921410 - weird behaviour of account configuration after updating to Thunderbird 24 (By bug 750781, "bad mail directory path setting by user" is now warned, but user can't know how to recover)

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(MailNews Core :: Account Manager, defect)

Description

[Siggi Engelbrecht]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.7; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/24.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20130910160258

Steps to reproduce:

After going from thunderbird 17.0.8 to 24.0 on my Mac (10.7.5) I note that I cannot go through my account configuration without getting repeatedly the message "the selected  directory <path and name> is not suitable for storing messages. Please select another directory." (I've translated this from German, this may read slightly different in the original English version). 

This naturally without having EVER touched the mentioned directory and with thunderbird running stable for years! 

Since I could not resolve this issue I went back to 17.0.8 via restore from backup and the behaviour was gone. I then re-upgraded to 24.0 and during the first one hour or so it behaved normally, but then, all of a sudden, the same behaviour as before turned up again. 

Although perhaps unrelated, I should like to mention that even after deleting a good portion of "messages sent", the respective file would not shrink.

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

bug 921371 is another example. Also been reported in getsatisfaction

Comment 2

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In reply to Siggi Engelbrecht from comment #0)
> "the selected  directory <path and name> is not suitable for storing messages.
> Please select another directory."

As seen in message pasted in bug 921371 commet #0, "name" part of "<path and name>" in the message is pretty important to know "message is for which account".
If you use Global Inbox for POP3 accounts, read bug 921371 commet #1, and check relevant accout's settings in prefs.js via Config Editor(if Win, Tools/Options/Advanced/General, Config Editor).

Comment 3

[Siggi Engelbrecht]

My account is not POP3 but IMAP. Also the settings worked for years and it is only now, with TB 24, that I get this strange behaviour with my TB account configuration. This disappears with rolling back to 17.0.8 and reappears upon re-updating to 24.0. I also should like to mention that the faulty error message ("the selected directory ...." (cf. above) does not pop up immediately if going through the account configuration but only starts after a few clicks within that configuration window, regardless of WHERE you click.

Comment 4

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In reply to Siggi Engelbrecht from comment #3)
> My account is not POP3 but IMAP.

"Items which is relevant to Global Inbox in bug 921371 comment #1" is deferredtoaccount and pointed account by it only.
Following is applicable to IMAP case too, and it implies question of "for which account was the error message shown in your case?".
> "name" part of "<path and name>" in the message is pretty important
> to know "message is for which account".

Note:
Even if Copies&Folders folder/Junk folder is folder of hidden account, folder itself is accessible by Tb. Problem in "folder of hidden account" is only that the folder is never visible at folder pane then user can't access the hidden folder.
Warning message in Tb 24 sounds for it.
And, there are several kinds of "hidden folder".
- Folder of POP3 account which uses Global Inbox (account is hidden at folder pane)
- Folder of server of mail.server.serverX.hidden=true (not shown in Account Settings)

Comment 5

[:aceman]

This message is introduced in bug 750781. Can you tell us what the Local directory value is for the account that shows this message?

Comment 6

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

> This message is introduced in bug 750781.
Oh, warning was for mail directory location, instead of for each folder location.
If so, both "path" part and "name" part of "<path and name>" in message is important.
Bug opener, check mail.server.serverX.directory-rel & mail.server.serverX.directory, and path of your profile directory, please.

Comment 7

[Siggi Engelbrecht]

The user/Library folder under MacOs 10.7.5 is hidden. The directory the error message mentions is 
/Users/<username>/Library/Thunderbird. Here are (at least some of) the required lines pasted from my prefs.js file: 

user_pref("mail.server.server1.directory", "/Users/<username>/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/<xxxxxxx>.default/Lokale Ordner");
user_pref("mail.server.server1.directory-rel", "[ProfD]Lokale Ordner");
user_pref("mail.server.server1.type", "none");
user_pref("mail.server.server1.userName", "nobody");
user_pref("mail.server.server1.hostname", "Local Folders")
user_pref("mail.server.server2.directory", "/Users/<username>/Library/Thunderbird");
user_pref("mail.server.server2.hostname", "imap.<server name>");

Comment 8

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

No mail.server.server2.directory-rel in prefs.js?

