Migration aggravation on Spectrum, POP to IMAP
Thunderbird 85.0b3 (64-bit) on Windows 7 (64 bit), fully up to date.
Hi all. I have a well-aged Thunderbird profile (20+ years) that I need to now migrate from a POP configuration to an IMAP. I've been whacking away at this for a couple days now and just want my email back. Actually I do have my email as I've made MozBackups pretty regularly including just before I entered this nightmare. I just want to be able to send and receive email again.
I've seen the page here for this kind of migration but it apparently assumes you have a couple emails to migrate, not a couple hundred...folders. A profile this large also presents the issue of IMAP synchronization which I'm not interested in, but which is apparently the default when you first start it up. I don't need more than a week of mail stored on a server. Actually I don't need any stored there, I never use webmail. I just want the email to be received on the server and passed to me for my sorting. Maybe if I'm out of town for a time it'd be nice to be able to webmail for the latest mail. I assume I can probably migrate my address book, but it seems clear all the filters I've created will not. That's fine, I don't mind redoing those.
That's the background, here's what I've done: 1.) Found out when TBird probes Spectrum for the correct config it retrieves those for mobile.charter.net so that means a manual config for me. Also found out Spectrum won't accept an SSL SMTP connection (the port # is correct), going by their instructions. Downloading will accept SSL though. 2.) Once my IMAP profile was created and tested, I shut down TBird. Extracted my POP profile from MozBackup's archive with 7Zip to a temporary directory and copied all the folders and files into the new IMAP directory (all that represented email folders, not config-type files). 3.) Started up TBird and the sync fun began. I'm an 24 year IT guy but never delved into email issues too much so it took me a bit to find how to shut that down and grok what IMAP was all about.
Other: For some reason I don't show "Local Folders" in the application, but I do see them in my profile directory, but under the Mail folder, not the ImapMail folder where my Inbox, Sent, etc folders are. That would be a better place for all these older folders I keep around, I know. But alas, I can't get them to show up in TBird.
I thought I had it briefly but every time I opened TBird it prompted me to do a purge that would save 6 GB of space, which I canceled. Then suddenly it started just deleting folders without a prompt after 2 or 3 restarts.
I'm ready to totally uninstall and fresh reinstall TBird at this point. My original (bloated, I know) profile is backed up but again, it's a POP profile being imposed on a new IMAP (with no desire to store anything remotely).
Thanks if you got this far. Any advice?
Chosen solution
To add to what toad said, you have also moved the local folders storage to another location. But you have, I would guess, located your local folders.
Technically the limit of local folders is the available disk space... but you should have twice the size of the largest folder free so that compaction does not get low on disk space. Large folders can slow things down, so keeping individual folders less than around 4Gb is playing it very safe.
ChuckD6421 said
(I'd appreciate an explanation as to why a post I took some time and effort to type out last night did not get posted. I did it so that this process is documented in case someone else comes along who could benefit from my experience)
Your post will have fallen into the overly sensitive spam filter so someone had to vet it to make sure it was not. Welcome to Mozilla where preventing spam is far more important than facilitating communication.
Is there somewhere to submit a bug report on the autoconfig issue regarding my legacy ISP settings I discovered? A gold star or other reward would be nice also, but I know that's pushing it. ; )
I am not sure I even understand this.
SPectrum say
Incoming Email Server: mobile.charter.net Outgoing Email Server: mobile.charter.net
Brighthouse.com, bak.rr.com, bham.rr.com, cfl.rr.com, emore.rr.com, eufala.rr.com, indy.rr.com, mi.rr.com, panhandle.rr.com, tampabay.rr.com
Incoming Email Server: mail.brighthouse.com Outgoing Email Server: mail.brighthouse.com
TWC.com and any domain ending in .rr.com not covered above
Incoming Email Server: mail.twc.com Outgoing Email Server: mail.twc.com
Given that dogs breakfast, I really do not think there is much that can be done as the database uses the rr.com part to determined the files of setting to use.
rr.com https://autoconfig.thunderbird.net/v1.1/rr.com
However I do not see spectrum or TWC domains listed at all. The original bug to add RR.com is here https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=567688
Toadd a bug, you will probably want to place it in Product: Webtools ▾ Component: ISPDB Server ▾
Take care to explain your issue and what you think needs to be done to fix it. How should the product determine with @rr.com email address belongs with with set of server settings?
