Why won't my local drafts folder synchronise with my online mail server?
A little background. My employer has recently switched to Office 365 online, but I prefer to use my laptop. (I have my laptop available far more often than I have internet connectivity). I use a MacBook Pro, but I prefer to use Thunderbird over Mail. However, there is a bug in Thunderbird whereby error messages can be hidden behind a newer window and the program effectively freezes. It wants me to respond to the error message before it will move on, but it won't display the error message to action until I move on. (Tonight I'd displayed a drop-down menu which obscured the error message. I needed to clear the menu to see the error message, but I had to respond to the hidden error message before it would clear the menu!) As a result, I had to force quit Thunderbird. When I relaunched Thunderbird it displayed a spinning wheel in the Drafts folder, but none of the 5 drafts. I switched off and restarted the laptop and it did display one draft message of the 5. I sent that, the count reduced to 4, but none of them have displayed. I've logged into Office online and the drafts are there, but still not in my local folder after over an hour. Help!
Chosen solution
unfortunately if it is a bug, no one is going to fix it in a version that old.
Will tenfourbird work on your machine? http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/42722/tenfourbird
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I should mention I'm using Thunderbird 13.0.1 with OSX 10.9.3 and the connection is IMAP.
First use the latest Thunderbird that will run on your computer. There are security and stability released frequently and your unnecessarily exposing yourself to being hacked by using old versions. Note that security and stability releases are not version releases and do not affect add-ons. A version release occurs about once a year.
This information on how to drive OSX may help you to avoid force quitting http://www.techiecorner.com/230/how-to-switch-window-within-the-same-program-in-mac-os-x/
Regular force quitting can have very deleterious results on data as nothing is closed properly and nothing is written in the process. It may be the cause of your problem.
Now what are the error messages?
Dear Matt, Thanks for the link. That's what I do. I'm using the latest version of Thunderbird, which I checked before posting the question. In this case the error message was simply to do with the fact that a message I was trying to forward had been sent to me on an old work e-mail address (I've had 4 similar work e-mail addresses in the past year - don't ask). I simply needed to change the sending e-mail address to the latest one. The message would have been along the lines of "Unable to send message. Unable to connect to (mail server address). Retry/cancel." The messages are always something similar and simply to do with connection time-outs and the like. However, the error messages seem to count as a window which is not listed as a window! What I mean by this is I can cycle between all the open Thunderbird windows and not see the error message; not even when I display the e-mail to which the error relates. I have sometimes found the error message floating above the desktop when I've closed all other programs. On this occasion, the error message was displayed behind a drop down menu onto which I'd moved. The message froze the menu until I'd read and actioned the error, but the menu needed to be closed before I could read the message! The menu was locked open even when I displayed all windows. Incidentally, it's now been over 10 hours and the drafts aren't displaying in Thunderbird.
PS Thanks for your help!
The error you get, is it something like 'couldn't copy message to Sent folder'? In that case Thunderbird gives you a 'Retry/Cancel' prompt, which I believe is modal, i.e. you have to respond to it first before you can click at the error message again. Usually the message is copied successfully upon retry.
Wrt the Drafts folder, I'd recommend to use the local Drafts folder underneath 'Local Folders' instead of the Drafts folder on the server. That should avoid any error when trying to save a message as draft on the server, particularly if your internet connection is unreliable or it takes a long time for the server to respond.
Edit (Alt-E) - Account Settings - Copies & Folders - Drafts and Templates Adjust the setting for 'Drafts folder on' to 'Local Folders' if that isn't already the case.
Modified by christ1
Woohoo! The messages are finally showing in drafts, though it hasn't finished synchronising yet. However, I'd be glad to hear your thoughts on the hiding error messages, as they're one of the few drawbacks I've found in Thunderbird. Thanks!
Chosen Solution
unfortunately if it is a bug, no one is going to fix it in a version that old.
Will tenfourbird work on your machine? http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/42722/tenfourbird
Hi, Christ1. I've had that message, too. I had to force quit Thunderbird, because I had a modal message which was hidden under, in this case, a drop down menu (which the modal message had frozen until I responded to it!). I lost the messages in drafts, even those which I'd saved 12 hours before. For the past 12 hours my laptop drafts folder has been trying to retrieve the drafts from the online folder. At least they weren't lost completely, but I've made the change you suggested. I simply wasn't aware that there was a difference between the local folder and the folder on my laptop which is linked to the server! Thanks.
Hi, Matt. I had been thinking that I was running a very old version of Thunderbird, but the updater reports I'm using the latest version. I downloaded tenfourbird, but I can't run it as "PowerPC applications are no longer supported". Thanks.
What am I thinking..... your on 10.9 you need to just download the current version and install it. http://getthunderbird.com
Regardless of what the updater says, the current version is 24 and you have an old version.
Hi, Matt. From your previous comments I'd realised I was way behind. I downloaded the latest version yesterday. Thanks!