Cause is;
  Profile directory = /Users/<username>/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/<xxxxxxx>.default
    Then mail directory for Local Folers(Lokale Ordner in de) = [ProfD]Lokale Ordner
  mail.server.server2.directory", "/Users/<username>/Library/Thunderbird
  => Profile directory is sub directory of mail directory for IMAP account.
     == Mail directory of the IMAP account is higher directory of profile dirctory.

How did you set mail directory(Server Settngs, Local Directory: setting) of the IMAP account?
Why you did set mail directory for the IMAP account(Server Settngs, Local Directory:) as /Users/<username>/Library/Thunderbird even though Tb's profile directory is /Users/<username>/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/<xxxxxxx>.default?

Comment 9

[:aceman]

OK, that is something usable now.

So then both server.directories are bad:
"mail.server.server1.directory" should be "/Users/<username>/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/<xxxxxxx>.default/ImapMail/Lokale Ordner" (or /Mail/ if it is POP3).

"mail.server.server2.directory" should also be something like
"/Users/<username>/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/<xxxxxxx>.default/ImapMail/<server name>"

I.e. either the local directories should be under your profile in a Mail (or ImapMail) subfolder, or outside of ~/Library/Thunderbird in some other directory of your choosing.

If the paths are really like you pasted, then the warning is correct. We better do not allow the mail to be stored in these paths. In server2 the mail store is whole profile, which is really bad. Do you even use this account or is just some unused remnant?

Comment 10

[Siggi Engelbrecht]

The account was set, over the years, entirely through Tb in its various incarnations. At some point I was asked to quit my preexisting POP3 account and rather switch to IMAP, which I did. Later on, I had to change my ID to something I did not understand, but that worked (sort of domain/name/full.name). Finally, at some point I decided to change my SMTP server to something different, so I now have one password for imap and another one for smtp along with two different servers. Since I do need my recent e-mails available always I decided to generate a local folder where all the mail traffic gets stored once I move them - deleted mails and junk is deleted immediately. 

Although from the prefs.js file things may look a little chaotic, they still were set via Tb AND they did work ok up to 24. If the data base structure and/or hierarchy has been altered with Tb24 (as evident from the fact that the previous version was more tolerant) one either should warn the users or provide for more compatibility. 

I am certainly willing to straigthen things out in order to comply with the newest rules in Tb, but I even do not know how to transfer my old mails SAFELY and COMPLETELY into a completely new mail account!

Comment 11

[:aceman]

It may be true that until TB24 those directories were fine. But as TB (and even the Gecko core shared with Firefox) evolves it was proven that some directories are starting to be used by other features so they can't be used for mail storage. So we decided to blacklist some directories that may already cause problems, or may cause them in the future. It may cause dataloss to the users so we opted to be strict with the directories selection for now.

It will be safer if you migrate your mail now.
You can do it by copying the mail files to the chosen paths, e.g. /Users/<username>/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/<xxxxxxx>.default/ImapMail/Lokale Ordner
and then set the prefs in the file prefs.js manually to these paths. It is enough to set the path in mail.server.server*.directory and remove the pref mail.server.server*.directory-rel.
Each server must have its own separate directory defined (even if you use global inbox for POP3 or move messages between the servers manually).
Only then start TB again.

Comment 12

[rsx11m]

Unless that's the actual name of an IMAP folder, "Lokale Ordner" should be in Mail/ not ImapMail/ (if it's a folder name, in [Imap]Mail/<account>/ instead).

Comment 13

[Siggi Engelbrecht]

Ok, this issue appears to be resolved - by and large. I saved my Thunderbird folder to some place, deleted the account and set up everything from scratch. 

It was not easy to avoid all those "proposals" generated automatically by Tb and rather get it to use exactly the informations from the past, but I managed to do it. You might think about offering a manual configeration right at the beginning. 

I also do not like the feature that you must acknowledge every single alteration you carry out within the config window - I rather would expect that everything altered gets saved upon exiting. Not so, quite. 

I had to rename manually a number of folders in the pref.js file, which I did hesitantly, but by and large successfully. I was puzzled by the fact that "local folders" (within Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/xxxxxx.default/mail/local folders btw, not in the ImapMail subdirectory) translates in the German version I am using into "Lokale Ordner", but well...

