• Thunderbird disaster?

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    #2423560

    I have been using Thunderbird email program for over ten years, it is set up to download my messages for an AT&T/Yahoo email address.
    The SMTP/POP settings have not been changed in many years.

    Today I was working normally, when suddenly there are only 11 messages in my Inbox, instead of thousands.
    I have no idea how this happened, and now I am freaked out because I have no idea how to recover.

    If I click on Properties for Inbox, and hit the Repair button, nothing happens.
    The many other TB folders seem to be OK, I think that only the inbox is damaged

    Any suggestion on how to proceed will be much appreciated.

    TB version 91.5.1 on a Windows 10 version 20H2 laptop.
    My last offline backup is 2 weeks old.
    If I use that, which file or folder should I restore?

    I wonder if I can tell TB to re-sync with the AT&T server and re-create my inbox that way?

    Thank you!

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    • #2423569

      For restore purposes, your mail in Thunderbird is stored under:
      C:\Users\<your ID>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\<an alphanumeric string>\mail\<the pop address>\

      If you login on your mail account online on the ATT/Yahoo server, you can see it your mail is still there. It will depend on your Thunderbird POP settings – whether it is set to save a copy on the server or not.

      I would also check other folders within Thunderbird – in case you accidentally trashed the mail, moved it to another folder, or archived it.

      2 users thanked author for this post.
      • #2423603

        Thank you PK.  I took a break and want to proceed very carefully here, in the hope I can find the missing information.

        Here is an interesting finding.  In Thunderbird, the left hand pane shows all Folders that I have created.  The first folder is called Inbox, followed by Drafts, Templates, Sent… and then many others used to file different topics.

        The Drafts, Templates, Sent all seem normal.  For example, if I right click on Sent, and then Properties, I learn that there are about 13000 messages taking up 1.1 GB. I can read the last outbound email sent at 2:08 pm today.  So that folder seems OK.

        The Trash folder only has 3 messages, 180 KB in size.  There is a Repair button, and when I click on this folder (no harm, right?) the screen blinks but there is no message and nothing happens.

        If I click on Inbox, Properties, then it says there are only 11 messages, but the size is 825 MB.  The 11 messages are displayed, but the latest one is from 2017, and those 11 are a couple of hundred kilobytes all together.  The 825 MB suggests that my missing inbox messages are still there… somewhere.    If I click on the Repair button that is offered here… there is an error message:   The operation failed because another operation is using the folder.  Please wait for that operation to finish and then try again.

        Task Manager reveals only itself and a TB process under Apps, but there is another TB instance down among the many background processes.  I am wondering what might happen if I terminate the background process.

        While I was looking at this, TB gave a helpful popup offering to Compact my folders and stating that would save 4 GB of space!  I declined because that seemed like it would clobber a lot of messages.  So now I turned off the compaction option.

        Meanwhile, a friend suggested that an old-fashioned file recovery tool might help.  I do not use the CCleaner product, but the same people make a little program called Recuva which is a tool for searching the hard disk in the hope of recovering deleted files before they are overwritten.

        I let Recuva run;  it located an intriguing undated file 800 MB called “Thunderbird emails.zip” and said it was deleted but not overwritten.  So I let it recover that file to a USB thumb drive.  The zip file tests OK, it contains 561 folders, 21,179 files, which would be 1600 MB if unpacked.  The folders in the zip file have the same names as my TB folders, but sometimes “.1” is appended to the folder name.  So for example, within the zip file I can see a folder “FourthofJuly” and also  “FourthofJuly.1”

        Each folder contains some EML files, which I assume are individual messages; every one of those has a 4 digit number in front of the message subject.

        I think I will let the machine hibernate overnight and return to this problem in the morning.

        Many Thanks to PK and anyone else who can offer insight.

         

    • #2423609

      I think I will let the machine hibernate overnight and return to this problem in the morning.

