Thunderbird refuses to remember settings!
Folks ---- 13 February 2021 ---
I have two rather mystifying problems ---
- Thunderbird REFUSES to remember settings for my email folders. Before I can even SEE what's there, I have to mouse-click on EACH ONE of my folders to "rebuild the index file" what-ever that means. THEN I can see what's there. Otherwise downloads simply refuse to show up. The downloaded messages are there, just not visible. It's a real nuisance to have to go through ALL og my folders, and click on each one to get it to show what's there! AND: T-Bird doesn't remember the sorting order I have for each folder. I want "most recent to least recent" on my sort, but it never "sticks" that way. The next day, it's back at the default "Oldest to newest."
- T-Bird "likes" to rename my folders. I will start with a folder named, say, "goodstuff" and find the next time [after starting up, say, a day later] that "goodstuff" has been renamed to an eight-digit hexadecimal number. When I try to rename the hex-number back to "goodstuff," T-0bird tells me that "goodstuff" is already in use, and refuses. What the <<@!#$%$&%^>> is going on here?
I'm a 75-year old gent with bad eyesight, and these problems aren't too easy to handle. What's happening? And how d I fix it.
Please reply to Chris Madsen at <<tmc@att.net>>, [AKA The Gray Cat]
Thankx!
Modified by Matt
All Replies (4)
Do you perchance has software that might be claiming to protect you privacy like ccleaner (it happily deletes Thunderbird settings files to achieve it's stated aims.
Similarly most issues like you describe with MSF files not updating correctly (no content displayed and settings not stored correctly) stem from anti virus programs scanning the profile folder of Thunderbird while it is in use and locking the files that need to be updated. We recommend that anti virus programs have exemptions for scanning of the Thunderbird profile folder.
You say goodstuff.... I say more likely to have a /?\!@#$%^&*()?{} in the folder name as "abstract" names are required when certain illegal filesystem or unsafe characters are in the folder name. A conversion between the abstract and what is to be displayed is stored in the MSF file. So again we come back to the MSF files and whatever is messing them up.
Matt ----
I have both AVIRA Antivirus, and the premium version of Malwarebytes running on this computer. Both programs have facilities to get them to "lay off" selected programs files.
Do you know which files in T-Bird i'd specify to these prgrams to keep them from acting so -- uh -- vigorous? I can't find the T-Bird profile folder. There doesn't seem to be anything with that name where I'm looking. I may be looking in the wrong place, but don't know my way around the T-Bird directories.
AND: Thankx for the help!!
Chris
open the troubleshooting information in Thunderbird's help menu Select the show button for the profile folder. It is by far the easiest way to determine where Thunderbird has this information stored given Windows hides the entire appdata folder and all of it's subfolders by default from the file manager and from search.
You might also want to reduce you anti virus program load to just one at a time. Problems often surface when there are more than one given it can take anti virus product 10 minutes per GB to scan files and you have two. Things could take a very long time to actually be released from scanning.
Whilst malwarebytes was a malware detection and removal tool in the past. I used to use it myself. Now it is an anti virus product in it's own right.
I run the latest version of TB on a Mac Mini 2018 with Mac OS 10.15.7 I have the same issue. I simply cannot get TB to save any settings. I modify my mail account and also activate the message total count in the folder view. When I close TB and open again, the server settings were not saved and also the message total count option disappears.
If I go into the user prefs .js file and change the server settings values there. Then when I open TB it recognizes the manual changes. I would just do it manually, but I do not know where (or if) the setting is for the message total count option. Nothing really stands out as the setting that controls this option.
EDIT: I finally got this to work. Looks like it was a corrupted user and/or prefs file.
I went to my profile folder (to locate easily in Thunderbird, from the top application menu: HELP --> Troubleshooting Information --> Profile Folder then click the Show in Finder button). Should be the one with .default extension. I had a prefs.js and a user.js file.
Make sure Thunderbird is closed. I inactivated the user.js file by renaming it to user.js.OLD. I did the same thing for the prefs.js file (prefs.js.OLD). I started Thunderbird again and the prefs.js file was created, as it should. I lost all my preferences, but that is OK. .js files are human-readable text files.
Close Thunderbird if you want to try this. If you are technical, or know a little about editing text files, as long as you are careful you can open up the original prefs.js.OLD file in a text or code editor, copy all the content from that original file, open the newly created prefs.js file in a text or code editor, delete all the content and paste in the data from your .OLD file. Save the prefs.js file. You should now be able to open Thunderbird, see your old settings and mail account(s), and also be able to save any changes to your preferences, interface, and accounts.
Modified by TRON_LIVES