It's too bad one cannot post screenshots here. I am left with a few folders I really neither want nor need (imho), namely "Archives" under the main acoount just as "junk" and yet another "junk" under my "Lokale Ordner". I now also have 2 directories called "sent" (actually "gesendet" in German) under my "Lokale Ordner", one freshly inaugurated upon relaunch of the newly set up Tb and the old directory with lots of previously sent mails. I wonder whether these 2 can be merged into 1? 

The weird behaviour of the configuration window, now that's for sure, has gone so the fuzzy directory structure from the past HAS been the cause with Tb24.

Comment 14

[:aceman]

(In reply to Siggi Engelbrecht from comment #13)
> It's too bad one cannot post screenshots here. I am left with a few folders
> I really neither want nor need (imho), namely "Archives" under the main
> acoount just as "junk" and yet another "junk" under my "Lokale Ordner". I
> now also have 2 directories called "sent" (actually "gesendet" in German)
> under my "Lokale Ordner", one freshly inaugurated upon relaunch of the newly
> set up Tb and the old directory with lots of previously sent mails. I wonder
> whether these 2 can be merged into 1? 
You can try disabling these options in the account manager (e.g. archive) on Copies&Folders pane, or redirecting them to the same folder. Then some of the unwanted folders should loose their special icon and it should be possible to delete them from inside TB.

Comment 15

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Confirming, per prefs.js setting.

Comment 16

[:aceman]

OK, but what to do? My proposal would be to not delve into the mess of trying to migrate all the data in local directory from inside TB (handling all the error situations and I am not sure it would even work, because the files are still in use by TB). So could the error message just point to a knowledge base article on how to migrate the files manually? I don't think we use such element anywhere else (in TB) so this needs UI decision.

Comment 17

[Siggi Engelbrecht]

If you want to improve usability of Tb from a strict user's point of view I would suggest: 

1) refrain from offering "automatic" configuration of Tb. Out of curiosity I tried this feature with my freshly installed Tb24 and although it found quite some servers, none of these was the correct one. Upon manually curing this by substituting the correct data I still was left with lots of "remnants" in terms of entries in the prefs.js file and within the library/Thunderbird/... directory structure which - at least to me - was confusing. 

2) You might want to improve a little upon helping users with the directory and file denominations. Since this is not entirely intelligible users are prone to commit errors in configuration. In the present case I ended up with two "sent" directories, one "active" and the other one containing my old sent mails. I was able to copy the few entries within the newly generated "sent" directory into the old one and to set the configuration of Tb such that it would write into the desired file from now on. I wouldn't have expected such a behaviour, to be honest!

Next I tried to get rid of the now useless second "sent" directory. From the prefs.js file I was not able to delete the respective entries (perhaps there even weren't any?). So I simply resorted to deleting the file in the thunderbird directory - that did the trick but certainly is not the preferred manner to handle these issues. 

3) Finally, some files are generated over and over again without the user being able to delete those or to prevent their generation in the first place. I am not sure whether this is due to the server or whether it's a feature of Tb. I am talking about the "archive" files. I neither need these nor do I want to see them in my Tb directory tree within the Tb window. Even upon out-commenting them they 
continue to show up.

In sum, I find the generation of directories within Tb rather confusing and the differentiation between "server" and "local" (i.e. on the HD of your machine) not quite convincing. Imho, it is somewhat of a standard to keep at least duplicates of your mail plus answers (= sent mail) on your HD in order to be able to look at these even if offline. And this should be sort of a default configuration.

Comment 18

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #16)
> OK, but what to do?
> So could the error message just point to a knowledge base article on how to migrate the files manually?
> I don't think we use such element anywhere else (in TB) so this needs UI decision.
(1) Error message should be kinder.
    Which accounts's problem, Why not suitable for keeping mail data,
    At which setting mail directory can be altered, etc. 
    should be stated in error dialog.
(2) As seen in Help, many "More" in Addon Manaer's panels and so on, Tb already utilizes Web pages to provide information to users.
I believe "pointer to detailed document, guide, in error dialog" is permitted in Tb, although "new official localization procedure for Web documents" should be presented to developers of localized Tb.
Embed "Error code and message reference manual", which is similar to "Help Content of Mozilla/SeaMonkey what is perfectly removed by Firefox/Thunderbird", is also possible.

