Thunderbird will not send mail (no error messages)
Hi
I have a dual boot system Xubuntu and Win10. I only installed Win10 as I needed to use ZOOM for playing music - the linux client does not offer the same features as the Win client (as usual). Had been getting along nicely, dual booting . Win10 has just required an update - and it destroyed the booting - couldn't access Xubuntu from GRUB - gave me a Kernel Panic after saying "Invalid ELF Header". Tried to use the LiveCD, downloaded Boot-repair but it wouldn't run as it said needed access to a repository. I downloaded and burned Boot-Repair-Disk and booted from that - no change when I tried to boot from the Grub.
While in LiveCD I attached a USN HDD and copied my home directory to it, bit the bullet and reinstalled Xubuntu 20.04 LTS plus updates etc.
I could boot into the new installation - hurrah. However, something screwy with permissions on my home folder - all as root. So I used sudo chown -R david:david /home/david/ to claim ownership and all seemed well.
Opened Thunderbird for the first time and all my accounts and existing emails (POP) were there. I can download new emails for all accounts, no errors.
However, My address book had disappeared - nothing in it even though the abook.mab was copied across. I believe I need to convert the .mab and reimport it? Any linux tools to do this?
I can also not send emails from any account. It gives no error, just does nothing when I click the Send button.
When I type in a valid email address in the To field and press enter - nothing happens. Doesn't recognise it (obviously no lookup to an address book) but just stays red and have to manually click in the next field - won't tab away from the To field.
Weird and frustrating.
I have just copied the .thunderbird folder to a USB again, deleted the old folder. Using Synaptic Package Manager I completely removed Thunderbird, then reinstalled. Again did CHOWN on my home folder. Still no address book in Thunderbird and cannot send emails.
Also tried replying to a received email. The address is something like First Last <firstlast@gmail.com> This appears in red and the Send button is greyed out. I have to remove everything but the contents between < and > to get the Send button to be enabled - but then nothing happens when I press it.
As I say receiving mail is no problem. I have checked the SMTP server settings and all seems fine - same settings as on my phone which works no problem. I deleted the smtp server setting on one of my accounts, plus removed the saved account password, recreated and linked the smtp server to the account. It asked for the password when checking for mail. Still no change when trying to send.
Have also noticed that the mail text is always displayed bold.
Urgent assistance please!
Chosen solution
Hi
I have already solved this - just late in marking it as such! Thanks for taking time to respond.
I had both .mab, .mab.bak and .sqlite files in my profile. Obviously when TB upgraded in the past it didn't clear up after itself very well.
I moved everything relating to address book into a SAVED folder, restarted TB and it had created new .sqlite files. I could now send email.
I replaced the new .sqlite files with my backup files, making sure of ownership permissions, and old problem reappeared.
I downloaded a slqite database browser and could open the old data - so no corruption.
I used an export option in my .slite db browser to dump the data to a .sql file. Then used the import function in TB address book to import.
All is now good!
Thanks
Read this answer in context 👍 0All Replies (2)
Prior to the Windows OS update, when all was well in the world, what version of Thunderbird were you using ? Version 68* used the MAB files eg: abook.mab = Personal Address Book.
After reinstall of Xubuntu 20.04 LTS plus updates etc. Did you get a fresh download of Thunderbird, if yes, what version did you download and what version are you using now?
Updating to version 78 would have converted all the MAB files into sqlite files. So, all the MAB files would now be called eg: abook.mab.bak All the MAB files would be converted to eg: abook.sqlite and they would then be used.
In profile name folder do you see only eg: abook.mab ? Or do you see both 'abook.mab.bak' and 'abook.sqlite' ?
Chosen Solution
Hi
I have already solved this - just late in marking it as such! Thanks for taking time to respond.
I had both .mab, .mab.bak and .sqlite files in my profile. Obviously when TB upgraded in the past it didn't clear up after itself very well.
I moved everything relating to address book into a SAVED folder, restarted TB and it had created new .sqlite files. I could now send email.
I replaced the new .sqlite files with my backup files, making sure of ownership permissions, and old problem reappeared.
I downloaded a slqite database browser and could open the old data - so no corruption.
I used an export option in my .slite db browser to dump the data to a .sql file. Then used the import function in TB address book to import.
All is now good!
Thanks