      Assuming you are using Windows, instead I’d recommend that you do a “full” shutdown (i.e. one WITHOUT “Fast Startup” enabled).  If you can’t’ accomplish that, do a “Restart”, which always accomplishes a “full” startup.

      You may know this already, but Windows will, on its own, repair a host of farkled things when it is fully shutdown and then restarted (which contrasts with using “Sleep”, Hibernate” or a startup when “Fast Startup” is enabled; these can exacerbate issues instead of solving them.)

    • #2423647

      Do not use file recovery software, it rarely does any good, especially for multiple files. Sometimes you can get one important file back.

      To see where / how much mail you have.
      1. Help > More Troubleshooting Information
      2. Under “Profile Folder” click on Open Folder. This will show the current mail store.
      3. Click the up arrow (top left) to move to the parent folder (profiles).
      4. Hover over the mail store folder you just left. A pop up will show disk space used.

      Did you archive your old mail? Look in the Archives folder.

      cheers, Paul

    • #2423802

      I would make a copy of the whole Profile folder before doing any thing that might change it. In the Help > More Troubleshooting Information page Paul sent you to there is an option to restart w/o addons. This might allow you to run the repair function successfully.

      🍻

      Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.
    • #2423884

      “If I click on Properties for Inbox, and hit the Repair button, nothing happens.”

      “The Trash folder only has 3 messages, 180 KB in size. There is a Repair button, and when I click on this folder (no harm, right?) the screen blinks but there is no message and nothing happens.”

      Background/Structure –
      In TB, each ‘mail folder’ (Inbox, …) exists as an OS (Windows) file. The file name (generally) is the same name as the mail folder; there is no file extension. Accompanying each OS file is an ‘index file’; the file name is the same, but the file extension is ‘.msf’.
      Thus, Inbox + Inbox.msf; etc.

      The ‘Repair Folder’ button, as the panel explains, just rebuilds the .msf file. Your ‘nothing happens’ observation is only apparent; the operation normally is very fast and there is no explicit notification.

      Within a TB mail folder, each email exists in the OS file as a set of contiguous lines of text. The first line always is “From – “, followed by other date data.
      Here are the first-lines from one of my mail folders:
      – – – – – – – – –
      From – Thu Jun 07 10:11:17 2018
      From – Thu Jun 07 11:24:51 2018
      From – Thu Jun 07 11:24:51 2018
      From – Sun Jun 10 12:44:08 2018
      From – Thu Apr 02 16:23:25 2009
      – – – – – – – – –
      The last line of each email always is a blank line (there may be more if an email has a blank line at its end). But the ’email separator’ always is the “From -“.

      Note in the example above that the last email has an earlier date; the .msf file takes care of presenting to you the emails in whatever order want (Menu bar: View > Sort by > …).

      What I suspect (and I don’t know why this would occur) is that the Inbox file has become corrupted. The location most likely is at, or in the vicinity of, the last one of: {The 11 messages are displayed, but the latest one is from 2017,}.

      Recovery (with TB open) –
      In TB, document (screen copy, or pencil & paper) the heading information (the right-pane) of the 11 messages that you have. (Perhaps first: View > Sort by > Order Received. This should match the actual order of the emails within the file; it may not be the same as the Date order.)

      Recovery (with TB not open) –
      First, as Wavy recommends, ensure that you have a copy of Inbox. Ignore Inbox.msf; TB automatically creates the .msf file when there is none.

      In Explorer, navigate to your mail folder (see PKCano’s post).
      – COPY Inbox. Then RENAME the copy to something like InboxSave.
      – OPEN Inbox with a text editor; Notepad should work.
      — Note: a file of 825 MB may take quite while to load; wait for it.
      – In Notepad now: Edit > Find… > (in the box): [ Find – ], and check the ‘Match case’ box.
      – Referring to your documentation of the 11 visible emails, step down (F3) through the email dates.
      – There probably is a syntactical scramble at the end of email #11, or in #12. Visibly inspect the contents of this #11, and what follows. Where is the next [From -] header? It may not be preceded by a blank line. Or, it may not be followed by the usual TB-expected-format lines. (As you are looking at the emails, note what is normal.)