Comment 19

[:aceman]

(In reply to Siggi Engelbrecht from comment #17)
> 1) refrain from offering "automatic" configuration of Tb. Out of curiosity I
> tried this feature with my freshly installed Tb24 and although it found
> quite some servers, none of these was the correct one. Upon manually curing
> this by substituting the correct data I still was left with lots of
> "remnants" in terms of entries in the prefs.js file and within the
> library/Thunderbird/... directory structure which - at least to me - was
> confusing. 
This is a different bug so please do not post it into this one.

> 3) Finally, some files are generated over and over again without the user
> being able to delete those or to prevent their generation in the first
> place. I am not sure whether this is due to the server or whether it's a
> feature of Tb. I am talking about the "archive" files. I neither need these
> nor do I want to see them in my Tb directory tree within the Tb window. Even
> upon out-commenting them they 
> continue to show up.
TB creates some default folders. But you can disable the features account manager -> Copies & folders (remember they are per identity). You can disable the "Sent", "Junk" and "Archive" folder permanently and you can at least reduce the Drafts and Templates folders to one (e.g. under Local Folders). Have you already done so?

> In sum, I find the generation of directories within Tb rather confusing and
> the differentiation between "server" and "local" (i.e. on the HD of your
> machine) not quite convincing. Imho, it is somewhat of a standard to keep at
> least duplicates of your mail plus answers (= sent mail) on your HD in order
> to be able to look at these even if offline. And this should be sort of a
> default configuration.
And it is. That is why you have all those folders created, e.g. Sent and Archive. But if you do not want them, or want them optimized to only one occurrence for all accounts, you can do so.

Comment 20

[Siggi Engelbrecht]

What I mentioned under "1)" was considered by me a feature, not a bug...

I certainly have disabled those you mention, but they continue to be generated. This is what I had in mind: There appear to be some automatisms which one can't cure/switch off, neither through the user interface nor by playing around with the prefs.js file directly. Perhaps I am asking too much here? I just want exactly those folders in my Tb window I really want and use and need. Perhaps a better strategy for Tb configuration would be to install right away with default settings and then offer the user to change things. "Default", imho, should NOT include automatic insertion of servers etc.

Comment 21

[:aceman]

OK, if you still think some folders are being created even though you have disabled the feature, please create a new bug for it, attach screenshots of the account manager panes and the main folder tree. We can then check it out.

Comment 22

[Blake Winton (:bwinton) (:☕️)]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #16)
> So could the error message just point to a
> knowledge base article on how to migrate the files manually? I don't think
> we use such element anywhere else (in TB) so this needs UI decision.

In theory I'm fine with this.  There is an element like this in the FileLink stuff, as seen at 
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2301433/Screenshots/FileLink.png

Comment 23

[:aceman]

OK, but in this case we do not have the luxury of a full XUL dialog having various widgets. In this case I propose to keep the current confirmation dialog and just expand the message:

"The selected  directory <path and name> is not suitable for storing messages. Please select another directory. If you need to migrate your existing messages, see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_your_mail_storage_location_-_Thunderbird." with no active link or anything. Would that work?

Or if we wanted an active link to click on, we could show it in the account manager XUL, somewhere under the Local Directory field.

Comment 24

[:aceman]

The link can be in the account manager pane for all times (people may want to migrate the data even when it is not in an invalid location).

Comment 25

[Blake Winton (:bwinton) (:☕️)]

You're not seriously suggesting we make people type in a link, are you?  ;)

(I'm going to give a preliminary ui-r- to anything where we display "http://" and ask people to retype it all.  So your choices are either put an actual clickable link in somewhere, or add a button saying something like "More info…" somewhere.)

I'm also going to suggest that most people don't migrate their data, and that putting extra mostly-useless information will just serve to confuse them.  Perhaps it's time to start trying to add inline error messages instead of using the same restrictive dialogs for every failure case…

Comment 26

[:aceman]

Attachment: patch

So how would you like this?

Comment 27

[Blake Winton (:bwinton) (:☕️)]

Comment on attachment 822430 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

Review of attachment 822430 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Hmm…  Mostly good, but I've got a couple of suggested tweaks.

