Thunderbird is an email client that was from Mozilla, but now
they're supposedly having it developed by an independent, unnamed agency so they can concentrate more on
the Firefox browser. However, this article is about a problem that came up, one that
some other people have, and how I went about repairing the problem.
What happened initially? I don't know. One minute things were going along well, the next I couldn't download email, and when I popped into a different
inbox (Thunderbird allows you to create multiple inboxes for different email addresses; I presently have six), it would say it had to reload the
summary file, and that would take awhile. I was also suddenly getting error messages saying I should delete the inbox.msf file, which is
located in the profiles for Thunderbird.
The first thing I did was remove the program and reload it. The version I reloaded was 2.0.0.9. That didn't fix anything. However, what I did notice
it did, or at least appeared to do, was erase all my former inbox messages from two of my inboxes. That was quite disconcerting and problematic.
I then tried to do a system restore to a previous date, hoping it would reset my system and bring my messages back. That didn't work because, even in
the system restore instructions, it tells you that it won't restore files that you've saved, such as, if you were writing an article in Word and then saved
that article, the saved article would remain after you did the system restore. It also didn't fix the issue with the email program.
After spending some time trying this a few times, I remembered that sometimes profiles get corrupted, and decided to delete my profile and start again.
However, first I backed up all my files to my second drive. To find the profile files, you go to Documents and Settings, then to, hopefully, your name, but
if not probably the first folder under the Local Service folder, then click on Application Data, go down to Thunderbird, then Profiles, and finally click on
the folder that will have some odd configuration of letters and numbers; that's how Thunderbird creates its profiles. I copied all the files within that
profile to my second drive, so I could upload them again once I changed profiles.
I then created a new profile, then tested the program to see if it worked; it did. Then I moved all my profile information back, and it didn't work. That
was going to be problematic once again, since I obviously needed all my address books and past email, which I felt had to still be around in some fashion.
I finally did a search on Google and finally came to an article that mentioned how, with Thunderbird, if you use it often one of the things you must
remember to do is to compact the folders, which is a choice under File. I figured that was something good to try, so I compacted all the folders for all
the email addresses I had, and, finally, everything was working well again. It also brought back all my missing email, which elicited a big, happy sigh
from me. Probably, if I'd thought about compacting the folders in the first place, I could have saved myself a whole lot of problems and effort.
Sometimes, those of us who fix computers forget to try the simple things first. I hope this article gives some insight into trying to remember to probably
list all the things you believe could be the issue, then start with the easiest before you cause yourself a lot of grief.
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