"incoming server already exists" when trying to switch from POP to IMAP
OK this is complicated. Background is that I use Verizon email, which is now owned by AOL, and using AOL servers. I've used email on this account for *years* and have thousands of emails accumulated. I've always been a user of POP, but am trying to switch to IMAP now (that's a separate story).
I see these instructions for switching from POP to IMAP:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switch-pop-imap-account
Looks great. I tried it and it failed initially, because of password issue (part of the long story I won't go into unless necessary). Now I want to try again, but TB won't let me - it's giving me "incoming server already exists" error. This appears to be a bug in TB, where it "half creates" a server when the initial creation fails - the half-created server doesn't show up in the server list in TB however, so you can't correct it, and it doesn't allow you to create a new one because it conflicts with the half-created one!
I see a mention of deleting your whole profile in the Windows appdata folder:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1283682
But there's no way I want to do that - I have thousands of historical emails there, and don't want to lose them.
I see the server listed in the prefs.js file (text file) as one of the servers. I tried just deleting it there. That doesn't work however - it just gets re-created when I close and re-open TB. Apparently that prefs.js file isn't a source for profiles it's just a file where settings are saved off, and the actual server profiles are in some other file (maybe panacea.dat?).
Any help is appreciated.
All Replies (3)
Access 'Account Settings' you will get a message that says, "An account with this name already exists. Please enter a different account name."
The text cursor should be blinking in the account name, change it (add a 1 on the end) apply the change. Restart Thunderbird and now you should be able to recreate.
If you have an account in Account Actions, are you able to select it, click on 'Account Actions' and select 'REmove account' and then restart Thunderbird.
Modified by Toad-Hall
If those instructions are not helping....The 'Prefs.js' file cannot be edited if Thunderbird is running, the changes you make will not have any effect. So you must exit Thunderbird first.
You really would need to know what you are doing when editing the 'prefs.js' file. So, always create a copy of the 'prefs.js' file first, just in case you make a mistake.
There will be several preferences that relate to a server and email address. You would need to know which identity you are talking about, which server number and which smtp number. The following will help you work out which email address is set up to use all of those settings.
user_pref("mail.server.server1.name", 'email address') - tells you which server number eg: server1 is being used for the address. You can use this prefernce to check you have it correct. user_pref("mail.server.server1.userName", 'email address') - tells you which server number eg: server1
this means if the email address relates to server1, you would delete all references to server1 eg:user_pref("mail.server.server1.
user_pref("mail.identity.id1.useremail", email address) - tells you which identity number uses that email address eg: id1 this means you would delete all references to id1 eg:user_pref("mail.identity.id1.
Then check all the smtp references. user_pref("mail.smtpserver.smtp1.username", "email address"); - this tells you what smtp number is set up for that email address. So you need to delete all references for that eg: smtp1 eg: user_pref("mail.smtpserver.smtp1.
Then close up all the empty spaces you have created by deleting those lines. Save the file. Start Thunderbird.