1) Since the preferences is a modal dialog (on Mac at least), we should be sure to open the new page in the user's browser, instead of in a tab in Thunderbird.  (Otherwise they won't be able to read the page!  ;)

2) Since we're showing this message in response to an error, I think adding a small error icon (hopefully in red) beside the link would help draw the user's attention to it.

I'm going to say ui-r-, but that's only because I want to see the next version, not because I think you're heading in the wrong direction.  :)

Thanks,
Blake.

Comment 28

[:aceman]

I don't know how to choose which method is used for opening the URL. In my TB installation it actually does not work to open an external browser. Some links open inside TB (and that browser often gets stuck and does not follow links) or I get the "Open with" dialog.
So I will need help from somebody else.

Comment 29

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

I don't know if you can do it using just xul. For js, see openLinkExternally - http://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/source/mail/base/content/contentAreaClick.js#142

Comment 30

[:aceman]

Attachment: patch v2

Thanks for the hint. But i get an error with this new patch:
Error: NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND: Component returned failure code: 0x80520012 (NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND) [nsIExternalProtocolService.loadUrl]
Source file: chrome://messenger/content/amUtils.js
Line: 198

Is this my stripped down build or I am doing something wrong?

Comment 31

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Comment on attachment 830484 [details] [diff] [review]
patch v2

Review of attachment 830484 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Opens semi-ok for me. (I always also have to choose firefox to open, for my test profile, no idea why but it's not specific for this patch.)

::: mail/locales/en-US/chrome/messenger/am-server-top.dtd
@@ +80,5 @@
>  <!ENTITY browseFolder.label "Browse…">
>  <!ENTITY browseFolder.accesskey "B">
>  <!ENTITY browseNewsrc.label "Browse…">
>  <!ENTITY browseNewsrc.accesskey "e">
> +<!ENTITY mailStorageMigration.label "More info about migrating the Local Directory…">

"More info about dangerouns directories…" ?

::: mailnews/base/prefs/content/amUtils.js
@@ +182,5 @@
>      win.goPreferences(aSMPaneId);
>  }
> +
> +function migrationLink() {
> +  openLinkExternally("http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_your_mail_storage_location_-_Thunderbird");

I don't think we should have in-product links to mozillazine.

And probably the content of http://kb.mozillazine.org/Dangerous_directories_-_Thunderbird is more suitable

You should add a pref like
pref("mail.dangerous_directories.learn_more_url", "https://support.mozillamessaging.com/kb/dangerous-directories");

Comment 32

[:aceman]

(In reply to Magnus Melin from comment #31)
> ::: mail/locales/en-US/chrome/messenger/am-server-top.dtd
> @@ +80,5 @@
> >  <!ENTITY browseFolder.label "Browse…">
> >  <!ENTITY browseFolder.accesskey "B">
> >  <!ENTITY browseNewsrc.label "Browse…">
> >  <!ENTITY browseNewsrc.accesskey "e">
> > +<!ENTITY mailStorageMigration.label "More info about migrating the Local Directory…">
> "More info about dangerouns directories…" ?
> 
> And probably the content of
> http://kb.mozillazine.org/Dangerous_directories_-_Thunderbird is more
> suitable
The error will appear also in other cases, not only dangerous dirs (e.g. readonly directory).
So the more general article may is probably better.

> You should add a pref like
> pref("mail.dangerous_directories.learn_more_url",
> "https://support.mozillamessaging.com/kb/dangerous-directories");
I can do this, but there is no such mozillamessaging.com page so we must use the mozillazine article for now.

Bwinton, can you decide on the proper article to link to?

Also, can anybody else confirm the patch works for him, i.e. it opens the link in the browser?

Comment 33

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Yes, the article would have to be created - you just need an account there to do so. The content on the mozillazine page can be taken as a starting point, but maybe better to adapt it a bit. Anyway, you can't link to independent resources, since there is no guarantee it will still be up tomorrow.

Comment 34

[:aceman]

OK, maybe Wayne can arrange that.

