Thunderbird got crazy and started to delete messages live without control
I was reading email, archiving some and deleting others. After deleting a message, it started deleting all messages in the folder as if I were pressing "Supr" continuously. To stop that, I clicked on a folder. It showed the display "Are you sure you want to delete folder xxxx?" After clicking no, I went back to where I was reading and it continued deleting. So I closed Thunderbird. Opened a terminal window to test if keyboard was stuck but but there was no sign of a key being struck.
After reopening Thunderbird, there is no trace of the deleted messages. Those I manually deleted are in the Trash folder but those deleted without control are not. This makes me think it is not a problem with my keyboard or OS but something related with a bug at Thunderbird. Does this seem right or am I missing something?
I am using Thunderbird 91.9.1 (64-bit) on a clean new Ubuntu 22.04 install. All updates are applied up to date. I have not found any bug related to this and I do not know what to do. I am very wary about continuing to use Thunderbird.
Ausgewählte Lösung
In Thunderbird, the 'Shift' + 'Del' keys (used symultaneously) is the delete bypassing Trash shortcut command which has no-undo. It has been like that since time began....
The keyboard sends info to computer. Computer interprets what message it got from keyboard and applies it to the program that has focus. Program says if Shit+Del then Delete bypassing Trash.
Have you got the 'Supr' key set up/mapped to act like a super 'Shift'+'Del' key combo ? I would check that out because if it was a problem with the code in Thunderbird, everyone would be screaming with the problem as it is a specific event being triggered. I've been helping on forum for over a decade and cases like this are always user triggered. In your case it could be mapping of that 'Supr' key.
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The problem is repeating with the keyboard 'Supr' ('Del') key. Anyway, from the perspective of Thunderbird, I do not understand why the messages have not been moved to Trash.
Ausgewählte Lösung
In Thunderbird, the 'Shift' + 'Del' keys (used symultaneously) is the delete bypassing Trash shortcut command which has no-undo. It has been like that since time began....
The keyboard sends info to computer. Computer interprets what message it got from keyboard and applies it to the program that has focus. Program says if Shit+Del then Delete bypassing Trash.
Have you got the 'Supr' key set up/mapped to act like a super 'Shift'+'Del' key combo ? I would check that out because if it was a problem with the code in Thunderbird, everyone would be screaming with the problem as it is a specific event being triggered. I've been helping on forum for over a decade and cases like this are always user triggered. In your case it could be mapping of that 'Supr' key.
Toad-Hall said
In Thunderbird, the 'Shift' + 'Del' keys (used symultaneously) is the delete bypassing Trash shortcut command which has no-undo. It has been like that since time began.... The keyboard sends info to computer. Computer interprets what message it got from keyboard and applies it to the program that has focus. Program says if Shit+Del then Delete bypassing Trash. Have you got the 'Supr' key set up/mapped to act like a super 'Shift'+'Del' key combo ? I would check that out because if it was a problem with the code in Thunderbird, everyone would be screaming with the problem as it is a specific event being triggered. I've been helping on forum for over a decade and cases like this are always user triggered. In your case it could be mapping of that 'Supr' key.
Thanks. That would explain everything if it wasn't for the option mail.warn_on_shift_delete being set to true.
The keyboard seems to be misbehaving (I am sending it to repair) and it is likely that Supr key wasn't the only keyboard code being virtually pressed without control. However no dialog appeared when it was deleting emails. And, no, dialogs weren't bypassed because a dialog appeared when I moved to a folder.
As I still have the laptop I can still reproduce the problem. When I reproduce the problem now the messages go to trash as usual. Maybe the problem came from me closing Thunderbird quickly to stop the massive delete. By the way, I have managed to recover the emails from the message cache of another laptop by disconnecting network before opening Thunderbird.
Thank you for your comment.