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My inbox stopped previewing messages. I repaired the inbox, now the headings are not showing. How do I recover the inbox messages?

  • 6 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by Toad-Hall

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This morning TB opened correctly, and after a few minutes of working with it my inbox message previews stopped showing up. Preview in other folders are working. I tried to repair the folder, and all of the message headers disappeared as well. I am receiving new messages, and I am able to see those previews. I closed TB, deleted the inbox.msf file, and restarted, but the situation remained the same. I can open the inbox (no extension) file in notepad and see all of the messages. How do I get them to show up in the inbox again?

This morning TB opened correctly, and after a few minutes of working with it my inbox message previews stopped showing up. Preview in other folders are working. I tried to repair the folder, and all of the message headers disappeared as well. I am receiving new messages, and I am able to see those previews. I closed TB, deleted the inbox.msf file, and restarted, but the situation remained the same. I can open the inbox (no extension) file in notepad and see all of the messages. How do I get them to show up in the inbox again?

All Replies (6)

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I am still experiencing the problem of missing inbox emails. I am getting new emails, but the emails that were in my inbox previous to yesterday are missing. I see them in the profile file when I open it in notepad, but they are not visible in TB.

I attached a screen image to help provide more info. I'm curious why the folder properties window shows '0' messages, but is 3.7MB. There were several emails with attachments that are boosting the size.

Modified by juniorgilman

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From the Menu Bar select View-Threads-All

No Menu Bar? Press the alt key.

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All was already the selected option. I selected it again, with no change.

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The image you supplied - looking on the right side there is an email showing.

I notice that the X-Mozilla-Status says 0009

This means this a read and marked as deleted email.

Do not do any compacting else you may lose everything. suggest you make a copy of the Inbox file and save it to eg: desktop as a temp backup.

  • access the Profile folder.
  • Close Thunderbird - this is important.
  • make a copy of Inbox - save to desktop - this is just a backup and you do not need this if everything goes ok.
  • Open the Inbox file (the one in the Profile mail account - not the backup) using Notepad.
  • Edit > Find
  • under Find What: type X-Mozilla-Status:

for each time you find the line that says either of these:

  • X-Mozilla-Status: = 0008
  • X-Mozilla-Status: = 0009

change the 0008 or 0009 to 0000, so X-Mozilla-Status: 0000

When you have finished, save the file and close file.

then open Thunderbird.

Modified by Toad-Hall

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This didn't work. This is not the first issue I have had with TB. I'm going back to google.

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If you have changed the x=Mozilla-status in all emails in file. Then either Right click on folder and select Properties and click on 'Repair folder', click on OK Restart Thunderbird.