Tools > Options > Advanced > Network & Disk Space (bottom option). If that's not done, messages accumulate but stay invisible as in your case. Once the folder exceeds the 4GB limit it does no longer function correctly. This specific case is fixed in Thunderbird 3.1.7, thus with the next update. You'd still need to periodically compact the folders from which you move messages out (likely Inbox and Sent folders). If you don't want to use the automated compact, you can also add a "Compact" button to your main toolbar. Right-click on an empty spot in the main-window toolbar and select "Customize" from the menu to open the palette, then drag-and-drop the broom button onto the toolbar. Now, after deleting a larger number of messages, click on it to clean up the folder you are currently looking at. This should take care of it. And yes, if you don't need to look up any old messages in the Sent folder files which you moved to your desktop, you can safely delete those files. That would have been the backup in case recreating them in the profile hadn't worked. I'm closing this bug report as a duplicate, please feel free to reopen it if the problem reoccurs.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 15 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
I'll keep an eye on how the Sent file works for a few days, but so far it's saving my outgoing messages. I'll keep this mail from you also for future reference, although I hope I never have to refer to it. And I wish to thank all of you who worked on this so tirelessly. I've done things and opened files I never heard of before - as if I was an old pro at this!
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