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After migration, Thunderbird is, apparently randomly, failing to copy messages to the Sent folder, failing to save drafts, etc.

  • 3 replies
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  • Last reply by convey87347

convey87347
convey87347
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I recently migrated Thunderbird to a new computer. Before saving and moving my Profile file, I deleted 90-plus percent of my messages (more than 30,000) to reduce the size of the file. I was very careful to empty the trash as I went. The file was 3.5GB before I started but it wound up a bit larger than that! Now TB is acting up, not copying sent messages to the Sent folder, not saving drafts, etc. on a seemingly random basis. How can I fix this?

I recently migrated Thunderbird to a new computer. Before saving and moving my Profile file, I deleted 90-plus percent of my messages (more than 30,000) to reduce the size of the file. I was very careful to empty the trash as I went. The file was 3.5GB before I started but it wound up a bit larger than that! Now TB is acting up, not copying sent messages to the Sent folder, not saving drafts, etc. on a seemingly random basis. How can I fix this?

All Replies (3)

Matt
Matt
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Did you compact the folders to allow the freed space to actually become free? My guess is not. Folks have a habit of saying no to that even when the program begs them to compact.

I suggest you try it on your new location. You might also want to place a exception in your anti virus product to prevent it from scanning files on access. most issues with updating files in Thunderbird on windows particularly stem from the files being locked by the anti virus when Thunderbird is trying to use them. It is called contention and really normally only occurs on busy business servers (and with anti virus and streaming backups which should be waiting to see if the updated file is accessed again 5 seconds later.)

convey87347
convey87347 Question owner
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Thanks, I'll try that and let you know.

convey87347
convey87347 Question owner
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I'm no longer getting the popups requesting that I compress folders, but I still have the other issues: not copying to the sent folder, etc. - but sporadically, not always. I frequently get messages that say, "Login to server imap.earthlilnk...failed" or "connection to...has timed out." Then I have to enter my TB password, sometimes more than once, to be able to send/receive emails again. Judging from other posts online, this seems to be a common TB issue, regardless of isp. Is there a fix?