      Manually clean up the file. Can you discern where #11 should end? What is between this point and the next obvious email beginning? Or the scramble may be in #12. You may have to delete multiple lines, that is, lose a scrambled email. (If it is of importance, first do a Copy/Paste of the vicinity-of-scramble into another Notepad file. It no longer will be an email, but the textual part will have been captured. Copy from the preceding clean From down to (but not including) the next clean From.)
      (Note that it is possible that multiple emails have been compromised and will be lost.)

      Double-check that the next few emails have the expected TB-lines-sequence format.

      With the file now syntactically clean (we hope), Save this Notepad file.
      Delete the file Inbox.msf.

      Now, Open TB, and look at Inbox. (TB automatically will create a new msf; this may take several seconds with the Inbox as large as it is.) Are all the emails now showing, possibly excepting a deleted one (or more)?

      If all is well, great! (And the mail folder “InboxSave” is the ‘bad old’ Inbox.

      If all isn’t well, my premise is incorrect.
      Close TB.
      In Explorer: Delete Inbox, Inbox.msf, and InboxSave.msf.
      Rename InboxSave to Inbox.

      2 users thanked author for this post.
      • #2424078

        PaulK

        Very nice explanation, I have bookmarked only a hand full of posts here and this is one of them.

        🍻

        Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.
      • #2424282

        Will Notepad be able to open and save a really large file?  Or WordPad ?

        Oh, I found online an editor for large files called “EmEditor” – free and paid versions.

    • #2423890

      So, is this a problem with TB, or is the reason elsewhere and maybe quite the mystery?

      I would like to know, because I have, and do struggle often, man to software with, TB in my Mac, where I installed it because Mail: the Apple email client that had always worked very well for me over several years, got a bit flaky when I upgraded macOS to Big Sur, my current version of the OS.

      Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

      MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
      Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
      macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

      • #2423918

        I really don’t know what may cause this. It is quite rare.
        There was one instance reported a long time ago here on Woody when (32-bit system) a mail folder (possibly an Inbox) ran over the 4(or was it 2?)G ceiling. I don’t recall that the OP reported back on the recovery (file split) suggestions.

        I experienced it once, but I don’t recall what else I was doing at the time that could have initiated it. I may inadvertently have introduced a mis-synch between the mail file and its msf (didn’t delete msf after futzing with the mail file), and subsequent TB activity used now-incorrect msf mail index-pointer.

    • #2424079

      PaulK
      I compact my mail folders often, I am hoping this is a good idea do you think it is.
      I also backup frequently as the singe best precaution I can think of.

      🍻

      Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.
      • #2424126

        Yes; folder Compacting is the way to recover the space that is vacated when an email is deleted. It is conceptually similar to doing a Windows Defrag, although at a different level and operationally different.

        But if AlphaCharlie were to Compact his Inbox under the present situation he likely would lose everything more recent than the 2017 email that he mentions. Until the emails are properly syntactically separated we are in an results-are-unpredictable situation. As you recommended, capturing the present file as-is (aka backup) will provide a starting-status for whatever can be recovered.

        There is some more/related discussion in the thread that includes this post.

        1 user thanked author for this post.
        • #2424139

          My TB version for the Mac regularly, maybe once every two weeks, ask me to compress files, and I do. Of course, in the situation described by AlphaCharlie I wouldn’t do anything likely to make additional changes to my TB files until the problem is finally resolved.

          Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

          MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
          Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
          macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

    • #2424274

      Thank you everyone, I have had to attend to other complexities of life, but I hope to return to this TB problem tonight or tomorrow.  I will report back and share what is learned.

      A

       

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