Avoid using special characters like underscores in folder names.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1013567

Hi, Thank you for trying to solve TB’s problem.As you can see in the screenshot it did not help. In fact I use all of the visible part of the ASCII-set to create order in my maps or folders. The screenshot shows that when I start using a progam that re-quires order with creating a folder to remember the sort-order. I can recommend it. To solve my TB-problem I first took a look at www. Many refer to filters being ac-tive. None of all filters are active. Then I entered the Troubleshoot Mode, to ex-clude influence of my add-ons.(export + undouble). No effect. Then I re-installed Thunderbird after using REVO-uninstaller Pro extremely. In the mean time it is clear that the contents of my folder _ACTION is really lost. I tried to put some mails into the empty folders and THEY SHOW UP. Now I try to use export add-on to extract _ACTION a Back-Up (BU). Unfortunately Export does no longer support to extract only 1 folder. It’s all or nothing. Or I’m looking at another bug in my Install. So I still appreciate help. regards, Picardo [removed email from public]

Help/More Troubleshooting, Profile Folder, Open Folder, close TB, open the Mail/Local Folders location. There you will see mail folders in the form of mbox files - large files with no extension, named after folders - as well as .msf files, e.g. Folder and Folder.msf. Try renaming an mbox with special characters and omit the characters, and delete the .msf file. Restart TB and see if the renamed folder appears correctly under Local Folders in the Folder Pane.

Thank you for addressing my TB problem. From your procedure description I recognise that you try to force TB to reassemble the msf-file. I am familiar with that. Unfortunately that does not solve my problem. The problem is demonstrated with 2 screeenshots made from TotalCMD screens. The _ACTION folder is renamed AT-FIRST. When I select all files starting with A you see 3 entries with ATFIRST. The file with no extension contains 1 email that is still viable and readable. AT-FIRST.msf = the MailSummeryFile of the mail contained in the maindirectory AT-FIRST. That’s only 1 mail with which is no problem. Then there is the directory AT-FIRST.sbd that contains the SuBDirectory of ATFIRST. The contents is shown on the Right.And there you see the problem: Except 1 all boxes are 0b. The mail vanished.

It is reported more often at www. that mail disappears from TB. In some cases it’s a active folter. Here it happened in 2 steps. 1) the subfolders greyed and lost their unread (#). Finish and rerunning TB brought the numbers back in black. After show-ing the problem several times I recognised that the mail had completely disap-peared.

It would be interesting to know what causes this problem for the programmers of the responsible part. I will support any attempt. But my importance is to get nearly all mail lost back from a BU, that is to old to replace the whole profiles. Unfortunately the import/Export Add-on does not offer the possibility any more to extract 1 folder (_ACTION) with sub-folders and import it in my current profiles. I did such before. So, WHAT HAPPENED TO IMPORT / EXPORT??? Please tell me Regards, [removed email from public as nobody here does support by email]

From your picture, the only mbox file of non-zero size is WinPr-act, 106.9 kB. If you can't get the ImportExportTools NG add-on to work, just copy the mbox file to Mail/Local Folders in a new profile that doesn't have any folders with special characters in the name. Create a new profile from Help/More Troubleshooting, about:profiles, and add an account. The mbox files from any other profile can be copied to Mail/Local Folders, as long as they are renamed without special characters.

I cannot say why some folders have zero size.

Thank you for new suggestions. Unfortunately they don’t fix the problem, but they inspire me with further investigating. My first computerjob in 1973 with DEC was between BU-tapes. And I kept making them. I compared a BU of Local Folders (LF) of dec.4 with dec.12. As you can see there’s no difference in the mbox-files but the MSF’S DO DIFFER. That should be impossible. The next day the MBOX files were emty. This is the point were Mozilla specialists should join.

Of course it is possible to restore the files of the dec.4 BU to the current profiles at file level to overcome the failure IMPORT/EXPORT but that would not give me an answer to the question “why does TB lose mail from several people on www.”

3 Remarks: 1. I have used char’s like _-+=~`^!@#$%&; at least 15 years in the names of in TB profile folders. They make TB sort my folders in order of my impor-tance. I only use ASCII-char’s between decimal 33 and 122. So no <alt><#> con-structed additional chars.Leave out Char’s with system-meaning. No reason to be-lieve that they harm the system. 2. I still don’t understand why Import/Export Add-on stopped working on selected folders. 3. Tonight I will make a full BU of my system SSD. And then I will able to do the restore. The result will be reported. I’m still interested in you response Regards, Picardo gertjan.ben@kpnmail.nl

The conlusion of Yesterdays report. The restore went well, but unfortunately the result is invissable. The screenshots show that I clonen my systemdisk to a 1TB SSD. (All following file-manipulations are done in SAFE MODE of WINDOWS and TB nor running. Screenshots of running TB are made in off-line mode.) Then restored the folders and (mbox) files from a BU of dec. 4 to the Local Folders map. Bij the sizes shown You can tell that all diappeared mail was restored. When I opend the folder all seemed empty. I tried to repair by deleting all .smf filesand have TB to rebuild them. The result is useless.

So the open questions are still: 1. What causes TB to loose mail. 2. why does Import/Export no longer work on selected Folders. 3=new How can I make visable tha male I restored. I’m still interested in your response Regards, Picardo gertjan.ben@kpnmail.nl

Have you tried the simple expedient of checking the view settings for the folder?

Select the folder, Select view menu > message > all.