Read this answer in context 👍 1All Replies (9)
Lets start at the beginning.
Is you account supposed to use the spectrum servers? If it is an @charter account is should use.
Incoming Email Server: mobile.charter.net Outgoing Email Server: mobile.charter.net
Per the spectrum web site. https://www.spectrum.net/support/internet/spectrum-email-server-settings/
As the above is what Thunderbird is suggesting, I have to wonder if perhaps that is actually correct and a manual config is not required and your manual config is the root cause of your encryption errors.
There is no migration from POP to IMAP. You can change the name of your existing account and simply add it again to have an IMAP version of the account.
Before you remove your pop account move all the folders to "local Folders" if they are not already there. Removing the account removes the account folder, so all existing mail folder under it simply disappear.
Spectrum is a special beast because their mail server is not standards compliant, but I think the quirks of that have been addressed with patches to Thunderbird as spectrum simply are unresponsive to being told they are not offering a real IMAP experience.
IMAP is synchronized with the server.... ALL of your mail for the account must be stored on the server and synchronized to Thunderbird. It is that simple. If you do not want you mail on the server use POP not IMAP.
I would check in your account settings to see what the name of local folders is set to... I have observed over the years that a lot of charter.net email users have renamed local folders with their email address. SO in essence their account appears twice in the account settings, one that the primary mail account and a second time as the renames local folders. My assumption was there was some sort of ISP instruction page a decade or so ago that suggested doing so.
TWC email has only ever been able to be sent if you used their service to connect to the internet, so it is useless while on holidays or using hot-spots.
Now your "purge" is I assume is a request to compact (There is not such thing as a purge, but a dialog does mention purging from disk just to be confusing) and the amount will keep getting bigger and bigger as your incomplete synchronizations will be marked as invalid next time you connect and be deleted. Each aborted sync will probably increase the amount significantly. It is extremely important that you allow compacting. That is why the program keeps asking you.
So I think you need to ask yourself why you are switching to IMAP at all as everything about it is what you do not want per your statemnt in the original question.
Matt, I do thank you for taking the time to respond. I know it was a bit convoluted but I wouldn't be here if it wasn't totally confusing me. I apparently have no choice but to go to IMAP. I found this out when all our email started failing to connect and I called in. POP was gone and I guess I missed the memo. At least we've got SSL to download through finally and not plaintext. My TWC email is ***@nycap.rr.com and according to the page they published to assist (confirmed by their online chat support and as you posted), I have the servername correct and it's Thunderbird that's mistaken. At the bottom they make the distinctions and I fall under the third one, so mail.twc.com it is. FWIW, I'm on the 74.76.0.0 net domain. WHOIS has the comment: "Legacy Time Warner Cable IP Assets".
I agree with the Local Folders idea. As I mentioned above, I figured out I was locked into dealing with the sync thing and the best place for all my folders was there but alas, no Local Folders. I think this one issue could solve this whole thing but I don't know why they're not showing on the side panel. Inside my default profile folder on my disk there is a \Mail folder and a newer \ImapMail. \Mail still holds my original POP profile and there's a "Local Folders" folder but it doesn't appear in TBird. One thread I followed on this issue suggested creating a dummy feed account and it appeared for them but that didn't pan out for me.
I'll hold right there to see if there's a solution for that. I'll also add that if a fresh reinstall of TBird is called for I'm backed up adequately (and tested) to be able to do that. Thanks again.
re :MozBackup
I would not advise you use that program as it has not been maintained since may 2012 and the author does mention: MozBackup is not being developed anymore. There are known issues and there is no time on my side to fix all issues and develop new features. Use MozBackup only on your risk. Thanks for understanding.
I submitted a reply last night that was immediately labeled as awaiting moderation and I still don't see it. Is that normal?
as I said before... check that you have not renamed "local folders" to whatever@RR.com or such. This has been common with older profiles from the group of companies so I am guessing it was on one of their web sites at some point.
