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Workin' on the T'bird

November 29, 2006 ( geek )

I heart Thunderbird. I think it's a fantastic email client. But like all email clients, we abuse them and they break. With Thunderbird, it's a painful process to fix this. With Outlook, there is no painful process because you probably just lost all your emails. You back up regularly, right?

Note: my favorite all-time Email client was the old (1996-vintage) Eudora. I could activate my MP3 streaming from my home desktop to my work computer by sending myself an email. I also turned lights on and off by the same method. It was AWESOME. Sadly, it can't handle the crazy login methods I use nowadays, or RSS feeds, and the new versions that could got all sucky on me. I hear now Eudora's about to be re-written...using Thunderbird.

Anyhow. As for Thunderbird, you sometimes stumble into the Bad Parts. You might be eaten by a Grue. The Bad Parts are when you:

*Are moving a Tbird profile to a new computer

*Have trouble with your Tbird not starting

*Your Tbird emails are all "wonky" - displaying different titles, but always the same message?

I'm posting this here and in my wiki for future generations to amuse themselves with.

First, You need to find your Thunderbird profile, which is conveniently located in:

C:\Documents and Settings\[[USERNAME]]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\default\[[RANDOM STRING OF CHARACTERS]]\Mail\[[EMAIL ACCOUNT NAME]]

Note that the Application Data directory is hidden, so you have to go and turn on the "see hidden files" in Folder Options to get past there. You also have to be wearing the Hat of Pointiness and have reached level 5 in at least one class before passing through. Also note that all the other cool programs keep their data here. It'd be good practice except for having to type/find/use "Documents and Settings" instead of how Unices/Mac does it, with the more simple "home" directory. Anyhow. Don't blame Tbird for being so obtuse, blame Bill. Don't even get me started on where the Windows equivalent to the *nix /etc/hosts file is! (It's in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\ETC\hosts)

Back to our story. In this dark and abandoned place, you will find two types of inhabitants, FOLDER NAMES and their shadows, FOLDER NAMES.msf. First, use your one-shot Ring of Save Game and backup/zip/whatever the entire profile directory, then continue. If you're moving a Tbird profile to a new computer, you can move this entire profile directory over, but I seem to remember that blew up in my face and I ended up moving just the Mail folders over. Try it, let me know what works for you.

If you're having Tbird problems of not openingn/not showing you the right emails, keep reading.

Try deleting inbox.msf (While TBird is NOT running) (msf is the index of the email, Tbird will recreate it if missing) and re-opening thunderbird.

If that works, delete the other msf files. Otherwise, the best thing to do is to delete the entire profile directory (you made that backup, right???) uninstall Tbird entirely, reinstall the latest version, and set up your account again, then start dropping in the FOLDER NAME files (sans msf) while tbird is closed, and re-open it and see if that works.

Posted by griffjon at November 29, 2006 06:19 PM

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