Comment 35

[Dan]

OK, I have read the above thread and have no idea what to do. I am not a systems administrator, just a reasonably aware person who has been using TB for years and now my email is messed up because TB has decided that file name settings that have been there unknown to me need to be changed? 
Maybe my TB is corrupted - how do I fix that?
When I try to click on any of the lines for any account settings, I get the invalid message. I can't tell what my email account is set to as I get the error message every click. When I look at the path of the local folder it shows:

(C:\Users\Dan\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\klq55bm0.default\Mail\Local
Folder) 
To me, this seems correct. But, as the suggestion mentions:
Do you have the Local Directory set to the same path
(C:\Users\Dan\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\klq55bm0.default\Mail\Local
Folder) in your primary mail account and also the Local Folders account ? That
would be the cause of the problem. 

I cannot check my server account settings. I don't know how to open a prefs.js file.
Help?

Comment 36

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

From a quick glance, it looks like aceman might know how to get Dan out of this jam. aceman, can you walk Dan through it?

Comment 37

[:aceman]

Please see also bug 921371.
You can get to each of the accounts by clicking the account name in the left folder pane and choosing "View settings for this account" in the right pane. In each of the accounts please note the value (path) in the Local directory field. Please report the situation.

Comment 38

[Dan]

Thanks!
When I click on "my" account name line in the left pane, under which are all the account options like server settings, copies and folders, etc, I get the error message. And if I attempt to click any of the account options under "my" account name, I get the message. If I click any of the the Local account options, I get the error message. If I click the Outgoing Server account option I get the error message. The error message I receive by the way is always the same error message mentioned previously.
Just as further info - I assume that I was to open Tools - Account Settings and then do the above. When the window opens, in the left pane the local folder main line is selected/highlighted and the pane in the right shows the local folders information.
Thanks again.

Comment 39

[:aceman]

So does the error message mention the same path (C:\Users\Dan\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\klq55bm0.default\Mail\Local
Folder) regardless of which account you chose?

Comment 40

[Dan]

yes, same message whatever line I click.

Comment 41

[:aceman]

You cannot have multiple accounts share the same Local directory. Please see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_your_mail_storage_location_-_Thunderbird and migrate one of the accounts.

Comment 42

[Dan]

I think I did that mostly right. I copied my profile folder to a new name, changed the local file folder name and restarted thunderbird. I now can access all the account settings options. I have an "inbox" right under the main "inbox" but I can live with that. All my mail seems to be there and in the right folders.
Thanks for your help.

Comment 43

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Some users on getsatisfaction are not happy about the change which causes this bug at all, because it breaks their personal mail storage setups which have been running fine for years.

Comment 44

[:aceman]

We just want to make them aware that they are exploiting an unsupported setup. But it is true TB is now warning also in cases where they are NOT using unsupported setup (false positives), just the prefs are a bit hosed. So yes, until a better solution is found, I have disabled the warning in bug 921371.

Comment 45

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Aceman, thank you for both the update here and the backing out of the problem :)

Comment 46

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Magnus Melin from comment #33)
> Yes, the article would have to be created - you just need an account there
> to do so. The content on the mozillazine page can be taken as a starting
> point, but maybe better to adapt it a bit. Anyway, you can't link to
> independent resources, since there is no guarantee it will still be up
> tomorrow.

Tonnes, can you create the article suggested in comment 31?

Comment 47

[Ton [:Tonnes]]

Sorry for the delay. 

As I told Wayne over irc, I’m not really into writing new content and would need to dive into the issue that I haven’t experienced myself to know what it’s all about. Anyone who already knows is free to create a draft though (based on the mozillaZine article allright), so please do.

As for the in-product link, I think Joni can tell more and/or arrange that.

Comment 48

[:aceman]

Wayne, can we get someone to create the info page in some new knowledgebase (thunderbird.net?) collecting the text from the linked articles?
I could then finish the bug pointing to the new URL.

Comment 49

[Matt]

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/dangerous-directories-Thunderbird-account-settings/revision/187136

I have created the article and populated it with a copy and paste basically of the mozillazine dangerous directories. If someone has time to review and or edit that would be great, because I am not sure exactly what it is that this is for or what it is to achieve.

Comment 50

[Matt]

I never saw an approval for the support article, so today for better or worse I have approved my own edit. Over to you Aceman.

https://support.mozilla.org/kb/dangerous-directories-Thunderbird-account-settings

Comment 52

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Magnus, can we close this as fixed?

Comment 53

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

It shouldn't happen anymore since we don't allow you to get into that situation.