If you have not renamed the local forders account open the profile folder with Thunderbird closed and rename foldertree.json to something else and restart Thunderbird. That file is a cache of the folder pane, so if being missing will force a re read of the disk structure..
(I'd appreciate an explanation as to why a post I took some time and effort to type out last night did not get posted. I did it so that this process is documented in case someone else comes along who could benefit from my experience)
So it's possible that I created a holding area for an old ISP I was a member of years ago from the Local Folders account. I have an account showing named "Optonline" which, in addition to holding all my email from that time, when displayed in Account Settings, only shows Junk Settings and Disk Space. The path to that is on another hard drive in an archive area. Does that sound like the elusive Local Folders? Because I can see no mention of Local Folders in any other Account Settings page. If that's true (my memory's not clear, but it's certainly possible I did this), I can move forward.
2 other follow-up questions and then I think this can be closed: Is there a limit to how large the Local Folders can get? I expect what I'll do is store all the folders currently in use, that I don't need on the IMAP server, there and point my filters there as well. I expect this could grow to 6-7 GB.
Is there somewhere to submit a bug report on the autoconfig issue regarding my legacy ISP settings I discovered? A gold star or other reward would be nice also, but I know that's pushing it. ; )
Thanks again, Matt. Long live Thunderbird.
re :an account showing named "Optonline" which, in addition to holding all my email from that time, when displayed in Account Settings, only shows Junk Settings and Disk Space.
Yes. Below is a image showing 'Local Folders' account which says at the top 'The following is a special account. There are no identities associated with it.' It sounds like you changed that Account Name from 'Local Folders' to 'Optonline'.
Chosen Solution
To add to what toad said, you have also moved the local folders storage to another location. But you have, I would guess, located your local folders.
Technically the limit of local folders is the available disk space... but you should have twice the size of the largest folder free so that compaction does not get low on disk space. Large folders can slow things down, so keeping individual folders less than around 4Gb is playing it very safe.
ChuckD6421 said
(I'd appreciate an explanation as to why a post I took some time and effort to type out last night did not get posted. I did it so that this process is documented in case someone else comes along who could benefit from my experience)
Your post will have fallen into the overly sensitive spam filter so someone had to vet it to make sure it was not. Welcome to Mozilla where preventing spam is far more important than facilitating communication.
Is there somewhere to submit a bug report on the autoconfig issue regarding my legacy ISP settings I discovered? A gold star or other reward would be nice also, but I know that's pushing it. ; )
I am not sure I even understand this.
SPectrum say
Incoming Email Server: mobile.charter.net Outgoing Email Server: mobile.charter.net
Brighthouse.com, bak.rr.com, bham.rr.com, cfl.rr.com, emore.rr.com, eufala.rr.com, indy.rr.com, mi.rr.com, panhandle.rr.com, tampabay.rr.com
Incoming Email Server: mail.brighthouse.com Outgoing Email Server: mail.brighthouse.com
TWC.com and any domain ending in .rr.com not covered above
Incoming Email Server: mail.twc.com Outgoing Email Server: mail.twc.com
Given that dogs breakfast, I really do not think there is much that can be done as the database uses the rr.com part to determined the files of setting to use.
rr.com https://autoconfig.thunderbird.net/v1.1/rr.com
However I do not see spectrum or TWC domains listed at all. The original bug to add RR.com is here https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=567688
Toadd a bug, you will probably want to place it in Product: Webtools ▾ Component: ISPDB Server ▾
Take care to explain your issue and what you think needs to be done to fix it. How should the product determine with @rr.com email address belongs with with set of server settings?
Sorry, this reply fell into my dog's breakfast of email relics and I didn't see it till now. Thanks for pulling back the curtain a bit via the bug report, and I choose not to participate. That's a mess indeed. Where we live we're damn lucky to have electricity, not to mention cable internet, so I choose my battles carefully. For now we tolerate our "drunk uncle", CharterSpectrumTWCBrightcovePrincetowncable (the original ISP in these parts) internet service until FIOS gets it's act together. Fiber was laid 2 years ago and carry TV and voice, but no internet. Anyway, thanks again for clarifying my issue and assisting. I will see that Mozilla is tipped.